The New San Francisco.

Progress, Volume II, Issue 3, 2 January 1907, Page 84

The New San Francisco.

Some particulars of the progress of the building operations at San Francisco have been given by Mr. T. Cooper, manager of the Southern Pacific Railway Company, and published in the November number of the Colonizer. Planing mills, with their shrill scream, are rush ing out lumber by the million feet ; strings of waggons, loaded with sand, cement, brick, stone, girders, and all that goes to make up a modern high-class building, roll along the streets in almost endless procession. Streets are being cleared, and watered and swept ; broken bricks and twisted pipes are carried away with beaver-like persistence ; frame buildings and bright corrugated iron buildings are growing like magic, almost in a night, that business may go on without interruption. Almost the entire cement in the United States will be on its way there in a few months. It is computed that in a short time this city will be using more cement in one day in the rebuilding than all the states of the Union were using a decade ago. One of the large construction concerns of this city has engaged 1000 barrels of cement a day to be delivered in August. Later in the year it is expected that the demand will be such that the same firm will have to use 10,000 barrels a day, or about seventy car-loads. This cement will be needed in the erection of about 5,000,000 dols. worth of buildings. Eastern capital is interested m the situation, and some of the large capitalists have sent men out on prospecting expeditions to see if some of the raw materials cannot be located. A cement quarry at the present time would be almost as valuable as a gold mine, and the same eagerness and enthusiasm attend the search for it as that for the yellow metal. Some of the temporary structures which are now going up promise to be worthy of a longer existence than the short term which will elapse before they will make way for the greater combinations of concrete, steel, marble, stone, and brick. One thousand men are now at work on a building in Van Ness avenue which covers a lot 275 ft. long by 180 ft. deep. It will contain 300 offices and thirty-eight stores. The foundations are of concrete. The building has four floors and fast elevators, and will very soon be ready for occupancy. The new Masonic Building will cost 65,000 dols., will have accommodation for twenty-five lodges, and will have the largest lodgeroom in the United States. The French- American bank building is to be nine storeys in height and cost 80,000 dols. There is a large demand for labour. Plasterers, bricklayers, masons, carpenters, and hod-carriers are needed. The demand for lathers, stone masons, and painters is not so heavy, but m a few months the large steel office buildings, which only lost their interior furnishings and were not structurally damaged will have been cleaned of rubbish and then the work of fitting and decorating will require many hands.