The Gargoyle Snatchers

Junkyard bargains, from limestone putti to dented iron deer, have long been available for those with offbeat tastes. But as architectural monuments are bulldozed into extinction across the land, a new group of collectors is springing up -- architectural buffs who first picket to preserve the best of the old, then, if the wreckers move in, haunt the ruins in hopes of rescuing a cornice, a caryatid, a cartouche, an ornamented corbel, or some Tiffany glass.

Protesting the Ball. In Chicago, hunks of Louis Sullivan elevator grilles salvaged from the Stock Exchange now partition a photographer's bedroom, architects' offices and starkly modern apartments. Recently a pair of respectable Chicago amateurs tried to save the glass windows from a partially demolished Frank Lloyd Wright house, and were arrested. "Frank Lloyd who?" snorted the cop.

In Boston, the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities has rummaged through the crumbling brick of a house by Early American Architect Charles Bulfinch to retrieve choice examples of historic woodwork. A well-known Boston psychiatrist cases demolition sites on Sundays, is now the proud possessor of seven copper finials designed by architects ranging from H. H. Richardson to Anonymous.

But nowhere has gargoyle snatching reached such staggering proportions as in Manhattan. There a dogged band of New Yorkers, who call themselves the Anonymous Arts Recovery Society, has managed to cart off for posterity more than 100 tons of chips off notable old blocks. Led by its founder, Ivan Karp, a 38-year-old pop art dealer, the society's hundred dues-paying sympathizers rally wherever the wrecker's ball threatens. Favorite salvage is the architectural ornamentation carved by unknown immigrant European stonemasons who embellished New York's great turn-of-the-century construction boom. On occasion, however, it is the handiwork of a not-so-anonymous Stanford White or Louis Sullivan.

Pondering Pilasters. To get away with their bulky booty, Karp and his crew have suffered four hernias, wrecked three cars, and paid thousands of dollars to demolition men. "We've got to negotiate with them," says Karp. "They're a rather cynical race, and the whole building would be destroyed if we didn't bargain with them." Months ago, Karp and friends showed up to protest, then recently to haggle as crowbar and sledge hammer sliced into Fifth Avenue's elegant Brokaw mansion, a late 19th century simulacrum of France's Chenonceaux chateau. Karp offered to buy two copper finials perched atop the roof, was told by the wreckers that removing them with care was too dangerous and would slow up the job of razing the building. Said the sympathetic foreman, "Sure it's a shame, but something should have been done about it before we got the job."

At least Karp is doing something about the shame. The Brooklyn Museum is readying an acre for Karp's relics, to be called the Frieda Schiff Warburg Memorial Sculpture Garden. Due to be opened next year, the sanctuary will have antique lampposts lighting the paths, and wistful wanderers will be able to sit on filigree benches and ponder the pilasters of the past. It is just possible that before the project is completed it may include a machine-tooled, I-beam mullion from the first of the glass-and-steel box buildings acetylene-torched out of existence.

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