Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

16 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. Fig. 63.—METROPOLITAN POWER STATION, NEW YORK, WITH STEAM BOILERS AND BUNKERS ON FOUR SUSPENDED FLOORS. A skeleton building possessing much interest from the architectural as well as the engin- eering standpoint is the Buffalo Savings Bank (Figs. 66 and 67). The walls are self-supporting, while the domes and main floors are carried by steel columns which, with the connecting girders, form a central tower, where the banking room, 65 feet high, occupies an area 59 feet square, quite unobstructed by col- umns, and surrounded by a domed ceiling. During recent years a fashion has arisen of constructing exceedingly high towers above the main roof of buildings, which, even without these skyward ex- tensions, would once have been considered remarkable for their great height. The Montgomery Ward Building, Chicago, com- Lofty Towers. At the Brooklyn Academy an interior por- tion, 50 feet square and 22 feet high, can be demolished and reconstructed at pleasure in an amazingly short time. The whole of the stage floor, and all the supporting columns, girders, and joists, may be re- moved and replaced without interfering with other parts of the structure. The same is the case with a floor 13 feet below the stage, so that an unobstructed pit 22 feet deep for various theatrical purposes is obtainable. (Fig- 65.) Movable Columns and Girders. Fig. 64.—GIANT TRUSS CARRYING TWELVE STORIES ABOVE BALLROOM IN WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL, NEW YORK. Fig. 65.—BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC, SHOWING REMOVABLE COLUMNS AND GIRDEJRS. pleted in 1901, is an early instance of the “tower” (Fig. 71, p. 405). Three years later came the New York Times Building, 450 feet high, including five tower stories. This edi- fice is interesting in several ways. Before anything in the way of building could be done a huge pit had to be made in the solid rock, of which some 700,000 cubic feet were blasted and carted away for use in the Rapid Transit Subway and on a railway embankment beside the Hudson River. From the bottom of the pit rises the steel skeleton. The Manhattan Life Building is remarkable for an extension of the original edifice, which (1,408)