YPSILANTI - The city's most famous landmark is getting a new skin and a slightly new look, as roofers are wrapping up a tricky project to install new cedar shingles over the city's historic water tower.

Built in 1890 on the highest ground in the city, the 250,000-gallon water tower on Cross Street and Washtenaw Ave. continues to serve as an emergency reservoir to help maintain water pressure for the Ypsilanti City Utilities Authority during fire emergencies.

"When I first saw it, of course the first thing that I thought is what everybody says, that it's a big phallic symbol," laughed Roofers Local 149 member Kurt Hesse, who is running the job for Detroit Cornice and Slate. "The next thing I thought, was how are we going to get a scaffold up here to do the work?"

Hesse worked with a scaffolding company to devise a platform that wraps around half the structure. Masts were bolted into the water tower at numerous points up the 147-foot-tall structure, and a pair of motors smoothly lift the cut-to-form plywood platform. The scaffolding and platform accounts for nearly half of the $180,000 project cost.

The surface area to be re-shingled is only 7,000 squares - but of course, access to the top is the major issue. Hesse and his crew have already torn off the 20-year-old cedar shingle roof, which wore out prematurely because of improper installation. Nails were placed too high on the shingles and the wood wasn't staggered properly.

The tear-off was tricky because the water tower sits on a narrow island of a busy, divided street. And the new cedar roof, Hesse said, "is tedious to install," because the shingles aren't a consistent size as are asphalt shingles.

With heavy 30-lb. felt as an underlayment, as well as a plastic web of "cedar breather" underneath the shingles, this roof should provide about 50 years of service, Hesse said. The new shingles will make the top of the tower brown, but they will eventually turn to gray like the old shingles did. A new copper cupola will top the dome.

In 1975 the tower was designated by the American Water Works Association as an American Water Landmark. It was restored in 1976. The Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority has operated and maintained the structure since 1974.

WORK IS NEARLY complete on re-roofing the Ypsilanti Water Tower. The tower's base is 85 feet in circumference. The Joliet limestone walls taper from a thickness of 40 inches at the bottom to 24 inches at the top. A steel tank holds the water at the top. Inside, there's access to the top of the tower via a stairway. Remarkably, it was built without a construction contract in 1891- day laborers did the work.

A CEDAR SHINGLE is nailed on the Ypsilanti Water Tower by Kurt Hesse of Roofers 149 and Detroit Cornice & Slate.