SKYSCRAPER PERILS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2097, 25 January 1908, Page 1 (Supplement)

SKYSCRAPER PERILS.

Freak skyscraper buildings arc all right for advertising purposes, but (says tho New York correspondent of the" “Daily Telegraph”) they disfigure the city and are dangerous from the standpoint of -fire. This is the verdict of the Building Commission here, who will order that- no new buildings shall bo over 250 ft high, say 20 stories. This resolution -takes effect in .January next, and is designed to stop the feverish race for the construction of lofty buildings. The fire, insurance interests have feared that the 41-story Singer building here, about 058 ft high .might be followed by -a 50-story, and then by a 00-story house, because American architects and builders seemed practically agreed that, with steelwork construction developed to such a fine art, the limit of height might safely go beyond that of the Eiffel Tower, in- Paris. How long these skyscrapers can last is the chief problem, which time alone can solve. Insufficient material exists to enable the experts to say just how long they may he safely occupied by their thousands of tenants. ‘ It is recognised in America, however, that one skyscraper collapse would mean untold damage to the skyscraper family, and the inspection is now very -severe, with the object of detecting the first signs .of corrosion in the steel points or other flaws likely to entail a public calamity. More than two score of New York’s best-known skyani?a.nor*e ...._/w~.r>a cul . _ -f,Tt A .-flurvrli i>.Jiim fiv.a/1