SKYSCRAPERS AT £5000 000 APIECE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 154, 20 June 1908, Page 4

SKYSCRAPERS AT £SOOO 000 APIECE

Although till' loss I>.V the great iii" which destroyed Chelsea, U.S.A., the other day, has been officially ]>ut at ■£•2,00(1,(100, it is stated that tlvc cost of rebuilding will be C 21,000,000 at least. There is nothing im|»robable about this. The figures merely serve to emphasise the vastly enhanced eost of modern buildings', as compared with those of a. few years back. Single steel skyscrapers, such as now figure ill all American eities. cost ordinarily anywhere from .CI.000,0(1(1 to Cii.'lioo.oo'o. and occasionally a great deal more.

The famous. I'ark l!ow Building in New York, for in.-tancc. which is twenty-five storeys high, i- worth near ly tbi.OIHI.OOO: while no less than CI 700.000 has already been expended on tire new liftv-lw»-st»re.v M-tropoli-lan Life Insurance Htiicc. now approarhing eonipletion. which, when finished will be Hie talh'-t permanent structure in the worht, and more than twice 111 heHit of St. Paul's Cathedral. l/..ndon'<

oftiest buihlin;:. When vet inn nf single cdifkcs involves tlif outlay of such colossa' oinis, it is hardly n iimUit for wondyrincut that the re-erection of iin entire i-ilv, sullenly destroyed by tivi-. earth.piakc.Wir other cataclvsinal catast vophe. ~11 ■ ii11(I involve an expenditure that ran on I v lie (-(Hinted ill hundreds oi niillioii--

Tl,ik. San ]■ rauciseo. as il e\isied before the earthquake iv;i< valued al Cl-'lllllin.llllO. The earliest estimatefor rehuildins called l»r an expenditure oi' one thousand million*. but it i* now ceriain that even this hu«e sum wil 1m- laT<;cly cM-cedi'd. \ii(l it would lie <sir|iri*in« wcve.i not so. The cost ol r.-lmildiiijr ('hicaiin after the live of IST!, was csi 10.1 lIKI.OOII And there were 11" livo-million-pouni skyscraper- in those days.