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THE SKYSCRAPER.

KEW YORK'S AMAZING WALLS BEAUTY OF THE BIG BUILDING. The Pan-American. Association are considering plans for the erection of the tallest building in the world on Broadway, New iork. It. will bo called "Las Americas," be 801 feet high, and will cost £3,700,000.

All who have visited New York will ogreo that their second-hand prejudicesagainst. the American, skyscraper, were changed into wonder at tho majesty of those monstrous piles that havo superimposed four or five ordinary cities on the narrow island of Manhattan. They must have dreamt that London, too, will some, day realise tho economy of concentration, and that the returned esile, standing on Waterloo Bridge, will he. astonished by vast and fcurreted walls towering over the squat roofs of presentday London, humbling our now highest buildings to tho lowliness of shacks. Is "tho. idea so vnndalistie ? Wherein aro those inamnioth towers of Now York, on some of which has been lavished the engineering genius of a Forth Bridge, tho cost and craftsmanship of r a cathedral, more derogatory • to. a'capital's comeliness and more hurtful to tho sensitive eyo than our jumble of the Strand, the dreary monotony of Victoria Street, the pettiness of Oxford Street br Cheapside, or tho botch—-dospito'all the- dreams of an Imperial is already being made of the opportunities of Kjhgsway ? Are the. (Jeep gorges Of Broadway and Fifth Avenue~-R«m- , brandtes'que in their chiaroscuro., of light ■ and shade, mystic in their starry gleam at night—less seemly than the stocky, facades that make London, much .as he may love it, seoni suddenly small and provincial to the Londoner returned from-America F ■ • ■ '

The Weolwdrth Tower. Oso assumes'that tho chief objection to the skyscraper is not so much.against itself, as' against its incongruity with lowlier neighbours, 'Perhaps any sky-, scraper—unless it bo such an.inspiratioii as New York's Woolworth Tower—is unlovely if it stands alone- in an undergrowth of five-story buildings. But when an old building comes ddiyii on the priceless space: of Lower Manhattan a mammoth- bui'ding goes up as. a matter of course. The steel and. stone giants are no longer nakedly alone. They cluster in kingly groups and line whole- street* like halls of tho Nibelungs. No one who has seen them —like a serrated coast itEelf—from his approaching Atlantic liner, ivauder'ed under their amazing walls, or travelled by a lift to their aerial summits, will'call this hyperbolic, No singte unit of man's ijrodacity and skill, the leviathan ship, the Nifo dam, the Simploii tunnel, is moretriumphantly self-complete and self-justified than that 'beautiful Woolworth Tower, with, its flying buttresses, its gili-ixniched roof, its spire of crccketed gold, its White uplift by day and its sky beacon by nfeht. It captures* your imagination when you see it from aiai-j it draws you again and again while you remain, it is your abiding memory and symbol of New York. The Woolworth Tower lias been likened fa a' Commercial cathedral: I 'see. no. irreverence in the comparison, nor.any reason—apart from" the sheer oxigeiusy of having to soar for space—why .New York ahoidd not exalt, embellish, and worship these arks of tho energy, spirit, •and rivalry- that havo'inado her-what; sJvg is. : jitst. as Po'lo.gne raised of old' her then 'incredible spire to the.new impetus of spiritualism. Now York has raise&'tbis .monument to the how-World ■impetus of humiu efficiency! • "• : . Towt»3 in Miniature/ ', The conception of -a New .York skyscraper is often, of'a stark . rcctaiigle rearing uplift unbroken liii.es, almost shoiving its geometrical steel ribs under a lean flesh of,unrelieved stone.. There tiro enough of such buildings in New York,,but they were only the raw beginnings out of ttiiiEli have b&en. evolved the ■Metropolitan Tower, the. ■astounding inassivity of tho Plaza- Betel, the giant horseshoe of tho new civic build* ings, the Bankers' Trust Building with' its airborne pilasters', and '.pyramidal ■roof, tjio Candler Building, rocketing above Times Square at liteltt in linos and cornices' of fire,, the clpud-aspiriiig Singer Building, and—last iof all;. until the next (Taring—this Woolworth Tower, tho highest inhabited building in tlis world, seven hundred and eighty feet ■in all, whose summit I havo ..known literally hidden, in October sterni'scud. And they are towns in themselves,; these New. York office buildings, hotis* ing two, five, and toil.thousand people, under one roof. Their vast height is often based on a whole city block. They have 'within them tho organisation of a municipality, their own electric light, water, and power plants, and a fire-fighting equhjtiierti that is almost a supererogation, because they are as nearly fire-proof as the wit of.'man; can devise. In the whole of tho .Woolworth Building there is no woodwork. The doors and partitions are of steol, terracotta, and wiro'gla.ss. The frame of 'the building is a gijjantis arid homogeneous steel cagOj the, beautiful walls and ornaments are laid on as a skin., jeams and ceiling arches .are ol steel, floors are concrete, stairways. are stone or metal. Tho fiercest h'liz7iard of New York's, harsh winter would not shake the skyscraper by a tremor, for it Iras been built to Withstand tho impossible pressure of a wind of two hundred and. fifty miles an hour. What ever you may think of their external artistry you cannot fail bo conquered by the internal complexity, efficiency, and completeness of these commercial palaces of Now York; It has been truly vaunted'that a tenant heed not go from tinder his roof far almost any civilised want, fie has, of course, tho enviably competent telephono service of Now York, and ho can mail; his letters in a chute on his floor. Ho lias a post and telegraph office, a restaurant, a'bank, an insurance often., a safe deposit, and even his own uniformed police. He can visit his physician, lawyer, broker, tailor, tobacconist, barber, and shoeblack. He can buy books, stationery, : theatre tickets,' hosiery, hats, fruit, (Wets,' and candies without passing his niaiu entrance. Same of these vast buildings open day and 'night, the cost of inaihtenaueo alone reaching £2Q,:OO'Q a year,, and the one item of water supply £1000. The Woohvorth Building has 4.0 acres of floor space, 3000 exterior windows, 80,000 vleetrio lights, and 28 lifts. iVeirty-four thousand teas of steel went'into tho construction, i 7,000,000 bucks, 87 miles -of electric wiring, and 43 miles of piping.

Two Shillings t'Q the Tor. These are but figures, -anil no figures can so touch the iiiwgii.iati.fm As an ascon-t to the top of New York's latest arid greatest sky-semper; ' It is infinitely more suggestive than the ascent qf tlie slightly higher Eiffel Tower. The Parisian wonder is an engineering curiosity, a mighty skeleton fefired for the sightseer, tcnantless except by totirist.s and meteorologists, This tower of Now York holds thousands of citizens who pass tlieir Workaday hours in nil its fifty-two stories--people who sifc at their desks atid nnheed by fam&iitritv the most astonishing city view of the world. The _ stranger pays fifty cents and steps into the express elevator. Nothing here of. the tedium alul change of lifts of the Mel Tower, the flash to the summit takes exactly one minute. It is one of the cheapest and

most exhilarating two sliilliii.gsw-oi-t.il'a imaginable. The fifty-five floors full past .voh like cards dropping from tho 'linntl of a juggler, streaks of alternate light and stiaJje. And the view from that high-borne o.yric—all tho Amazing City—tfie encompassing rivers—the busiest harbour in tho Olympic dwarfed to a Channel steamer—the narrows beyond—and then the wide roll of tho hangs for Over afterward in the memory like a great picture in a 'gallery.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19140204.2.18

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1975, 4 February 1914, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,248

THE SKYSCRAPER. Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1975, 4 February 1914, Page 4

THE SKYSCRAPER. Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1975, 4 February 1914, Page 4

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