WEALTH PILED UP

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 19, 24 January 1927, Page 4

WEALTH PILED UP

NEW YORK'S STRONG BOX

THE VAULTS OF MANHATTAN

The southern pud of Manhattan Island is the world's treasure chest. It contains buried treasure —piles of gold and silver in glittering bars, reposing beneath eleetrie lights in subterranean vaults. Flashing gems arc there, writes Kenneth. Jones in the'"New York Times Magazine." Jade and sapphire, turquoise and emerald, aquamarine aid amethyst; rubies from Ceylon, lapis lazuli from Russia, pink tourmalin from South America— r a nation's ransom. In Maiden some 200 jewellers handle stores of jewels 'worth' millions. Lapidaries bend over rare gems, ■ applying their "craftsmanship to bring out hidden beauties, while in adjoining rooms gold workers fashion scrolls and delicate traceries to receive the stones. Surrounding these establishments are many banks, rearing their height over vaults in which gold lies buried. The amount of wealth in- gold and gems alone in the fifty acres that comprise the jewellery and downtown banking districts of .-New York" City may run into billions.of dollars : .per acre. Beyond avdoubt this : is the richest spot i&,the .world. v

Here one finds displayed man's greatest ingenuity in the f orrii of instruments to protect his property. Nowhere else could one find more modern devices. Before^a single gold bar was moved into ■a bank,, thousands of dollars had b"een spent on doors of steel weighing hundreds .of tons, balanced to hair-trigger accuracy. Concrete and steel, bars and cables, time locks, padlocks, locks with spilt combinations and ordinary spring locks had been installed. Protection was built into the foundations of the buildings, and.a mantle of elec-tricity-was drawnraround the whole. A mouse, bent on-'forage'in the world's treasure chest, had best "be careful!

To add a finishing touch to' the business of guarding wealth guards are' employed; r . They stand unostentatiously around.the corridors, far down below street level, and might be mistaken for (.business men. ■They.-wearno. uniform, but "carry automatic pistols.'; In the vaults of the Federal Re> serve Bank of New York are found the most advanced methods of protection. .The vaults .were-built, fifty feet below water level—a first precaution. Their outside covering consists of ten feet of concrete, through 'which are laced the, wires of a microphoning system. A continuous . tapping ! against the outer walls jb audible at a central point within' the 'building.: To touch one of these wires is to spread an alarm. The vault itself, is. set \yithin the enclosure jnade by ; these^'-concrete walls, much ; after jth'e'Ta'sh"iqn 'of a small Box placed' withftfa-.larger'in&'.'J .The corridor surrounding the vault is four feet wide.' At each angle of the;corridor one finds a six-foot mirror, !expertly ■••"'adjusted: These mirrors are so placed that a guard standing at the entrance to the vault can see all the way around it without moving. A circular steel door, five feet thick, is the only entrance to the vault. It swings" open easily, on'a turntable, but only after several keys : 'are'use'd,. several different combinations worked, and a number of wheels and levers turned.. Each official'has but one key, or knows but one -of* the many combinations, which are frequently changed. It is ; safe to.surmise that no one man will ever open that door alone. It takes a small army. ...... -. .

When one enters the vault (accompanied, of course,! and after having registered outside},'there are still looks to bo opened and: seals ■ to be broken before one may.vtouch the piles of gold. Where padlocks are used they are sealed. Tho Beals are broken periodically, however, when a squad enters with.feather dusters. Man, physically, plays but a small role in guarding the store. Electricity assumes most of the responsibility. An innocent-looking silver border, apparently a decorative design around the edge of a jeweller's window, has more potentialities as a thief catcher than has a company of police. If the window be but cracked, the border is broken; and when the border is broken, private armed guards speed to the spot.

Jeweller's safes house jewels almost, beyond price; but the safes themselves are set in' cabinets of thin wood. These cabinets do not offer resistance to the crapkinan's tools. They seem almost tV invite assault. Yet woo to the luckless burglar who is fooled by an innocent' exterior. For through the thin slides, the top and bottom of the wooden case, runs a network of electrically charged tapes. "The meshes between the v tapes are;,but an inch or two wide. To open the door of one of the cabinets, which are left unlocked, is to sound the alarm in a central office. A pin stuck through this sensitive wood produces like results.

Not even the owners of wholesale jewellery establishments in this treasure area are immune to arrest. When a jeweller' reaches, his shop in the morning, the opening of the door sounds the alarm in'a central office. If he does not at once flash an O.K. code signal over, a .direct, wire, guards rush to the place. Nor does the jeweller get off lightly if he forgets. Nine times out of ten the guards will take him to the nearest, police station for questioning, and.only after the most thorough identification is he liberated. :

Nor does.protection stop there. If a merchant:is in the habit of opening his. establishment at 9 each morning, and happens some day to arrive at 8, the guard will visit him, despite the secret code signal—jiist to make sure. To do their bit (for they really have small opportunity to do much in guarding this,vast-pile of treasure) the New York police have established the "dead line." Fulton street is that dead line. Any criminal found south of it, and consequently in the treasure area, is automatically.subject to arrest. Wo do not worry much about gems once they are in'the'safe," a leading ■jeweller said tho other day. "But I certainly wish we could figure out some method of protecting the men • who nave to /carry the stuff • around' the streets." Most of the jewellers agree. Unce their merchandise is behind steel cioors and protected by electricity, they are satisfied. But to protect it while outside is a different thing., The jeweller just.quoted had cause to fear. Less than_ a week after the conversation one or his salesmen was robbed of a brief case containing £25,000 worth of jewel-