For years, motorists streaming west on Interstate 64 watched the slow disintegration of a huge sculpture carved into the brick facade of the Council Tower in midtown St. Louis.

Bricks began falling off the east side the building in 2007. Decay of the bricks' anchors was so severe that workers later had to remove the entire facade, exposing the concrete beneath.

Now, craftsmen are nearly done with a painstaking recreation of the sculpture on the building at Interstate 64 and Forest Park Avenue west of downtown. The work is part of a $40 million renovation of the low-income senior housing facility.

Where more than 40 years ago workers used hammers and chisels, craftsmen now are employing the latest battery-powered grinders and drills to replicate the 260-foot sculpture.

Employees of John J. Smith Masonry Co. have been working from two platforms attached to hoists bolted to the building. They are repeating the design of sculptor Saunders Schultz, who in 1969 and 1970 drew the design for workers from a wooden platform suspended from the roof.

"He called it his canvas," said Tim Sheahan, project supervisor for contractor E.M. Harris Construction. The Teamsters union built the apartment tower in the late 1960s for retirees.

Schultz, from his tiny platform, worked a floor or so above the brick masons. As progress on the brick facade crept up the building, craftsmen followed his sketches for the work he named "Finite-Infinite," chipping and cutting the brick in the prescribed ways to produce the required contours and curvilinear shapes.

"Finite-Infinite" alludes to the Arch, which the building faces more than two miles to the east, and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel painting in which God and Adam almost touch, Schultz said.

John Smith, the masonry company's owner, said Thursday his employees uncovered Schultz's sketches on the concrete wall beneath the original brick. Workers are following Schultz's original sketches.

Smith said the new sculpture "is exactly the same scale and exactly the same dimensions" as the original.

Sculpting the brick will be completed this week, said Smith, adding that a penetrating brick stain much like the original could be applied next week.

Schultz, now 84, is a consultant for the building. Decades ago, he used a bullhorn to call to assistants on the roof to move his platform to the next area to sketch, he said.

"For close to two years that was the scariest thing I had ever done," he said. "I'm working now from the ground."

The new work includes re-anchoring the brick facade with bigger and stronger fasteners better protected from moisture than the originals.

Besides its exterior work, Council Tower also is undergoing interior renovations.

About 80 of the 225 Council Tower apartments were occupied in December 2010, when Bruce Development Co., of Clayton, bought the tower. Philip Krull, senior vice president at E.M. Harris, said the project's biggest challenge has been to temporarily relocate residents within the building as the studio and one-bedroom apartments are redone. So far, 96 apartments are renovated and occupied. Krull said the apartments will be finished in July, as scheduled.

In addition to historic tax credits, the project is financed through bonds bought by the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust, a HUD-backed mortgage, and state and federal low-income housing tax credits. To qualify for the historic tax credits, the re-created sculpture must be indistinguishable from the original.

Unlike the old facade, the new "Finite-Infinite" will be fully illuminated at night. HOK, the St. Louis-based architecture firm, designed banks of lights to do it.

Schultz said he had watched with dismay the deterioration of his sculpture as bricks fell off the building's lower floors. He added that he was pleased when contractors sought his help to re-create it.

"They found out I was the only one still alive," he said.