MOLI VIEW™

This season always reminds me of my old beloved neighborhood, DUMBO in Brooklyn (see Cathay Che's rhapsodic piece that includes a great DUMBO pick), which on a raw, cold day like today would be nearly impossible to traverse without really gritting one's teeth. The old industrial buildings and narrow streets act like funnels for the cold river wind. But we were hearty artistoids in those days, until we were evicted by the metropolitan real estate machine — a long story. There is a DUMBO diaspora, and we all keep tabs on our old hood. So it's great to know there are still pockets of artists and craftspeople in the neighborhood, despite its meteoric, bloody rise to million-dollar loftville.

One such resident is the EverGreene Plaster Studio, renowned for remarkable restorations and cutting-edge conservation methods. Plaster is one of the oldest forms of decoration and ornament in architecture, and a rare art: Schooled in techniques that go back for millennia, its craftspeople have restored intricate plasterwork from Georgia to Missouri to the Bronx, and many major projects in between.

On Tuesday, if you're in the Big Built Apple, consider taking a tour of the studio, led by EverGreene's artisans. It's a unique chance to see just how the polychromal, Deco-Classical gloriousness across the ceiling of Broadway's Martin Beck Theater was restored and recreated; how panels are first made from clay and then cast; and how traditional craftsmanship is being crossed with modern science to bring architectural gems back to life across the country.

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