THE SKYSCRAPER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3330, 23 September 1911, Page 3

THE SKYSCRAPER.

ITS ORIGIN AND ITS FUTURE. An account of the beginning of a skyscraper construction in New York, which apepars in the “Iron Age,” shows how comparatively personal was the single incident that started the procession.

A man had purchased a double plot of land in Broadway, with the understanding that, he would later be able to purchase an adjoining plot to square his own property. As his frontage was only 21 -Ut wide, and more than half the length, the necessity of adding the adjoining property was sufficiently obvious—as was also his despair on finding that he had purchased under a misapprehension, and that b© must content himself with the narrow frontage. Under the laws of the city the foundations of a building of the then contempt ary type of architecture would have nearly covered his Broadway plot with;masonry, leaving hardly more than a JGit. passage-way. The man carried his perplexity to an architect, who put his mind to a study of the building regulations. He discovered that they, although specifying the thickness of wall required, for the superstructure, did not name the exact point below or above til© kerb at which it must begin. The entire weight of the floors and walls could be carried and transmitted to the foundation by a framework of metallic posts and beams. The plan was so new that, although it didl not conflict with existing building laws, neither was there any law under which it could be immediately authorised. The plans had to be taken up by the examiners of the building department, who finally approved them in April 1888. The beginning of the work naturally aroused curiosity, comment, and direful prophecy, for the construction was quite different from that of the first tall steel building that had been erected in Chicago. Nor was the owner himself altogether happy. The possibility that the building would blow' over, and_that he would find himself responsible for the resulting damage, weighed on his spirits, and required much soothing from the arcliitect. It was only when the architect agreed to establish his own offices in the top of the skyscraper and tumble down with it that the owner decided that the part of wisdom was to quit worrying. Even without this adventure of the narrow plot of land on Broadway, with a frontage too'small to build upon, the skyscraper, however, would undoubtedly by this time have dominated New York. The growth of population and business was bound to make more and' more land too valuable to build upon unless the base of the building, so to speak, could be measured along the perpendicular. The necessity of making several office rooms and apartments where only one was rented before was inevitable, and Chicago had- already shown the possibility. It is estimated that the combined elevators of the Gotham building do a daily business that is more than double the number of passengers carried by the elevated, subway, and'surface cars. But the skyscraper itself unfortunately creates yet another aspect of. the municipal problem of population versus area. The height of a building, while it adds in proportion to the number of people likely to use the sidewalks, does not increase their area.

The higher the building, therefore, the more congestion in the street. And so the next step in the evolution of the metropolis may perhaps come when some worried citizen finds it impossible to get- in and out of liis own skyscraper and takes his troubles to a sympathetic inventor.