The bracket was an arm reaching out from the wall. A triangular support beneath the cornice or the balcony or the shelf. The bracket held the weight that the wall could not hold alone. The wall was vertical. The load was horizontal. The bracket bridged the disagreement. The bracket said I will carry what the wall cannot reach. Every good friend is a bracket. The load is too far from the support and the bracket closes the gap.

The brownstone bracket was carved. Scrollwork and acanthus leaves and sometimes a face. A bearded man or a lion or a woman with her eyes closed. The face under the cornice carried the weight of the roofline on its head. The face did not complain. The face was carved with an expression that said this is what I do. The face was the bracket personality. A plain bracket supported the cornice. A carved bracket supported the cornice and told you a story while it worked. The story was free. The support was the job. The story was the gift.

The bracket worked on leverage. The triangle. The same triangle that made the truss work and the diagonal sheathing work and the gable work. The bracket was a small truss mounted sideways on the wall. The vertical leg attached to the wall. The horizontal leg held the load. The diagonal leg carried the force from the load to the wall. Three members. One triangle. The math did not change from the Parthenon to the tenement. The bracket on the Greek temple and the bracket on the fire escape used the same geometry. The geometry does not care about the budget.

The Italianate buildings had brackets under every eave. Rows of them. Twenty or thirty brackets lined up like soldiers holding the cornice at attention. The brackets were spaced evenly. The even spacing created rhythm. The rhythm created elegance. One bracket is a support. Thirty brackets is a statement. The statement said this building was not built in a hurry. This building was built by somebody who understood that repetition is not redundancy. Repetition is emphasis. The brackets repeated the message until the street believed it.

They snap vinyl brackets onto the soffit now. The vinyl bracket is hollow. The vinyl bracket holds no weight. The vinyl bracket is a picture of a bracket hung in the place where a bracket used to work. The cornice does not rest on the vinyl bracket. The cornice rests on hidden steel and the vinyl bracket hangs below pretending. The pretending is the modern ornament. The building pretends to be held up by something beautiful. The building is actually held up by something invisible. The beauty is cosmetic. The strength is hidden. The old bracket was both.

See also: Corbel, Cornice