MANHATTAN

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 36, 18 March 1932, Page 1

MANHATTAN

\ They come from Long Island, they come from New Jersey, they come from Bronx, they come from Brooklyn; they come in their hordes, and in the thousands of mammoth buildings that is New York they pass their lives. A Talk on the most cosmopolitan city. of the world NEW YORK

by

Wm. E.

Lavelle

from 2ZW

DON’T think it is generally known that New York City is built on an island-the island of Manhattan. It is roughly oblong in shape, about 134 miles long and an average of two miles ' wide. It lies approximately north and south, New York Harbour being at the ‘south end where the island comes to a point. The Hudson River flows along the west side of Manhattan Island into New York Harbour, and on the east side is an extension of London Island Sound, known as East River. The surround- . ing of Manhattan Island by water is completed at the north end by a canal Joining the Hudson River with East River. This canal is called the Harlem iver. The boundaries of Greater New York extend beyond the confines of Manhattan Island, but for the purpose of this talk we will concentrate on the island, which after all contains the city proper.

Manhattan Island is linked up with Long Island by four bridges spanning East River, including the well-known Brooklyn bridge as well as several railroad and subway tunnels under the river. A number of bridges and tunnels join Mathattan Island with the mainland across the Harlem River, and traffic across the Hudson River is taken care of with the Holland Traffic Tunnel and . the recently-opened George Washington suspension bridge, in addition to several railroad tunnels and numerous ferries. Manhattan Island has an amazing history of development. It is only 300 years ago in 1626 that a man named Peter Minnet bought it from the Indians for the paltry amount of £5 worth of trinkets, blankets, etc. Tédhy it is worth untold billions.

Tn 853 it had a population of 800, most of these being Dutch settlers; to-day its population is more than six millions and includes every nationality, race and creed on the earth. There are many (Continued on page 6.)

Manhattan

(Continued from page 1.) reasons why. Manhattan Island should become an important centre. The first was the natural advantage of position just as Wellington owes much to its geographical position. History has proved that cities spring up wherever a break in transportation routes occurs. Manhattan Island lay .at the very gateway between.the old world and.the new continent, and in addition it was aconvenient area of land surrounded by navigable waterways, and with a sheltered harbour. It was naturally destined to become the commercial link between America and the Atlantic. At the present time New York has over 700 wharves, which is only about a sixth as many as there is room for, and they stick out into the Hudson River like the teeth on a comb. There are over 200 shipping companies of all na- y tionalities operating in the port, and¥/ ocean-going steamers arrive and. depart at the rate of one every 20 minutes of daylight every day. Now, the second natural advantage lies in the formation of Manhattan Island. New York has not had any earthquakes lately, but it used to at one time, and voleanie action has left-a granite-like rock formation which is ’ capable of carrying the enormous concentrated loads, placed upon it by the tall buildings. It is probably the lack

}j/ Of good foundation like this which is one reason preventing London from building skyscrapers. New York City is an interesting study of town planning. It is a contrast of old and. new. The southern pointed end was the site of the original Dutch settlement and extending up the island for about two miles the streets are more or less irregular, and -have names with historical associations. . Hyery one has heard of Wall Street. This is named from an old sea wall in the same vicinity. Then there is Pearl Street from the base of old pearl fisheries, and many others similar. Apart from the street names, there is not much left to show that this was an old settlement, as it is now the "down-town district, and many of the tallest buildings are located around these narrow, irreguli: the heart of the American financial world, and contains the famous stock Hxchange, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the head offices of all the principal banking houses and industrial conypanies of America, ’ . Apart from this small section, the rest of Manhattan Island ig lat] ont with geometrical regularity, with th avenues ruuning straight Up Ua aw 7 and the streets running across. ; Broadway is an odd thoroughfare and winds diagonally across the geometrical] pattern like High Street, Christchurch. At certain intersections this creates a triangular building site, and on one of these was built practically the first stedil-framed skyscraper, the famous _ Filat-iron Building. When we speak of Broadway here we think of the ‘gaily lit theatre section with its crowded night life. This section consists" of only about half a mile of Broadway, the full length of which is about 16 miles, extending beyond Manhattan Island itself. _ The thoroughfares running north ‘an-! south up and down the island are calicd avenues, and are numbered from ist.

-- Avenue to 12th Avenue, with one or two odd ones such as Park Avenue and Madison Avenue. The thoroughfares running east and west across the island are called streets, and are numbered regularly up to 242nd Street. This numbering arrangement certainly makes it easy to estimate the distances, as the streets are ‘set out 20 to the mile. Thus if you are at 42nd Street, and want to go to 62nd Street, you know at once that it is one mile, or to go to 102nd Street, would be 60 streets, that is, three miles, and so on. It also saves you from losing direction, as by walking one block and looking at the number of the next street you can tell if you are going toward or away from. your destination. ’ Locating a certain address has also ‘been simplified, As 5th "Avenue Lies ‘ about in the centre of the island it is taken as a dividing line, and the streets are called Hast and West, as they lie east or west of 5th Avenue. So we have Hast 34th Street, and West 34th , Béroet The house numbers are arranged with the odd numbers on the north side of the streets and the even numbers on the south side, and the numbers start each side of 5th Avenue, and increase in each direction as they get farther away from it. The first block starts at 1, the next at 101, and the next at 201, and soon, that if you know the number of the house and street, you. can tell how far it is from your Starting point; which direction it lies in, which side of the street it is on and how many blocks it is from 65th Avenue, Imagine a complete stranger to Wellington standing outside the Government Buildings and wishing to go to No. 15 Blair Street, and being able to go there without any help from anyone. Then imagine that Wellington was fifty times as large and our stranger could still find his way about in such a well-planned locality. The New York skyscraper is the result of high land values which requiced a tall building to give an adequate investment return on the capital cost of the site. But the skyscraper is a definite cause of traffic congestion. This can be easily understood if we imagine Featherston Street with skyscrapers built on each side of it. At five o’clock when the offices closed, a building like the Post Office would empty 10,000 people on to the footpath, the building across the street would do the same, and so on down both sides of the street and all along the other streets as well, and all the people are hurrying home to dinner at the same time. This is what happens in New York and the subway trains under the streets have all they can do to handie the rush-hour load. Traffic in the street has been made s simple as possible. Most of the cross treets are one-way streets, the odd numbers carrying west-bound traffic and the even numbers east-bound. All traffic is controlled by a comprehensive system of lights, and at the principal intersections the police are on the job as well. One important thing about the traffic control by lights in New York is a point we are not quite used to in Wellington as yet, That is, that the traffic lights also control the pedestrians. When the lights are against the traffic then is the time for the pedestrians to cross, This simple rule is easily enforced in the principal thoroughfares, as it would be suicide for the pedestrian to attempt to cross at any other time. Everybody has probably noticed in photographs of New York skyscraper!

that the buildings are stepped back af certain levels. This stepping back was introduced as a necessary measure to saye the streets from complete loss of sunlight and air. The stepping back is controlled by what are known as the "Zoning Laws." Under these laws the city is divided into districts, and according to the districts in which a building site is located, the building may be erected to a height of 14, 2, 24, or 3 times the width of the street on which it fronts, before any setting back is necessary. When this height has been reached the building must be set back within welldefined limits, the actual set backs being determined by considerations of design and maximum space obtainable. As each set back reduces the area of the floor space, this measure is a restriction on the possible development of a building, and forms a definite limit to the floor space obtainable in a building erected on any particular site, When the area of the building as set back has been reduced to 7+ the area of the whole site, it can be continued up without further reduction. Hence are born the towers of the _ tallest buildings erected recently. There is no legal limit to the height to which the towers may be erected. The actual limit to which they have already gone is an economic one, and is determined by several factors, the principal one being the increase of the cost of erection.of the building, as the height increases. Another important influence is the height to which elevastors can be operated economically, and

the time taken in vertical transportation to the ofiices in the upper floors. These points could best be illustrated by some reference to one of the most recent skyscrapers, the Wmpire State Building which is at present the world’s tallest structure. This title was held for many years by the wellknown Woolworth Building, but it has recently been outstripped by first one new building and then another, until the Woolworth Building is now about seventh or eighth on the list. The Empire State Building is 1252 feet. high. If it were erected in Courtenay Place it would be twice as high as Mount Victoria, or about 11 times as high as the Levy Building. Just imagine standing up at the signal station and looking straight into an

office window half-way up the building and you can get some conception of what this height means. The building contains 86 stories and is topped with a 200ft. mooring mast for airships with an observation room at the top large enough for 50 persons. So far no airships have been able to hitch up to the mast, which is likely, to prove more ornamental than useful, but as this building is the first and only office building to be equipped with such a mast the owners probably are quite satisfied to pay for it for its advertising value. One of the most interesting things about thése skyscraper buildings is the amazing speed and efficiency of their construction. The Empire State Building has a history all its own. To make way for it a perfectly good 14-story hotel, the famous and fashjonable Waldorf-Astoria, was demolished and rebuilt on a new site. The time required from the demolition of the hotel to the completion of the new Empire State Building was about 14 months. This is even more remarkable when we note that it took only the first eight months to see the building rise to the full height of its 86 stories with ell the exterior walls finished and covered in as protection against the approaching winter. The second six months was spent on the finishing and equipment of the interior. At the same rate of construction the D.I.C. building would have been erected to its full height in four weeks and completely finished in another three weeks. It is worth remembering, too, that all material for the building had to be delivered on the job in the thick of congested traffic conditions at the rate of 1000 tons per day, and some of it had to be hoisted nearly a quarter of @ nile in the air before it was fixed in position. One of the biggest problems to be fuced in the erection of such a: building is the elevator transportation. Elevators are necessary to assist in the actual construction work, to move workers and material about the job as otherwise much time would be wasted in getting the men up and down. I had this driven home to me rather forcibly on one occasion when I was employed on a bank building which was being erected in Wall Street. One Saturday afternoon I wanted to go to the top of the building and found that the construction elevators were not working. I previously had an idea that elevators in a building under construc tion were something of a luxury item, but after climbing up rough half-finish-(Concluded on page 8.)

Manhattan

(Continued from page 7.) ed stairs for over 40 stories, I definitely changed my ideas on the subject.: . As a matter of fact, the construction elevators are erected up to each floor as soon as the first steel beams are in place, and the eleyator men follow closely on the heels of the steel workers, When fully occupied, the Empire State Building is estimated to contain au. office population of 25,000. with an additional 60,000 callers per day. This means that the elevators must be capable of transporting 85.000 .people up to their offices and down again every day. ‘To do this there are 67 elevators. including freight lifts, and they are designed to take care of 15,000 persons at the busiest period hetween 5 and 5.30 in the evening. The traffic handled daily by the elevators in this one building is probably greater than that handled by.the whole of the combined tramway and suburban train services of Wellington City. In fact, the elevator lobby of a skyscraper is very like a railway station, with its cars departing every few minutes for various floors of the building. Building Heating. HE heating of these buildings ix worthy of note. New York suffers from extremely cold temperatures and even snowstorms in the winter. In faci keeping the principal streets clear «f snow usually costs the city ‘upwards of £1,000,000 every winter. Under these conditions buildings of every kind require heating, which is done by steam radiators. Within a certain large aren this steam is supplied from steam mains in the streets, just as we haye water and gas mains in our streets. The stenm system is operated by a company which makes and supplies the steam just as the Wellington Gas Company supplies gas. Now the interesting thing abont this system is that every building has a boiler room and a boiler chimney token up to the full height. of the building which is never used. If these were not built in when the building was erected the steam company would have everything its own way, but so long as the building owners ean switch over at any time to making their own stenm thev are able to negotiate favonrahiv with the stenam company for the supplr of heat. Some of these skyscrapers have 9¢ many as four or five stories below the street level, and in one of these base ments is invariahly found a full-sized boiler room which will never be used for anything but storage space. Towering Heights. VXYHEN viewed from the street, the ‘Y. New York skyscrapers have a twofold effect. The first reaction on gazing up at the towering heights is to feel how small and insignificant a mere human is. but 2 moment’s reflection makes one realise that these buildings are created by men, and, furthermore, not by Amerieans alone. but by. men of: every nation. In the architect’s office will he found draughtsmen of varied nationallties, including even a stray New Zenlander. The building job itself is quite an international affair, and, strangely enough, the trades are mostly divided according to nationality. There are Scotch stonemasons, English bricklay-

ers. German earnenters, Italian plas-. terers, French nainters, and Irish steelworkers. and the labourers are made un mostly from the small countries of south-eastern Burope, even to the Russian water-boy. who carries a, pail of water aronnd to the thirsty workers in the hot weather. In cosmopolitan New York the buildings are erected in a dozen languages. and they are real human achievements, nroving that man is eapable of undertaking and successfully, completing stnpendous and complicated tasks in his mareh of progress, This thought is most encouraging, espécially in the face of the problems of the moment.