Cool infrastructure! The ceiling joists are grouted into the wall, but every fourth or so joist in every floor is attached with a metal hanger seen in the first two pictures (taken over a year ago when we were rebuilding the roof). Now that we are working on the outside of the wall we run across the anchors embedded in the interior of the wall (third picture). This system uses the interior framing to keep the exterior walls true and straight and it has done a marvelous job for 130 years. The brick walls have no bows or bulges.