The American Architect and Building News,
VOL. XXXIII.
Copyright, 1891, by Ticknor & Company, Boston, Mass.
No. 814.
Entered at the Post-Office at Boston as second-class matter.
AUGUST 1, 1891.
Summary:—
Mayor Grant’s Suggestion as to the New York Municipal Buildings. — Final Award in the Competition for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. — Elevator Inconveniences.— Alleged Condition of the Chicago Government Building. — The Design for the New Coinage. — Proposed Ocean
Steamship —Competition in Designs for Furniture. ... 01 Architecture of the United States.— III.....................................68
Comparative Municipal Building Laws. — 1............................................06 Louis Philippe and his Architect...................................................................69 Stopping a Coffer-dam Leak................................................................... .69 The Carpenter and the House...........................................................................70 Some Uses of Compressed Air.............................................................................78 Concrete Walls and Piers....................................................................................74 Societies..........................................................................................................75 Illustrations : —
House for B. H. Warder, Esq , Washington, D. C.—The Erwin Home for Worthy and Indigent Women, New Britain, Conn. — Office-building at Philadelphia, Pa.— Competitive Design for the Board of Trade Building, Montreal, Can.
Additional: House at Roscoff (Finistere), France.— Section of the Same. — Plans of the Same. — Cottages, Fortingall, Perthshire, N B—Policeman’s Cottage, Fortingall, Perthshire, N. B.— Gienlyon Farm-steading, Fortingall, Perthshire, N. B.— New Welsh Presbyterian Church, Ruthin, Wales.—
Brewery Tap for City of London Brewery Company. ... 75
Communications: —
Repeated Building from the Same Plans. — Who knows about
Canvas Ceilings ? ........................................................................76 Notes and Clippings...............................................................................................76
M
AYOR GRANT, of New York, has thought of what appears to be a sensible scheme for providing room for
the new city-hall and other public offices, which are greatly needed there. Various plans have been devised for arranging these offices, and two competitions have been held, with very small satisfaction to the architects who engaged in them; but nearly all the schemes, so far, have contemplated the placing of the new building on the City-hall Park. The Park is small, and would be reduced, by the addition of another large building to those already there, almost to nothing, so that the citizens who wish to preserve the area as a breathingspace, which is greatly needed in that part of New York, have protested loudly, and hitherto successfully, against the adoption of any of the plans. A proposition for condemning a tract of land on Broadway, near the Park, failed on account of the enormous expense involved, and the condition of the affair is now just what it was ten years ago. As a way out of the difficulty, Mayor Grant proposes that the ill-digested mass of scattered buildings which now occupies portions of the Park, including the old City-ball, the “ new Court-house,” with its incongrous extension, the Record Office and the old enginehouse, shall be swept away, leaving a clear field, in the middle of which shall be erected a single structure, enclosing a quadrangle, and accommodating all the city and county offices now scattered through several buildings, and in a much more adequate manner. It is believed that all the room needed can be obtained in a building which will cover only thirty-six hundred square feet more than the separate buildings into which the same services are now inconveniently crowded, and the vast building, with its interior court, properly placed on such a site, would be a splendid ornament to the city, and would not very greatly detract from the value of the Park as a place for the circulation of fresh air. There is something startling, from a financial point-of-view, in the idea of pulling down the “new” Court-house, which was only built about twenty years ago, and cost six million dollars, to make room for another building; hut architecture would not lose much by the change, although history might regret the disappearance of the principal monument of the rule of the Tweed Ring. This picturesque gang, as old New Yorkers will remember, made the Court-house a sluiceway through which the public money poured in streams into their pockets ; and we imagine that the windows are yet to be seen where the three shades were hung, which would have cost ordinary citizens about four dollars apiece, but. for which three hundred thousand dollars were paid out of the city treasury upon orders drawn, audited, signed and approved by the proper officials in the form prescribed by law.
THE most interesting event of the current week is to be found in the announcement that the Trustees of the Cathe
dral of St. John the Divine have decided to place the erection of the building in the hands of Messrs. Heins & LaFarge, the youngest and least experienced of the four competitors in the final competition. Fortunately youth and inexperience are not cardinal sins, but may even be, when united with natural ability and thorough acquired training, cardinal virtues. The choice, which for many reasons we consider the best that could be made under the circumstances, indicates one thing pretty clearly and it militates strongly against the ordinary practice of giving to the most successful and popular — and therefore the busiest — architect still further work to do. In the present case, starting with the assumption that the four competitors possessed equivalent capacities, the event has proved that the competitor whose attention was least distracted from the study of his problem hv the imperative calls of a busy practice has carried off the prize. Messrs. Heins & LaFarge happened to be so situated that they could give more undivided and sustained attention to their problem than any of the others, the result being that their final drawings showed greater evidences of serious study and consequent improvement than did any of tlie others, and so seemed to give tokens of their intention and ability to still further better the work as it went on. Before the building is finished — perhaps even before it is begun — their youth and inexperience will have been cured. It may be interesting to note that out of the nine votes on the merits of the final drawings — all that our subscribers saw fit to send in response to our invitation — three were thrown for Heins & LaFarge, while five declared for Mr. Wood.
M
R. JOHN BEVERLEY ROBINSON, in an interesting paper on “ The Tall Office-buildings of New York,” in a recent number of the Engineering Magazine, suggests, as a possible improvement in management, that some of the elevators in such buildings should run “ express,” making no stops between the ground-floor and perhaps the seventh or tenth or fifteenth story. It may interest architects to know that this arrangement has already been adopted in one or two of the high buildings in Boston, to the great relief of the tenants, and it will undoubtedly soon become universal for such structures. At present, the discomfort of the elevators is the great objection to the occupancy of offices in large and high buildings. No matter how large they may be, they are always crammed nearly to suffocation at the starting-point during the busy hours of the day, and, in addition to the heat and annoyance, they give admirable opportunities for pickpockets to ply their trade. Soon after starting, the load begins to be lightened ; ii* fact, the number of stout and apparently active young men and boys who will wedge themselves into a crowded elevator, stand patiently for several minutes in the crush, and wedge themselves out again at the first stopping-place, rather than walk up one flight of stairs, would surprise the inexperienced observer; and, after traversing five or six stories, but a small portion of the original cargo is left. Under the new arrangement, the bank-messengers, the telegraph-boys, the fruit-women, the cigar-peddlers and the other portions of the numerous clientele which appertains more properly to the large and densely populated banking or insurance offices on the lower floors have a set of elevators to themselves; while the lawyers, architects and engineers who occupy the upper rooms, and who number their visitors by tens where the bankers have their hundreds, can travel to and from their offices without having at every trip a telegraph-boy standing on their toes, and a broker’s messenger trying their ribs with his elbow on each side. Another improvement,, which is yet to come, will consist, we think, in an automatic stop for the elevator. Nothing is more tedious, clumsy and dangerous than the way in which an inexperienced hoy stops and starts an elevator, particularly if lie wishes to astonish the passengers by his skill. Often, he purposely fails to stop it entirely at the landing, expecting the passengers to leap in or out witli sufficient agility to escape having their heads dashed against the top of the door, or their toes sheared off by the projecting nosing of the threshold. At other times lie fails to pull the shipper-rope in time, and the elevator stops a foot or two above its proper place. This fault is corrected by a second jerk, which sends it as far in the opposite direction, and the correct position is only attained after
VOL. XXXIII.
Copyright, 1891, by Ticknor & Company, Boston, Mass.
No. 814.
Entered at the Post-Office at Boston as second-class matter.
AUGUST 1, 1891.
Summary:—
Mayor Grant’s Suggestion as to the New York Municipal Buildings. — Final Award in the Competition for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. — Elevator Inconveniences.— Alleged Condition of the Chicago Government Building. — The Design for the New Coinage. — Proposed Ocean
Steamship —Competition in Designs for Furniture. ... 01 Architecture of the United States.— III.....................................68
Comparative Municipal Building Laws. — 1............................................06 Louis Philippe and his Architect...................................................................69 Stopping a Coffer-dam Leak................................................................... .69 The Carpenter and the House...........................................................................70 Some Uses of Compressed Air.............................................................................78 Concrete Walls and Piers....................................................................................74 Societies..........................................................................................................75 Illustrations : —
House for B. H. Warder, Esq , Washington, D. C.—The Erwin Home for Worthy and Indigent Women, New Britain, Conn. — Office-building at Philadelphia, Pa.— Competitive Design for the Board of Trade Building, Montreal, Can.
Additional: House at Roscoff (Finistere), France.— Section of the Same. — Plans of the Same. — Cottages, Fortingall, Perthshire, N B—Policeman’s Cottage, Fortingall, Perthshire, N. B.— Gienlyon Farm-steading, Fortingall, Perthshire, N. B.— New Welsh Presbyterian Church, Ruthin, Wales.—
Brewery Tap for City of London Brewery Company. ... 75
Communications: —
Repeated Building from the Same Plans. — Who knows about
Canvas Ceilings ? ........................................................................76 Notes and Clippings...............................................................................................76
M
AYOR GRANT, of New York, has thought of what appears to be a sensible scheme for providing room for
the new city-hall and other public offices, which are greatly needed there. Various plans have been devised for arranging these offices, and two competitions have been held, with very small satisfaction to the architects who engaged in them; but nearly all the schemes, so far, have contemplated the placing of the new building on the City-hall Park. The Park is small, and would be reduced, by the addition of another large building to those already there, almost to nothing, so that the citizens who wish to preserve the area as a breathingspace, which is greatly needed in that part of New York, have protested loudly, and hitherto successfully, against the adoption of any of the plans. A proposition for condemning a tract of land on Broadway, near the Park, failed on account of the enormous expense involved, and the condition of the affair is now just what it was ten years ago. As a way out of the difficulty, Mayor Grant proposes that the ill-digested mass of scattered buildings which now occupies portions of the Park, including the old City-ball, the “ new Court-house,” with its incongrous extension, the Record Office and the old enginehouse, shall be swept away, leaving a clear field, in the middle of which shall be erected a single structure, enclosing a quadrangle, and accommodating all the city and county offices now scattered through several buildings, and in a much more adequate manner. It is believed that all the room needed can be obtained in a building which will cover only thirty-six hundred square feet more than the separate buildings into which the same services are now inconveniently crowded, and the vast building, with its interior court, properly placed on such a site, would be a splendid ornament to the city, and would not very greatly detract from the value of the Park as a place for the circulation of fresh air. There is something startling, from a financial point-of-view, in the idea of pulling down the “new” Court-house, which was only built about twenty years ago, and cost six million dollars, to make room for another building; hut architecture would not lose much by the change, although history might regret the disappearance of the principal monument of the rule of the Tweed Ring. This picturesque gang, as old New Yorkers will remember, made the Court-house a sluiceway through which the public money poured in streams into their pockets ; and we imagine that the windows are yet to be seen where the three shades were hung, which would have cost ordinary citizens about four dollars apiece, but. for which three hundred thousand dollars were paid out of the city treasury upon orders drawn, audited, signed and approved by the proper officials in the form prescribed by law.
THE most interesting event of the current week is to be found in the announcement that the Trustees of the Cathe
dral of St. John the Divine have decided to place the erection of the building in the hands of Messrs. Heins & LaFarge, the youngest and least experienced of the four competitors in the final competition. Fortunately youth and inexperience are not cardinal sins, but may even be, when united with natural ability and thorough acquired training, cardinal virtues. The choice, which for many reasons we consider the best that could be made under the circumstances, indicates one thing pretty clearly and it militates strongly against the ordinary practice of giving to the most successful and popular — and therefore the busiest — architect still further work to do. In the present case, starting with the assumption that the four competitors possessed equivalent capacities, the event has proved that the competitor whose attention was least distracted from the study of his problem hv the imperative calls of a busy practice has carried off the prize. Messrs. Heins & LaFarge happened to be so situated that they could give more undivided and sustained attention to their problem than any of the others, the result being that their final drawings showed greater evidences of serious study and consequent improvement than did any of tlie others, and so seemed to give tokens of their intention and ability to still further better the work as it went on. Before the building is finished — perhaps even before it is begun — their youth and inexperience will have been cured. It may be interesting to note that out of the nine votes on the merits of the final drawings — all that our subscribers saw fit to send in response to our invitation — three were thrown for Heins & LaFarge, while five declared for Mr. Wood.
M
R. JOHN BEVERLEY ROBINSON, in an interesting paper on “ The Tall Office-buildings of New York,” in a recent number of the Engineering Magazine, suggests, as a possible improvement in management, that some of the elevators in such buildings should run “ express,” making no stops between the ground-floor and perhaps the seventh or tenth or fifteenth story. It may interest architects to know that this arrangement has already been adopted in one or two of the high buildings in Boston, to the great relief of the tenants, and it will undoubtedly soon become universal for such structures. At present, the discomfort of the elevators is the great objection to the occupancy of offices in large and high buildings. No matter how large they may be, they are always crammed nearly to suffocation at the starting-point during the busy hours of the day, and, in addition to the heat and annoyance, they give admirable opportunities for pickpockets to ply their trade. Soon after starting, the load begins to be lightened ; ii* fact, the number of stout and apparently active young men and boys who will wedge themselves into a crowded elevator, stand patiently for several minutes in the crush, and wedge themselves out again at the first stopping-place, rather than walk up one flight of stairs, would surprise the inexperienced observer; and, after traversing five or six stories, but a small portion of the original cargo is left. Under the new arrangement, the bank-messengers, the telegraph-boys, the fruit-women, the cigar-peddlers and the other portions of the numerous clientele which appertains more properly to the large and densely populated banking or insurance offices on the lower floors have a set of elevators to themselves; while the lawyers, architects and engineers who occupy the upper rooms, and who number their visitors by tens where the bankers have their hundreds, can travel to and from their offices without having at every trip a telegraph-boy standing on their toes, and a broker’s messenger trying their ribs with his elbow on each side. Another improvement,, which is yet to come, will consist, we think, in an automatic stop for the elevator. Nothing is more tedious, clumsy and dangerous than the way in which an inexperienced hoy stops and starts an elevator, particularly if lie wishes to astonish the passengers by his skill. Often, he purposely fails to stop it entirely at the landing, expecting the passengers to leap in or out witli sufficient agility to escape having their heads dashed against the top of the door, or their toes sheared off by the projecting nosing of the threshold. At other times lie fails to pull the shipper-rope in time, and the elevator stops a foot or two above its proper place. This fault is corrected by a second jerk, which sends it as far in the opposite direction, and the correct position is only attained after