THE NEW SKYSCRAPER.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5268, 30 April 1928, Page 2

THE NEW SKYSCRAPER.

NEW YORK’S LATEST.

ROADS THROUGH BASE.

The newest hiea i.or a, skyscraper is to have two main motor roads running right through the heart of itThis particular skyscraper also has two levels of railroad tracks limning through its base. It ks the New York Central Building now in progress of erection behind the Gr;and Central Terminal Building, which contains the stations of two railways. There is 'no bedroom in this building, but otherwise most of the requisites of life are to be enjoyed, from a bath to an art gallery (writes the correspondent of. the “Daily News”). The new building occupies the last available plot in the central district of New York, and has Ivth&rto been the lowest part of Park Avenue, “Millionaires’ Row,” as it is called, where flats are let at £2OO per room . per. annum. This double row of hotels and flats began when the New York Central Railway Company electrified the first part of its railway and deepened the culvert through which it had r« u - Both sides of the avenue have been filled with buildings, many of them standing over the railway tracks, and the railway company is now finishing the scheme by closing the bottom of the avqnue with an e.norjnous 35storey building. The station already draws to itself more traffic than the streets around - it can ‘hold, in spite of underground approaches which admit taxicabs to the interior of the station from a block away. The new building will drnw another increase in traffic, so a new method of dealing with it has been devised. This needs two railways running through the heart of the skyscraper, each as hig'h as an ordinary four! or five.-storey building. ' Through traffic approaching down Park Avenue will thus be able to pass through this building, around the Grand Central Terminal Building on raised roadways, and then, by a gradual slope, to enter Parjc Avenue again below the station, passing the head of two lines of cross traffic. The new buiding will stand completely over the tracks which leave the station. These are already two deep, and the steelwork on which the building will stand passes down to the rock between the lines of rails.. Steel frames weighing hundreds, of tons have been lowered ffito place ■without interfering with the movement of the trains. ‘ The great archways (lined with Italian marble) into which cars will enter, rise to a height of two storeys at the back of the building, and cross the roadway tJieru on two diverging bridges, each wide enough for three cars. . The cars then pass on elevated roadways like shelves along the sides of the existing railway station, and round to the front, where the cip? gioing down into lower Park will meet cars poming up and circling round and through the buildings in the oppos’te direction. This new building fs considered a triumph of modern, American construction.. The- whole cf it is sup- . ported quite clear of the ground. It stands over railway tracks which are in turn two deep, express trains running over, the suburban trains. The building will stand! on huge ■steel feet, running between the platforms and rails to solid rock below. Already a striking system of columns exist. The two sets of tracks and platforms were supported on columns. Indlependently of these, thq roadway d running beltween the did anil the new ” building was supported on its own columns. In order to avoid the vibration from the trains, its foundation r-osts are isolated from contact of any kind till they reach the rock. Everything has been put away to give them freedom, and the braces which hold them together are in the form of frames which pass round the other columns.

The whole building thus stands in such a way, that if a giant .hand • could grasp it. it could be lifted straight up iji the air without interfering with anything about it. It will be crowned' by a huge lan.-. tern of bronze and giass several stories high to be illuminated at might. The city authorities were slow to consent to two New York street? running through the heart of ai sky-V" scraper, but the relief offered to the < congestion round Grand Central station. finally convinced them o f its value.