HIVES OF COMMERCE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 202, 23 May 1936, Page 6

HIVES OF COMMERCE

Behind the Scenes in City Buildings ELABORATE organisation (By S.G.i Very different from the whares of the ancient Maoris, whose stockaded village stood in former years at the point called Pipitea. are the big modern buildings, many stories high, that help to make up present-day Wellington. Each year sees new and larger edifices going up in the city. Each of these big blocks of offices is a regular hive of commerce, wherein up to live or six hundred workers are engaged. Although flie public go in and out of them freely, even those who spend their days in these big buildings see little of the very considerable organisation necessary to keep them clean, evenly-heated and serviced in other respects. Yet it is no small task to look after more than-a mile of corridors, several acres of floor space, thousands of panes of glass, and up to three hundred or so rooms. Many of these jobs are usually contracted out. The window-cleaning, for example, is probably done by professionals who, in rotation, polish the panes of a regular and extensive clientele. The main qualification of a window-cleaner is the possession of a good head for heights, for a window has two sides, and the outside is usually the most difficult to get at. Not everybody is good at working fifty or sixty feet above the street, even with the assurance of a safety-belt. Windowcleaning must be a profitable job, for several city window-cleaners drive to work in comfortable modern ears. “Captain Caretaker.” Most of these big buildings are in charge of a caretaker, who is captain of the exponents of scrubbing-brush and broom. The caretaker of one of Wellington’s biggest public buildings initiated “The Dominion” into novel and interesting details of behind-the-scenes organisation. This man lives in a pleasant flat, overlooking a roof-garden of bright geraniums, on top of the‘highest story. From his window he can look out over the roofs of the city, commanding a glorious view in any direction. His small dog has the run of the roof for exercise; a green Mexican parrot from its cage on the parapet jeers at the passers-by in the street away below. The noise of the traffic sounds remote and distant; many suburban flats are not so peaceful. That is the top of the building. Away at the bottom the scene is very different. In the basement, in a room reminiscent of a steamer’s stokehold, the caretaker tends three huge boilers, not differing materially in appearance from those of a sea-going ship. They are heated by crude-oil burners, supplied with fuel pumped through under pressure, just as those of a modern oil-burning steamer. The heat of the roaring white flame .is tremendous, while the hum of the pumps completes the nautical illusion. The two main boilers provide hot water for the central heating system, the water circulating through miles of pipes of its own accord, the hot rising and the cold returning to the boilers. The third boiler, a smaller one, supplies hot water throughout the building, to tea-rooms and lavatories.

Another room in tlie basement Is a repository of cleaning requisites and contains piles of soap bars, canisters of polishing wax, supplies Of brushes and brooms and buckets. It gives the impression of a small warehouse. “Of course, these supplies will last us for about a yeaf,” says the custodian. He explains that the cleaning of the building, carefully planned, is managed in about three hours and a half after the office workers have departed. It is hard going, and employs 15 charwomen, beside three who clean out the tea-rooms.

Although in this and in most New Zealand offices, no provision is made for it, in many big new buildings in Europe the very air is renovated, airconditioning plant and fans being located on the roof and supplying ventilation to large meeting-rooms, theatres and other parts of the building.