engineering

Longyear Building

Longyear Building is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Longyear Building rather than just read about it. In short: The Longyear Building is a commercial structure located at 210 North Front Street in Marquette, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.

Key takeaways

Longyear Building belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Longyear Building to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Longyear Building from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Longyear Building is a commercial structure located at 210 North Front Street in Marquette, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.

History John Munro Longyear was born in 1850 to of Lansing attorney and U.S. Congressman John W. Longyear. John M. left school at age fifteen and worked at a variety of jobs coming to Marquette in 1873. Between 1873 and 1878, Longyear assessed the value of timber and mineral resources on land throughout the Upper Peninsula for a variety of clients. In 1878 the Lake Superior Ship Canal, Railway and Iron Company hired him as a land agent to assess the land they had been granted. Soon Frederick Ayer, the controlling partner of the company, hired Longyear to find and buy land for his personal investment, offering Longyear half interest in the land. Through this and similar partnerships, Longyear amassed a large amount of land that he personally controlled. In 1890, he branched into mining interests, as well as timber and financial investments. Longyear was also elected as mayor of Marquette in 1890 and 1891, and supported numerous philanthropies in the city. However, in 1900 the city of Marquette supported plans to build a railroad line along the shoreline in front of the Longyear home, and Longyear moved both his family and his mansion to Brookline, Massachusetts. The Longyear business was still headquartered in Marquette, and Longyear would often travel back and forth. By 1915, Longyear's staff in Marquette was outgrowing their offices in the Marquette National Bank Building. Longyear decided to construct his own office building, and purchased a lot, then occupied by a boarding house, on the corner of Front and Bluff Streets. He hired the architectural firm of Charlton and Kuenzli to design the office building and John Simon Wahlman as a general contractor. Construction of the Longyear Building began in late spring 1916 and the structure was complete by early 1917. The structure included ground level retail space, accessed from Bluff Street, general and private offices for Longyear's firm on the first floor, and three suites of rooms on the second floor. These were used by John Longyear himself, his business guests, and a caretaker. John Longyear continued to use the building until his death in 1922. His estate was divided into three companies: Longyear Corporation, Longyear Estate, Inc., and Longyear Realty Corporation, which were controlled by Longyear's wife Mary, their children, and Longyear's sister. However, the various holdings of these companies fluctuated in value through the twentieth century, as mining, timber, and land interest became more or less valuable. In 1951/52 Longyear Corporation and Longyear Estate, Inc. were folded into Longyear Realty Corporation, and in turn in 1964 a new limited partnership called J. M. Longyear Heirs was formed to manage Longyear Realty and other holdings. Throughout this time the Longyear companies continued to use this building. In 2001, JML Heirs, LLC, a company founded by John Munro Longyear, undertook an extensive renovation of the building. The company has its corporate offices in the building.

Description The Longyear Building is a two-story rectangular Tudor Revival brick office building with a flat roof. The building lot is sloped, so that the ground floor is below grade at one end and fully exposed, with a street level entrance and storefront windows, at the other end. A small 2001 addition at one end houses an elevator. The building sits on a concrete foundation, and the basement level is clad in stucco. The remainder of the exterior walls are brownish brick backed by hollow clay tile. The two main facades have extensive Indiana Limestone trim for the water table, belt courses, window trim with quoins, decorative cartouches, and Tudor arch main entrance. A decorative copper cornice is located above the storefront windows and doorway on one end. The main facade contains the entryway to the Longyear offices on the first floor level. The entry is recessed, and accessed through a limestone Tudor arch with a rectangular hoodmold. Surrounding windows on the first floor are asymmetrically arranged and grouped in pairs and threes. The second floor is separated into three shallow bays. There are single windows in each of the end bays and a triple window in the center. A parapet wall encircles the top of the building. On the interior, there is a vestibule with original terrazzo floor, with double door leading to a short hall with the main staircase and the entrance to the Longyear offices. The lower floor houses rental space accessed by the Bluff Street entrance and storage, mechanical equipment room, break room, and restrooms for the Longyear Company. The first floor contains the Longyear Company offices, which are arranged along a central corridor. The space includes primarily offices, and also a reception area, work room, conference room, and vault. The doors, sidelights, transoms, door trim, and window trim along the central corridor are almost all original to the construction of the building. The second floor of the building, which is now leased as office space, is similar in plan to the first floor. The second floor was originally constructed as apartments, but were converted to offices space in the late 1960s, apparently without a major change to the floor plan. A small flight of stairs leads from the second floor up to the attic, which is used for storage.

See also Michigan portal National Register of Historic Places portal

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Longyear Building

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Longyear Building claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Longyear Building before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Longyear Building ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Longyear Building

In research: Longyear Building appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Longyear Building in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Longyear Building is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Buildings and structures completed in 1916, Buildings and structures in Marquette, Michigan, National Register of Historic Places in Marquette County, Michigan, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Longyear Building outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Longyear Building in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Longyear Building means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Longyear Building out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Longyear Building in simple terms?

The Longyear Building is a commercial structure located at 210 North Front Street in Marquette, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.

Why does Longyear Building matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Longyear Building?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Longyear Building.