SKYSCRAPERS OF GLASS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20898, 13 June 1931, Page 4 (Supplement)

SKYSCRAPERS OF GLASS.

Skyscrapers aro now being built of glass, " one of fourteen storeys having already been completed in Berlin, while a much taller one, running to thirty storeys, is to be erected in New York. A framework of steel is set up, and the walls are entirely of glass. In fact, it is a building that is all window. No one could have afforded such a building in England eighty years ago or more, for then windows were taxed heavily. It w»3 the most wicked tax ever invented. Health is dependent upon light and sunshine, but l in those bad old days it paid to keep houses dark and badly ventilated, for the window tax, as it was called, was very heavy indeed. A house with only one window paid 6s a year. If there were seven windows the tax was 18s 6d, and anyone whoso house had fifty-two windows, ' would have had to pay £3O 15s a year for the privilege of letting in the sunshine. The more windows a house had, the higher was the rate per window. These glass skyscrapers would have had to pay hundreds of pounds every year in window taxes. There are people living in England today who remember the window tax.