Description

These door plates, also known as doorknob backplates, were gifted to the Coe Center in 2016 and are originally from the Rockefeller Building in Cleveland, Ohio. Their donor wrote:

This parcel contains … two interior doorknob plates (AM0049 and AM0050) … all cast in brass or bronze. The hardware was from the Rockefeller Building 1903 and 1910, Knox and Elliot architects. The building is at the northwest corner of Superior Avenue and West 6th Street, Cleveland, Ohio. Ted Coe did his master’s thesis on this building for the degree requirement at Yale…The interior of the Rockefeller Building has been remodeled by insensitive owners and tenants over the years and original hardware has been the victim of this activity. When it hasn’t been scrapped, it has wound up in antique stores, which is where I found the lockset in Summit County...

These plates would have been used to protect the surface of the door from scratches and damage in addition to concealing any of the inner workings of the doorknob. In addition to these two door plates, a lockset (AM0047), and a mail slot (AM0048) from the same building are also part of the collection.