GUNS AND ARMED GUARDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 974, 17 May 1930, Page 6

GUNS AND ARMED GUARDS

AUCKLAND ARCHITECT SEES NEW YORK BANKS VAULTS 90 FEET DOWN Visits to the vaults of the big banks In New York were described by Mr. C. A. Trevithick, of Auckland, in a public lecture at the University College. By the courtesy of the manager of the New York Safe Company, Mr. Trevithick was taken all over many of the largest hank vaults and safedeposit vaults In New York, including the Federal Reserve Bank, which is the largest institution of its kind in the United States. The vaults in this bank, he said, are built on the rock bottom 90 feet down below the pavement. The main outer walls are 10 feet thick of concrete, very heavily reinforced with a system of very intricately constructed armoured steel rods, and then lined again on the inner face of the walls with, armour-plated laminated steel sheets of a total thickness of about 10 inches.

The main door to the vaults is circular in plan, and is made like the spindle in an ordinary low-pressure slotted spindle tap, except that iu this case the revolving spindle is about eight feet in diameter, and the hole through it is about four feet wide and six feet six inches high. The whole door and its frame and setting weigh in the vicinity of 200 tons. It is controlled by an elaborate system of bolts requiring several keys to operate them, and in addition has a time cloc)t arrangement whereby the doo< when once shut at night cannot be opened until a certain hour in tb morning.

i here is a perfect army of armed guards at one’s elbow always and machine-guns are in evidence at strategic points.

Every door throughout the vaults; is eonnejted electrically to a graid room wh». -e a squad of police is on duty ah aj , and by, the use of lights on a huge switchboard, and a system of bells and buzzers, the guards can tell wt _-n any door is opened or shut, and they are informed by phone why these doors are being used. The doors in the vaults of the Siemens Bank were the usual circular porthole type, and weighed about 100 t'-ns and two feet six inches thick of solid metal poured into an armourplated frame. The safe deposit vaults for the safekeeping of private securi*ies or jewellery, etc., are interesting. Iu this bank there were 6,700 safe deposit vaults, which varied in size from about six inches by two inches by about two feet six inches deep, to other vaults several feet square. Each of these safe deposits required two keys to open it, one retained by the owner and one by the bank. The cost of these safe deposits varied from £1 a year to £SO a year according to size. i

It is usual in the construction of bank vaults to form the vault itself separate from the outside wall of the building and about two feet away from it.

This was not necessary in the Federal Reserve Bank, because the whole of this vault is built down 90 feet below the surface of lower New York into the soft muddy subsoil through’ which it is -impossible to tunnel. The reason for building the vault away from the outer wall is to prevent access to the vault itself by tunnelling from an adjoining building. A two feet passage is left all roundthe vault, and mirrors placed at an angle of 45 degrees at all the corners give the watchman a clear view right round all sides of the vault at all times. In order to prevent tunnelling up from underneath, the floor or the vault is kept up about 12 Inches above the main floor of the basement and is supported on rolled-steel joists! and here again mirrors placed at 45 degrees permit of inspection underneath the floor of the vault. The •teel used In the manufacture of the’ safe deposit doors, and also in the lining of walls and ceilings, is all stainless and quite bright.