INSURANCE RATES REDUCED
Our New System of Hollow Tile Construction Eliminates the Use of Steel
Write for Catalogue showing the Johnson System of Fireproofing suitable for Eesidenoes and Offices as well as the largest Warehouse Buildings.
NATIONAL FIREPROOFING CO., Be».mcr Bug., Pittsburgh, Pa. New York Boston Philadelphia Chicago Baltimore Cleveland Canton Minneapolis
We Design a.nd Build all Types of GREENHOUSES
Burnham-Hitching s-Pierson Co.
Broadway and 26ih St., NEW YORK
ed to tear out three partitions on the east end of the third floor, and to tear up some of the flooring to make room for bathroom plumbing.
It was the next day that he approached Mr. Bittner.
“Say,” he said, “if this is what your old hotel is made of, I’ll have to raise my price on this job. I’m a practical carpenter, not a cabinet-maker.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Mr. Bittner. “This,” said the contractor, and he handed Mr. Bittner a singularly heavy chip of wood.
“What’s that?” asked the hotel man, “pitch pine?”
“If that’s pitch pine,” said the contractor, “I’d like to buy a woodpile of it at market rates. I wouldn’t kindle no fires with it. It is old mahogany, that’s what it is.”
“Don’t believe it,” said Mr. Bittner. “It isn’t red; it’s gray.”
“Put a polish on it and see if it gets red or not,” responded the contractor. “It’s the goods. That’s why there’s no sag to your hotel.”
This set Mr. Bittner to investigating. He took up some flooring on the western end of the old structure. The joists under the floor were all mahogany. He tried it in the middle of the house, Same result. He poked through the lath and plaster in some rooms which he intended to renovate, and found that the uprights are of mahogany. So far as he could tell, the framework T>f the first three stories, which comprised the original house, is all solid mahogany, rough hewn and bolted. The two upper stories were added later. Their framework is of pine and oak.
The Cole estate owns the building, which measures on the ground, 107 by 54 feet. If the estate ever decides to tear down the old hotel and rebuild, the ruins will go far toward a building fund. The timbers, as said before, are rough hewn, not sawed. The joists, about a dozen of which have been uncovered, are about three inches thick by 18 inches deep. Some of the beams seem to be about 12 by 12. The mahog
any, of course, is perfectly seasoned and preserved.
Ninety years ago mahogany was cheaper than it is now, of course; but even then it was a fancy tropical wood. Perhaps the builder got a job-lot at a bargain. Perhaps he was trying to do the thing up. regardless of expense—for the “Eastern,” then the “Eagle,” was the high-class, high-priced hotel of its time. Perhaps the interior fittings were all of mahogany, which was taken out for less expensive fittings after the downtown district became lost to fashion.
In the time before street-cars, even horsecars, the big hotels of the town had to be within easy walking distance of the Battery. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century many of the celebrities who visited New York stayed at the “Eagle.” Later Daniel Webster was practically its proprietor. He put up the money for a relative who leased it and Webster made it his headquarters when he was in town in days before he took to the Astor. His famous bottle of brandy was kept behind its bar. The politicians followed Webster; it was the Fifth Avenue and the Holland House of the time. This period, too, passed. But the Eagle Hotel left a queer imprint upon the history of the Far West. Wherever the traveler goes, in the miningcamps which flourished in the early days of California and Nevada he is likely to find an Eagle Hotel. It is the most common name for a hotel in such camps. The pioneers named them, doubtless, after the popular hotel of New York, just as now the latter-day camps boast of the Maison Riche or Delmonico’s.
The “Eagle” settled down later to be a hotel for seafaring men. Some of the present patrons have been visiting it, when in port, for fifty years. Along in the sixties, when the Great Eastern was the sensation of the day, the name was changed with a change of management. It was afterward abbreviated to “Eastern,” but the older patrons still refer to it as the Great Eastern. The managers of these days never
knew that it was once the “Eagle” until in renovating a few years ago they tore out part of the ornaments over the new front and found the legend “Eagle Hotel” painted on the bricks.
Japanese Temple, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia.—The famous “Niomon,” or Japanese temple, brought here from the far eastern island kingdom and rebuilt in Fairmount Park, has been completed. Its site is in the sunken gardens, west of Horticultural Hall. This oriental gem of architecture is the gift to the city of John H. Converse and Samuel H. Vauclain.
The shrine was erected about 300 years ago at the main entrance of a well-known temple in Hitachi, by Lord Satake, in commemoration of his deceased father. Completed by the most celebrated painters and sculptors, the work was considered a marvel of its time. It is wrought in its entirely without nails of any sort. Prominent among the decorative images are two sacred dogs by Unkei, one of the greatest masters in Japan.—Philadelphia Record.
Canadian Duties on American Plans. —The memorial from Canadian architects has been presented to the chairman of the Canadian Tariff Commission, respecting the necessity of the imposition of duties on plans sent by American architects for buildings in Canada. It is as follows:
Sir:—The Ontario Association of Architects and the Toronto Architectural Eighteen Club beg respectfully to call your attention to the injustice done to Canadian architects by the present tariff on architectural drawings. Prior to December, 1901, the duty on drawings coming into Canada from the United States was as follows:
“Each set of original drawings, or single set of blue-prints of same, if brought into Canada as a substitute for the original drawings, two per cent, of the estimated cost of the building to be erected thereon.
“Same, if accompanied by details, three per cent, of such estimated cost.
“Details or blue-prints of same, if imported separately, one per cent, of the estimated cost of such detail.
Our New System of Hollow Tile Construction Eliminates the Use of Steel
Write for Catalogue showing the Johnson System of Fireproofing suitable for Eesidenoes and Offices as well as the largest Warehouse Buildings.
NATIONAL FIREPROOFING CO., Be».mcr Bug., Pittsburgh, Pa. New York Boston Philadelphia Chicago Baltimore Cleveland Canton Minneapolis
We Design a.nd Build all Types of GREENHOUSES
Burnham-Hitching s-Pierson Co.
Broadway and 26ih St., NEW YORK
ed to tear out three partitions on the east end of the third floor, and to tear up some of the flooring to make room for bathroom plumbing.
It was the next day that he approached Mr. Bittner.
“Say,” he said, “if this is what your old hotel is made of, I’ll have to raise my price on this job. I’m a practical carpenter, not a cabinet-maker.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Mr. Bittner. “This,” said the contractor, and he handed Mr. Bittner a singularly heavy chip of wood.
“What’s that?” asked the hotel man, “pitch pine?”
“If that’s pitch pine,” said the contractor, “I’d like to buy a woodpile of it at market rates. I wouldn’t kindle no fires with it. It is old mahogany, that’s what it is.”
“Don’t believe it,” said Mr. Bittner. “It isn’t red; it’s gray.”
“Put a polish on it and see if it gets red or not,” responded the contractor. “It’s the goods. That’s why there’s no sag to your hotel.”
This set Mr. Bittner to investigating. He took up some flooring on the western end of the old structure. The joists under the floor were all mahogany. He tried it in the middle of the house, Same result. He poked through the lath and plaster in some rooms which he intended to renovate, and found that the uprights are of mahogany. So far as he could tell, the framework T>f the first three stories, which comprised the original house, is all solid mahogany, rough hewn and bolted. The two upper stories were added later. Their framework is of pine and oak.
The Cole estate owns the building, which measures on the ground, 107 by 54 feet. If the estate ever decides to tear down the old hotel and rebuild, the ruins will go far toward a building fund. The timbers, as said before, are rough hewn, not sawed. The joists, about a dozen of which have been uncovered, are about three inches thick by 18 inches deep. Some of the beams seem to be about 12 by 12. The mahog
any, of course, is perfectly seasoned and preserved.
Ninety years ago mahogany was cheaper than it is now, of course; but even then it was a fancy tropical wood. Perhaps the builder got a job-lot at a bargain. Perhaps he was trying to do the thing up. regardless of expense—for the “Eastern,” then the “Eagle,” was the high-class, high-priced hotel of its time. Perhaps the interior fittings were all of mahogany, which was taken out for less expensive fittings after the downtown district became lost to fashion.
In the time before street-cars, even horsecars, the big hotels of the town had to be within easy walking distance of the Battery. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century many of the celebrities who visited New York stayed at the “Eagle.” Later Daniel Webster was practically its proprietor. He put up the money for a relative who leased it and Webster made it his headquarters when he was in town in days before he took to the Astor. His famous bottle of brandy was kept behind its bar. The politicians followed Webster; it was the Fifth Avenue and the Holland House of the time. This period, too, passed. But the Eagle Hotel left a queer imprint upon the history of the Far West. Wherever the traveler goes, in the miningcamps which flourished in the early days of California and Nevada he is likely to find an Eagle Hotel. It is the most common name for a hotel in such camps. The pioneers named them, doubtless, after the popular hotel of New York, just as now the latter-day camps boast of the Maison Riche or Delmonico’s.
The “Eagle” settled down later to be a hotel for seafaring men. Some of the present patrons have been visiting it, when in port, for fifty years. Along in the sixties, when the Great Eastern was the sensation of the day, the name was changed with a change of management. It was afterward abbreviated to “Eastern,” but the older patrons still refer to it as the Great Eastern. The managers of these days never
knew that it was once the “Eagle” until in renovating a few years ago they tore out part of the ornaments over the new front and found the legend “Eagle Hotel” painted on the bricks.
Japanese Temple, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia.—The famous “Niomon,” or Japanese temple, brought here from the far eastern island kingdom and rebuilt in Fairmount Park, has been completed. Its site is in the sunken gardens, west of Horticultural Hall. This oriental gem of architecture is the gift to the city of John H. Converse and Samuel H. Vauclain.
The shrine was erected about 300 years ago at the main entrance of a well-known temple in Hitachi, by Lord Satake, in commemoration of his deceased father. Completed by the most celebrated painters and sculptors, the work was considered a marvel of its time. It is wrought in its entirely without nails of any sort. Prominent among the decorative images are two sacred dogs by Unkei, one of the greatest masters in Japan.—Philadelphia Record.
Canadian Duties on American Plans. —The memorial from Canadian architects has been presented to the chairman of the Canadian Tariff Commission, respecting the necessity of the imposition of duties on plans sent by American architects for buildings in Canada. It is as follows:
Sir:—The Ontario Association of Architects and the Toronto Architectural Eighteen Club beg respectfully to call your attention to the injustice done to Canadian architects by the present tariff on architectural drawings. Prior to December, 1901, the duty on drawings coming into Canada from the United States was as follows:
“Each set of original drawings, or single set of blue-prints of same, if brought into Canada as a substitute for the original drawings, two per cent, of the estimated cost of the building to be erected thereon.
“Same, if accompanied by details, three per cent, of such estimated cost.
“Details or blue-prints of same, if imported separately, one per cent, of the estimated cost of such detail.