New York’s 3500 year old Obelisk

Following an instruction from Central Park Conservancy in New York to provide a monument cleaning trial on their 3500-year-old Egyptian Obelisk, and after several months of planning, Thomann-Hanry® cleaned a small test area of this ancient monument on a bright clear day under the watchful eyes of half a dozen Conservancy staff.

This test façade gommage® clean on the Obelisk – nicknamed Cleopatra’s Needle – was the third of four trials undertaken halfway up the structure and was carried out by Thomann-Hanry® Managing Director Mark Styles from a cherry-picker. Those in attendance were able to compare the three test areas and immediate feedback from the conservationists on Thomann-Hanry®’s sample was extremely positive.

“Whilst we are used to working on historic and ancient buildings, a monument cleaning project like this is an extremely rare and unique opportunity to showcase our expertise”, Styles observed.

The New York needle was erected in Central Park on February 22, 1881. It was secured in May 1877 by judge Elbert E. Farman, the then United States Consul General at Cairo, as a gift from Khedive for the United States remaining a friendly neutral as the European powers – France and Britain – manoeuvred to secure political control of the Egyptian Government.

Thomann-Hanry®’s façade gommage® is the ideal non-abrasive cleaning technique to restore historic monuments of any nature to their former glory.