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Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 114, 16 May 1931, Page 14

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A HOME FOR RADIO

THREE CITY BLOCKS

(From"The Post's" Representative.! NEW YORK, Ist April. ■ The first instalment of the window*, less city of the future will be witnessed in the lower fifteen,floors of a great' central skyscraper in Radio City—a building project, costing . £50,000,000, to cover three blocks in the heart of Manhattan owned by John D. Rocke--feller, junr. • The wiudowless oddity, comes about this way. The National Broadcasting Company is to occupy the lower fifteen stories, and for its purposes the air in that section is to "conditioned," as engineers say. It will be heated ia winter, cooled in summer, and at all times filled with the right amount of moisture. Nearly 1500 tons of ice per day' will bo required to produce a cold spray, through which the air will be • driven to avoid clamminess.., The method of making the 27 broad* easting studios sound-proof is- as ingen-' ious as that for the- "conditioning" oftho air. Each studio will be'as one" room floating in another. The inside'! / room will be suspended by wires from, the ceiling of-the exterior room. In the space will be what engineers call spring clips with rubber 'and felt insulation. VASTNESS OF THE BUILDING. ■ This central building'-. will be 63 - stories, flanked by two others. of 45. stories. At one corner will be a vaudeville theatre, at another a motion picture house. On the corner, of . Fifth: . avenue will be a department store, and space is also reserved for the new homa of the Metropolitan Opera. The shops and exhibition rooms will be in the shape of a gigantic .hatbox. Tho underground city of Metropoli-v*-* tan square, will bo a labyrinthine wonder. Subterranean viaducts under thai public streets will connect the three squares. All deliveries by vehicle will be made underground. Beneath tha> three-block city will also be an express station and transfer point fof, the subway x railroads. Besides special provision for synthetic light and air, special attention will be given to heating. A high building, when heated, becomes a veritable flua or chimney in cold weather. The hot air rises in the eletator shaft, and cold draughts sift in through the window* of the lower floors to take its place. This action, is likely to make- the lower floors too chilly at the same time that the upper ones are too warm. ..A different plan will be adopted in Radio' City. All tho windows will have wea,thor strips, consisting of double rows of 'flexible zinc pushed together by tho outside air, so that the greater the pressure of the latter becomes the mora' (Vifficulty / there will.be for it, to get through. -