In the Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston, the Student Conservation Association's Massachusetts Historic Preservation Corps has been at work since 2020 on the windows of Building 22 — home of the USS Constitution Museum. The plan is to repair every one rather than replace them: repair keeps the building's historic material and makes less waste.
The building
The Navy Yard's dry dock in use, with Building 22 on the left. Boston National Historical Park, BOSTS-S772-2
Building 22 was built in 1832 to a design by architect and engineer Alexander Parris, who designed several other Navy Yard buildings. It was the pumphouse for the yard's first dry dock, and also its machine shop and blockmaker's shop. In 1976, after the Navy Yard closed, it became the USS Constitution Museum.
Why repair
Wooden windows wear out: paint fails, and damaged or rotting wood has to be replaced, both to stop further decay and to keep water out of the walls around them. New vinyl windows are an option, but preservationists prefer to repair the original wooden frames — keeping as much of the building's original fabric as possible, and avoiding swapping natural material for plastic.
Decades of weather had left most of Building 22's windows with heavily chipped paint, rotting wood and cracked glass. More than 20 have now been restored, 9 of them by the 2024 crew.
How a window comes back
| Step | What the crew does |
|---|---|
| 1. Remove it safely | The old paint contains lead, so the crew lays plastic sheeting around each window and follows careful cleanup rules so no chips escape |
| 2. Assess it | At the workshop, each window is logged and checked for the repairs and new parts it needs |
| 3. Strip it | Paint comes off with scrapers and heat guns, the crew in respirators and safety goggles, working over a downdraft table that sucks up chips and dust; the glass comes out |
| 4. Repair the wood | Small holes get wood filler. Rotten sections get a dutchman repair: the damaged wood is cut away and replaced with a new piece cut to match the original frame |
| 5. Reglaze | New glass is cut and held in with metal fasteners and glaze, a clay-like putty that hardens over time, smoothed with putty knives |
| 6. Paint and reinstall | Once the glaze dries: one coat of primer, two topcoats, and back to the building |
The work continues until every window in Building 22 has been restored.
Sources
Based on "Building 22 Windows Restoration," contributed by Greg Bsales, SCA Historic Preservation Corps crew member, Boston National Historical Park, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The building's history is from Stephen P. Carlson, Charlestown Navy Yard Historic Resource Study, volume 1 (National Park Service, 2010). The original's photographs by the Student Conservation Association are left out; rewritten in hubnx's own words.
In these publicationsBoston National Historical Park
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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