SKYSCRAPERS.

Colonist, Volume LIII, Issue 13109, 18 May 1911, Page 4

SKYSCRAPERS.

In Chicago considerable anxiety has been caused by the accomplishment of some remarkable feats of architectural skill, and the Board of Aldermen has decided to limit the height of buildings to 200 ft., which is not a very harsh restriction. In New York, howciver, no check is placed upon building enterprise, and a skyscraper of iit'ty-eight storeys is being constructed at prenont in the heart oi the great city. The main structure,, which is to have a frontage of 150 ft to Broadway, will contain thirty storeys, and the remaining twenty-eight will be narrower. The top of the building will be 750 ft above the street level, and there wiJl be 100 ft of building below the street, as the builders hud to go to that depth to find a sufficiently solid foundation. The cost of the site and thel great building is estimated at £2,500,000. Even the municipality itself is acquiring the habit of building skyscrapers. The old City Hall, a modest building of two storeys is carefully preserved, but near it the municipality is orecting a huge struc-. ture of thirty-nine storeys, which is to be the largest municipal building in the world. The foundations are 150 ft. below the surface, and underneath them there will be a subway railroad station covering four acres. Tho municipality proposes to spond about £2,250,000 on its "offices." A telephone exchange twenty-foui storeys high is to be erected' soon in the same locality, and three miles away a syndicate is about to build an hotel of twenty-five storeys. At the edge of the harbour there is a great new building, known as the Whitehall, which comprises thirty-one spaciou.storeys. The three highest and a broad roof garden are to be used as a club, in which business men of tho financial district will be able to enjoy any leisure they can secure in the daj time. It will be possible for a thousand people to sit down together t;i luncheon or dinner in the club. The roof garden, at any rate, should make the skyscraper worth while.