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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/abovecloudsoldne01bruc 
 
ABOVE THE CLOUDS 
 AND OLD NEW YORK 
 
 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE SITE AND A 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE MANY WONDERS OF THE 
 
 WOOLWORTH BUILDING 
 
 By H/ADDINGTON BRUCE 
 
 fci- ,*i!s»*i«-*< ■'•' ^J^ 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR DISTRIBUTION 
 AMONG THE VISITORS TO THE 
 
 WOOLWORTH TOWER 
 NEW YORK 
 
Vf^QT^-^. 
 
 
 
 
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 ^> ' 4' 
 
 iy^^.4v 
 
 c**, ^'Ai^ArH^iAJEH-" i; '}' 
 
 THE HALLWAY 
 "Roo/ftY li^if/i perfect arch, studded with colors soft yet luminous." 
 
 ©CI, 
 
 ~>j A '.J 4 fy (i O 'J Copyright 1913 by Hugh McAtamney 
 
 ut.fMi'i * VIS O Mi.nrlpr-ThnmsRn Presif;. RalMmore— New York 
 
ALMOST from the first dim beginnings of 
 New York, the ground on which the won- 
 derful Woolworth Building stands — at Broad- 
 way, Barclay Street, and Park Place — has been 
 directly or indirectly associated with important 
 events in the history of the city. This, too, in 
 spite of the fact that, incredible though it may 
 seem to the New Yorker of today, this locality 
 was still considered "pretty far up-town" as 
 late as the first quarter of the nineteenth 
 century — that is, little more than seventy-five 
 years ago. Yet all the while, to an extent unsuspected by any 
 except the historian, it has had a really noteworthy place in New 
 York's evolution. 
 
 Prior to the coming of the Dutch founders of New York it 
 was, of course, merely part of the verdant wilderness of meadow, 
 swamp, and wooded upland that then constituted Manhattan 
 Island. From one point of view — that of the farmer — there were 
 few more desirable locations than that immediately around the 
 spot now famous as the site of the highest building in the world. 
 It was free from bog and morass, sloped gently to the Hudson, 
 and lent itself readily to clearing and tillage. In this it contrasted 
 pleasantly with the more southerly section of the island, where a 
 long, narrow inlet extended far up the present Broad Street, pro- 
 viding a natural outlet for a marshy district between Broadway 
 and the East River. 
 
 But, partly at any rate because the founders of New York 
 were Dutch, and hence saw in the low-lying lands at the extreme 
 south of Manhattan an excellent opportunity for the upbuilding 
 of the canal-cleft type of town to which they were accustomed, it 
 was there that the great metropolis of today came into existence. 
 Strictlv speal^ing^ the date of its founding is 1623. Ten years 
 
 earlier, however, or four years after 
 Henry Hudson had voyaged in the 
 'Half-Moon" up the river that bears 
 iiiis name, three or four houses had 
 ^been built on Manhattan Island by a 
 Dutch explorer and trader, Adrian 
 Block, near what is now No. 41 
 Broadway. 
 
The U. S. Military Academy at West Point 
 Forty Miles to the North 
 
 Princeton University at Princeton. N. J. 
 Forty Miles to the Southwest 
 
AND OLD NEW YOR 
 
 No description of these first New York habitations for white 
 men has come down to us, and by some it has been conjectured 
 that they were mere wigwams. But since it is known that Block 
 had with him tools fit for the building of a ship, it is probable 
 that they were frame huts, perhaps covered with bark and reed- 
 thatched, Indian fashion. In any event, they served well enough 
 as outward and visible tokens of Dutch possession, until the 
 arrival of the first permanent settlers in 1623. 
 
 With their advent, the Woolworth site, far though it was 
 outside the limits of the original New York — or New Amsterdam, 
 as its founders named it — began to assume historic importance. 
 The control of the town, as of the entire province of New Nether- 
 land, had been vested in a commercial corporation, the Dutch 
 West India Company, and it was of course necessary to make 
 provision for the maintenance of the company's officials and 
 servants stationed on the island. Accordingly, search was m.ade 
 for a good farming section, and the choice very properly fell on 
 the land between Fulton and Warren Streets, from Broadway to 
 the North River. 
 
 Fenced in and reserved strictly for the use of the West India 
 Company, this fertile holding became popularly and officially 
 known as the Company's Farm. A rough road was opened to it, 
 rude precursor of the "Great White Way" of the twentieth century; 
 several buildings were set up, these including a house, barns, and 
 a substantial wind-mill; and soon the process of clearing was well 
 under way, workmen whose names have long faded from remem- 
 brance burning the brush and ploughing the soil of the very spot 
 where today one of the greatest architectural marvels of the ages 
 towers skyward in mind-enthralling majesty and beauty. 
 
 Meanwhile, all unconscious of this splendid edifice of a later 
 day, the worthy citizens of New Amsterdam paid less heed to the 
 development of the Company's Farm than to the duties and 
 pleasures of life in the cosy little town that gradually grew up 
 along the southeast river front. Here, in houses at first of wood 
 and afterwards of brick, built in the old Dutch manner with the 
 gable end towards the street, they passed their d^-^^in a placid, 
 leisurely simplicity. 
 
 Under their governor'" 
 Wouter Van Twiller— suc| 
 cessor to the Peter Minuiti 
 who, as every schoolboy! 
 knows, bought the. whole 
 Manhattan Island from tHe 
 
 
SOMIi (If- THE EXTERIOR ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS 
 OF THE WOOLWORTH BUILDING 
 
Indians for twenty-four dollars' worth of merchandise — they built 
 a strong fort at the foot of the island ; built a church in the fort ; and 
 established, between the fort and the beginning of Broadway, an 
 open space to meet the threefold need of a market-place, a 
 parade-ground, and a place for public celebrations and merry- 
 makings. This open space still exists in the Bowling Green of 
 the present day. 
 
 And, possessing as they did the proverbial Dutch fondness 
 for flowers, they were prompt to surround their houses with 
 fragrant gardens. It is difficult, indeed, to realize that where 
 offices and warehouses now compete for every available inch of 
 ground — in Pearl, Whitehall, Bridge, State-, and Broad Streets — 
 the makers of early New York took their ease amid violets and 
 roses, tulips, lilies, marigolds and gillyflowers. No less difficult is 
 it to conjure up in imagination the street scenes of that long-gone 
 time — the lazy gossiping of neighbor with neighbor, the sauntering 
 to church or market-place, the convivial gatherings of every 
 Dutch festival-day. 
 
 Slowly, though very slowly, the area of settlement widened, 
 moving northward and westward to Broadway. Even in the time 
 of that last, most illustrious, and most fiery of the Dutch governors, 
 the immortal Peter Stuyvesant of the Wooden Leg, Wall Street 
 was practically the northern boundary of the city. All beyond was 
 open country, dotted here and there with farmhouses and country- 
 seats. Nay, in Stuyvesant's time the city was actually cut off 
 from the rest of Manhattan at Wall Street by a long line of fortified 
 palisades, passage through which was afforded by only two narrow 
 gates. One of these was at Pearl Street, the other at Broadway 
 for traffic to the Company's Farm and to the so-called Fields, a 
 flat, brushy meadow directly opposite the Woolworth site, and 
 now familiar as historic City Hall Park, but at that time used 
 merely for pasturing the cattle of New Amsterdam. 
 
 A few more years, however, and both the Woolworth site 
 and the Fields were to figure in one of the most dramatic episodes 
 in the early annals of the city. This was a sequel to the Conqi 
 of 1664, when Governor Stuyvesant surrendered to the forces s 
 from England by the Duke of York, and New Amsterdam chah^ 
 its name to New York, English authorities maip\taining un<^4Sputed 
 sway over both city and province for '^ — 
 
 the next nine years. Then, England 
 and Holland being again at war, a 
 Dutch fleet, one fine August day in 
 1673, appeared in New York Bay and/-^^ 
 sent to the commander" of the fort 
 Captain John Ma|rt>hing, a ^^empto| 
 demand for its surrender. 
 
HE crougKTZS^ 
 
 LOWER BROADWAY AND THE BAY, FROM THE WOOL WORTH TOWER 
 
 
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 HHBIIalH 
 
 LOWER BROADWAY AND THE HARBOR LIGHTS, FROM THE 
 WOOL WORTH TOWER 
 
NEW YORK 
 
 Manning, who seems to have fallen into instant panic, sought 
 to postpone action of any kind until the next day. His plea for 
 delay was answered by a lively cannonading, after which the 
 Dutch landed six hundred strong above the Wall vStreet palisades 
 and marched to the Fields, where they encamped preparatory to 
 storming the city. All this time, for reasons known only to him- 
 self. Captain Manning had not made a single defensive move, and 
 he now did nothing except to send three envoys to parley with the 
 Dutch commander, Anthony Colve. 
 
 The meeting between Colve and these emissaries must have 
 been in close proximity to the Woolworth site, and may have 
 been directly on it. As in all his previous proceedings, the Dutch- 
 man acted with remarkable energy. 
 
 "You, sirs," he said to two of the astounded envoys, "will 
 remain with us as hostages, while your companion will return to 
 the fort and inform your commander that he has exactly a quarter 
 of an hour in which to surrender." 
 
 Doubtless the tone in which he delivered this ultimatum 
 struck terror to the heart of the envoy lucky enough to be released. 
 For, as soon as he got out of sight of the Dutch camp, he changed 
 his course, and instead of carrying the message to the fort, fled 
 with all speed from the city. 
 
 Naturally not a word came from Manning to Colve, who, 
 enraged, now sent a Dutch trumpeter to demand a definite answer 
 to his summons to surrender. Back came the trumpeter with the 
 truthful, but highly exasperating, statement from Manning that 
 the summons had not yet been received. "This is the third time 
 they have played the fool with us!" shouted Colve, his patience at 
 an end. "March!" Drums beating, flags flying, the six hundred 
 struck from the Fields and the Woolworth site into Broadway, and 
 down Broadway they marched to the W^all Street gate, where the 
 tim.orous Manning hastily yielded possession. 
 
 Alas for brave, energetic A>.nthony 
 Colve ' Little more than a 
 year later he and-his^ 
 TS^'ere 
 
^^ii"': 
 
forced to abandon the city — driven out, not by the prowess of a 
 hostile army, but by the action of distant treaty-makers in agreeing 
 that, as part of the terms of peace between England and Holland, 
 New York should be handed back to the English. Nor, after Colve 
 had hauled down the Dutch flag, did it ever again float in sov- 
 ereignty over Manhattan Island. 
 
 For many years afterwards, nevertheless, Dutch manners and 
 customs lingered, albeit many radical changes were introduced with 
 the permanent establishment of English rule. In appearance, too. 
 New York soon became greatly altered, especially after the tearing 
 down of the Wall Street palisades, in i6qq, and the opening of 
 new streets east of Broadway, as high as Maiden Lane — so named 
 because in the first days a brook ran through it, in which the girls 
 of New Amsterdam washed clothes. From Broadway to the North 
 River, in the Fulton to Warren Street section with which this 
 historical sketch is chiefly concerned, conditions remained much 
 as before until the eighteenth century was fairly well advanced, 
 although in the meantime an event had occurred that was to have 
 important consequences, both to the Fulton- Warren Street section 
 and to the city in general. 
 
 This was the transfer of ownership of the old Company's 
 Farm to the corporation of Trinity Church, which came into being 
 in i6q6 as the result of a law that the governor of the province 
 interpreted to mean the establishment of the Church of England 
 as the dominant church in New York. Up to then the Farm had 
 retained its original status as a State reservation, although it had 
 changed its namiC three times, being known as the Duke's Farm 
 after the Conquest of 1664, as the King's Farm upon the accession 
 of the Duke of York to the English thrQn^^-and*<;Q|"fh^Queen"&' 
 Farm when Anne became Queen of En^l^nd^^so, in\67^ii,'% hac 
 been more than doubled by the purc^^e of 
 farm adjoining it on the 
 
J^AHD..^;hD NEW YORK, 
 
 lease, and afterwards, in 1705, by a grant of outright ownership. 
 Thus was laid the foundation for the immense wealth of the 
 Trinity Church of today. 
 
 Long years were to pass, though, before the Church Farm, as 
 it was now known, brought in any considerable revenue. About 
 1 720 the southern part of it was laid out in lots, a line of handsome 
 trees was set on Broadway, and in the more northerly portion 
 farming operations were continued by various tenants who paid 
 but a few pounds' annual rental. After 1732, on the other handl 
 some impetus was given to its development for business and 
 residential purposes by the establishment of a rope-walk opposite 
 the Woolworth site, and still more by the transformation of the 
 Fields from a pasturing ground to the principal resort of the 
 people of New York for public meetings and celebrations. 
 
 Hitherto the chief amusement-spot had been the old market- 
 place in front of the fort. Here the Dutch settlers and their English 
 successors had had their bonfires and dances, their gam.es of bowls 
 and ball, and quainter, rougher sports, like the cruel pastime of 
 "clubbing the goose," in which the prize went to the man whose 
 heavy stick, hurled through the air, broke open a light-coopered 
 barrel and gave short-lived liberty to a miserable goose imprisoned 
 therein. But, in 1732, three enterprising citizens leased this 
 ground, enclosed it for a park and bowling-green, and thus obliged 
 the general populace to look elsewhere for a place for their more 
 rough-and-ready ways of recreation. 
 
 Their choice fell, as was said, on the Fields, lying triangular- 
 shaped between Broadway, Chambers Street, and the old Boston 
 Post-Road, which branched off from Broadway, just below the 
 Woolworth site, at the juncture of the present Park Row. Here, 
 henceforth, the King's Birthday, Guy Fawkes' Day, May Day 
 and other holidays were observed v/ith robust festivity; the merry- 
 makers finding further opportunity for amusement in the taverns 
 and "gardens" that as a matter of course were soon afterward^ 
 established in the^neighborjno^od. 
 
LOOKING ACROSS CITY HALL PARK, A BLENDING OF NATURE AND ART 
 
•LIKE A GREAT CATHEDRAL IT RISES OUT OF THE OLD STORES 
 AND DWELLINGS OF THE WATER FRONT" 
 
ABOVE THE CLOUDIS! 
 
 S(3ME OF THE TERRA-COIT'A DETAILS OF THE UPPER FLOORS OF THE 
 
 WOOL WORTH BUILDING TAKEN AT CLOSE RANGE TO 
 
 SHOW THEIR LARGE SCALE AND STRENGTH 
 
NEW YORKr^fT 
 
 Not least among these latter recreation-places was one opened 
 on the Church Farm, immediately adjacent to — and probably 
 partly on — the Wool worth site. It was kept by a certain Adam 
 Vandenberg, who seems to have been one of the most energetic 
 and successful amusement-promoters of his day. In addition to 
 his "Drover's Inn" and an entertainment-garden, he maintained 
 a race-course, to which he charged admission at the rate of six- 
 pence a head, and which was the scene of many lively contests. 
 Judging, also, from contemporary newspaper notices, he made 
 prodigious efforts to obtain "novelties" that would attract ever- 
 increasing custom to his place. 
 
 Thus it is chronicled that there was at one time "at the house 
 of Adam Vandenberg, in the Broadway, a musical machine which 
 represented the tragedy of 'Bateman.' The showman was Richard 
 Brickell, a famous posture-maker." And on another occasion an 
 equally celebrated performer "danced at Vandenberg's Garden on 
 a slack-rope scarcely perceptible, with and without a balance, a 
 measure which had given the greatest satisfaction to the King of 
 Great Britain," and which no doubt gave as much satisfaction to 
 Adam Vandenberg's jovial patrons of mid-eighteenth century New 
 York. 
 
 Many a time and oft must this keen-minded boniface, standing 
 
 on the ground where now the mighty Woolworth Building looks 
 
 down upon the City Hall and the Postoffice, have gazed across 
 
 the open Fields and indulged in quiet speculation as to what the 
 
 future might be holding in store for the city that still, for the most 
 
 part, lay to the south and east of his pleasure-resort. Not in his 
 
 boldest imaginings could he have dreamed of the New York of 
 
 today, the perpetual roar of traffic, the Titan citadels of business, 
 
 the myriads of men and women who daily hurry past the spot 
 
 where Richard Brickell postured and the slack-rope dancer danced. 
 
 But at least Adam Vandenberg might, and no doubt did, anticipate 
 
 ^Tvthe intej^vening time of trouble, when, ere it could really achieve 
 
 ylreatness, the city had to pass through the storms and trials of 
 
 x/ the then ^pprpaching American Revolution. 
 
THE HUDSON RIVER AND THE NEW JERSEY SHORE FROM THE WOOL WORTH 
 TOWER, SHOWING THE GREAT. SHIPPING CENTRES 
 
^ JND OLD NEW YQEK 
 
 And, in fact, not a few of the most momentous happenings in 
 the life of Revolutionary New York took place across the road 
 from Adam Vandenberg's inn and garden. It was there, on the 
 Fields — or Commons, as they now were known — where the people 
 had so long been accustomed to gather in holiday assembly, that 
 they met in angry conclave to voice their wrath at the passing 
 of the Stamp Act. It was there, a few months later, that they 
 once more met to rejoice over its repeal. There, again, on June 4, 
 1 766, the Sons of Liberty set up their historic pole with the inscrip- 
 tion, "The King, Pitt, and Liberty!" — the first of the liberty-poles 
 that served so well as symbols of the rising spirit of ardent and 
 determined resistance to oppression. 
 
 Many were the armed conflicts that took place on the Com- 
 mons over these same liberty-poles. Cut down by British troops, 
 they were soon replaced by the "rebellious" citizens. More than 
 once attempts at their destruction were frustrated by watchful 
 guards. Not until ten years had passed, and, in September, 1776, 
 the British troops had taken full possession of New York, did the 
 last of the liberty-poles crash to the ground; its fall impairing 
 not a whit the zeal, the fervor, and the ultimate triumph of the 
 freedom-intending patriots who had set it up. 
 
 In truth, its destruction could matter little to them since 
 that memorable day, three months before, when, with Washington 
 and his staff on horseback, in the centre of a vast hollow square 
 of soldiers and civilians, the Declaration of Independence was read 
 aloud, on the site of the present fountain in City Hall Park, only 
 a stone's throw from the Woolworth Building. No longer need of 
 liberty-poles to arouse the aspirations so masterfully voiced in 
 that unforgettable document! 
 
 Temporarily, it goes without saying, th^^sad^ gripi war that 
 followed put a check 
 to the growth of 
 New York. Thecity 
 had, for that matter 
 already receivedr^^ 
 severe 
 
-5'^^^ ABOVE THE ^SDDUD: 
 
 I (i u Li. cc-:?) ilf 11! 13? I >t !» r( Hi!. 
 
 J .'81 lasi 
 " III i!Ii 
 
 ; ;«sii, fit? 
 
 RAISING OUR FLAG TO THE TOP OF THE WORLD'S HIGHEST INHABITABLE 
 
 BUILDING, ON THE COMPLETION OF THE STEEL FRAME WORK 
 
 OF THE WOOL WORTH TOWER, JULY 1, 1912 
 
great fire of 1 776, when nearly five hundred buildings, from White- 
 hall to Barclay Street, were destroyed. These included Trinity 
 Church and most of the houses on the lower part of the Church 
 Farm, although St. Paul's (built in 1765) and King's College (on 
 Park Place) were saved. So, if it were still standing at that time, 
 was Adam Vandenberg's house, for the old records expressly state 
 that from St. Paul's the fire "inclined towards the North River 
 (the wind having changed to southeast) until it run out at the 
 water edge a little beyond the Bear Market," say at the present 
 Barclay Street. 
 
 Broadway, at any rate on the west side, was well-nigh 
 obliterated below Vesey Street; with the result, however, that 
 when rebuilding began it became, about 1 790, a vastly improved 
 street. Formerly the chief residential section had been in and 
 around Pearl Street, but now there set in a distinct movement 
 Broadwaywards, handsome brick mansions being erected on both 
 sides of the street, on which the first sidewalks ever laid in New 
 York were now put clown from Vesey Street to Murray Street. 
 Still further to accelerate the development of this "upper" part of 
 Broadway was the improvement of a portion of the Comm.ons into 
 a beautiful park, with a neat picket fencing; and the construction 
 in this enclosed space of a new City Hall, it being realized that 
 the old one in Wall Street would soon be hopelessly inadequate 
 
 to the needs \of the cit^^ 
 
 \ 
 
 Nine years this new City Hall was in 
 the building, and when completed, in 181 2, 
 the citizens, in the words of a guidebook of 
 the period, proudly regarded it as "the 
 handsomest structure in the United States ; 
 perhaps, of its size, in the world." Built, 
 mostly of native white marble, ^-^t. 
 

 
 THE WOOLWORTH BUILDING IS EQUIPPED WITH 26 OTIS ELEVATORS. TWO 
 OF THEM RUN FROM THE FIRST TO THE FIFTY-FIRST FLOOR— 680 FEET, THE 
 GREATEST DISTANCE SERVED BY ANY SINGLE PASSENGER ELEVATOR. A 
 SHUTTLE ELEVATOR CARRIES THE VISITORS FROM THE FIFTY-FIRST TO 
 THE FIFTY-FOURTH FLOOR. THE OBSERVATION STATION 
 
NEW YORK, 
 
 the civic capitol of today, justly admired for its stately symmetry, 
 and venerated for its historic associations. All around it, too, there 
 soon arose buildings of a better type than the neighborhood had 
 previously known. Substantial hotels began to replace the rude 
 inns and taverns, while the low, straggling farmhouses of earlier 
 epochs gave way to splendid residences. 
 
 In fact, the nineteenth century was still young when, on the 
 site of the Woolworth Building, there was built one of the largest 
 and finest dwelling-places in the city, a house so imposing in 
 appearance that it was long pointed out to strangers as one of 
 the "sights" of New York. Here leaders of wealth and fashion 
 met of an evening to dine, to dance, to play cards, backgammon, 
 bagatelle; perchance to discuss the latest play, the latest poem, 
 the latest book. 
 
 For the matter of that, discussion of plays and poems and 
 books unquestionably became, about 1822, a special feature of 
 life in the house on the Woolworth site. For it was then purchased 
 by the celebrated Philip Hone, merchant prince, patron of arts 
 and letters, and, in 1826, mayor of New York. Than this dis- 
 tinguished citizen there was no more affable, generous or popular 
 host. In the truest sense he kept "open house" at his beautiful 
 Broadway home, which became the resort of the ablest and most 
 influential men of New York. Men from other States — men like 
 Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Harrison Gray Otis — were 
 proud to be numbered among his friends and guests, who also 
 included foreign visitors of great distinction. 
 
 More than this, there often met at Philip Hone's house, 
 either as fellow-members of the Hone Club or as kindred souls 
 drawn together by a common love 
 for the best in art and literature. 
 
 some of the most 
 sentatives of the 
 
 illustrious repre- 
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Group" of authors, who did so much to disprove the European 
 assertion that America had no literature. James Fenimore Cooper, 
 Washington having, Fitz-Greene Halleck, the first American writer 
 to whom a statue was erected in New York; Samuel Woodworth, 
 the patriot poet of the War of i8iz, but best known as the author 
 of "The Old Oaken Bucket; ' John Rodman Drake, who wrote 
 that poem of fervent patriotism, "The American Flag" — these 
 were only a few of the Knickerbocker writers who enjoyed Philip 
 Hone's friendship and hospitality. 
 
 But now, fast on the heels of fashion came business; first to 
 serve fashion, then to drive it out. New York, in a word, had 
 really begun to grow — leaping in the fifty years after the Revo- 
 lution from a population of but 20,000 to more than 200,000 inhabi- 
 tants. Of necessity this meant a movement of business "up-town," 
 which could only result in hurrying fashion further northward. 
 And thus it came to pass that, on March 8, 1836, Philip Hone 
 parted with his commodious house, the lower floors of which 
 were at once converted into stores, while the upper ones became 
 part of the adjoining American Hotel. From that day the Broad- 
 way, Barclay Street, Park 
 Place location was to be 
 devoted to business — 
 ever growing, ever pro- 
 gressing, ever more pros- 
 perous business. 
 
 Such, in rough out- 
 ine, is the record of the 
 early history of the Wool- 
 worth site, of its sur- 
 roundings, and of the city 
 — the incomparable, won- 
 derful city — over which 
 the matchless Woolworth 
 Building looms today in 
 far upreaching splendor. 
 
^^HE view from the top of the Woolworth Tower is 
 without question the most remarkable, if not the most 
 wonderful, in the world. The scenic and color effects 
 with the sun shining on the multi-colored buildings and 
 on the water and land for thirty-five or forty miles in all directions 
 is a picture impossible of adequate description. 
 
 Looking down on the thousands of great buildings, the won- 
 derful bridges that span the East River, the beautiful parks, the 
 great steamers berthed at the piers along the rivers, one realizes 
 the grandeur and vastness of the metropolis. The serried peaks 
 made by the giant buildings, towers, church steeples, all seem to 
 contend with each other for the distinction of "highest and great- 
 est." But above them all rises the Woolworth Building, calm and 
 unassailable. A comparison of the three great towers of New York 
 is interesting as showing the remarkable progress made year by 
 year in the development of the sky-scraper. 
 
 
 Woolworth Building 
 
 Singer Building 
 
 Metropolitan Tower 
 
 Height 
 
 780 ft. 
 
 612 ft. 
 
 700 ft. 
 
 Number of Stories 
 
 55 
 
 46 
 
 50 
 
 Total Weight 
 V Floor Area 
 
 206,000,000 lbs. 
 
 165,160,000 lbs. 
 
 170,000,000 lbs. 
 
 40 Acres 
 
 1 1 Acres 
 
 25 Acres 
 
 Number Electric Lights 
 
 80,000 
 
 14,500 
 
 30,000 
 
 Miles of Plumbing 
 
 43 
 
 19 
 
 13 
 
 Number of Elevators 
 
 28 
 
 16 
 
 38 . 
 
 Combined Height 
 of Elevator Shafts 
 
 2 miles 
 
 H mile 
 
 iH miles 
 
 Some idea of what was required of the architect may be had 
 from the statement that 24,000 tons of steel were used in the 
 construction of the Woolworth Building — enough steel to build the 
 
Third Avenue Elevated Railroad structure from the City Hall 
 north to the Harlem River at One Hundred and Twenty-ninth 
 Street — placed on a lot 152 by iqy feet, inside of ten months. 
 
 This is an accomplishment which, for gigantic proportions and 
 time, well-nigh staggers the imagination. 
 
 The walls of the Woolworth Building required 17,000,000 
 bricks — enough bricks to pave a roadway 30 feet in width from 
 the Woolworth Building to West Two Hundred and Fiftieth Street. 
 The 80,000 electric bulbs from the 13,500 electric light outlets in 
 the building, strung less than three feet apart, would light the 
 entire forty miles of water-front around Manhattan Island. There 
 are 87 miles of electric wiring — sufficient to extend a continuous 
 stretch from New York to Philadelphia. The huge 2500 h. p. 
 boilers, if harnessed together, would lift 100 times the weight of 
 the Statue of Liberty. The building has a total weight of 
 206,000,000 pounds at the caissons. It is figured that this immense 
 weight is increased at times by wind pressure, by 40,000,000 
 pounds. The building is designed to withstand a wind pressure of 
 250 miles an hour. 
 
 The Woolworth Building reaches a height of 784 feet above the 
 sidewalk. Its sub-basement floor is 37.6 feet below the level of 
 the street, and the concrete and steel caissons upon which it 
 rests extend to bedrock, 1 30 feet below the surface. No other build- 
 ing in modern or ancient times has reached such a height as qio 
 feet, the extreme height of the Woolworth Building, from where it 
 sets on bedrock to the top of the tower. The Eiffel Tower alone 
 exceeds it in height, but the Eiffel Tower is not a building. The 
 Tower of Babel — scientists tell us — reached a height of about 680 
 feet before the builders got mixed in their tongues and gave it up 
 as a bad job. 
 
 The Electric Lights in the Woolworth Building ivould illuminate 
 the forty miles of Water Front of Manhattan Island 
 
The Luxurious Su imming Pool 
 in the Woolworlh Building 
 
 The Woolworth 
 tower is 86 feet by 84 
 feet, and 'y') stories 
 high. The main build- 
 ing,' whose roof is 385 
 feet above the street 
 level, is zq stories in 
 height, and includes 
 about 30,200,000 cu- 
 bical feet. The build- 
 ing contains 27 acres 
 of rentable office space, 
 and about 13 acres 
 more are taken up with 
 elevators and corri- 
 dors. The battery of 
 28 elevators with which 
 the Woolworth Build- 
 ing is equipped, if put 
 end to end, would ex- 
 tend two miles ; a round 
 trip in each of the elevators will be equal to a four-mile ride, all 
 within the building. 
 
 There are over 3,000 exterior windows in the building; the 
 glass used in them would cover nearly i}^ acres, or half of Union 
 Square, and there is almost again as much glass used in the interior 
 of the building. All the glass in the building would form a canopy 
 over the entire Madison Square. 
 
 In the furnishing of the building, over 43 miles of plumbing 
 pipes were used, 53,000 pounds of bronze and iron hardware, 
 3,000 hollow steel doors, 12 miles of marble trim, 12 miles of slate 
 base, 383,325 pounds of red lead, 20,000 cubic yards of sand, and 
 15,000 cubic yards of broken stone, 7,500 tons of exterior archi- 
 tectural terra cotta — the most complicated architectural terra cotta 
 in the world — 2,000,000 square feet, or 28,000 tons of hollow tile, 
 1,050,000 square feet, or 28,000 tons of terra cotta partitions and 
 firing. The building is absolutely fireproof ; there was no wood used 
 in its construction, the doors, partitions and trim being of steel, 
 terra cotta and wire glass. 
 
 The Bricks in the 
 
 Woolworth Building 
 
 would fiave a street thirty 
 
 feel wide and eleven miles long 
 
In this gigantic pile it is estimated that 7,000 to 10,000 tenants 
 will be housed — a number large enough to form a small munici- 
 pality, with a mayor, executive departments and police force. 
 
 To-day there are over 6,500,000 people residing within twenty 
 miles of the Woolworth Building. The population in this area is 
 increasing at the rate of over 300,000 a year. No building in the 
 entire city of New York is better situated so far as accessibility is 
 concerned to the entire population, not only to the residents of 
 the city proper but to the visitors to the metropolis. 
 
 There is no section of the great city, the residents of which will 
 not be able to enter the Woolworth Building within five minutes 
 after leaving their surface, subway or elevated cars, and a great 
 proportion of them will land directly in the building from the 
 stations of the Broadway and Park Place subways. 
 
 Within three or four years passengers from Brooklyn, from all 
 parts of Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens and Rich- 
 mond will be landed either at the door or within 
 a block of the Woolworth Building when the 
 176 miles of new subways and elevated lines 
 now definitely arranged for are completed. 
 
 The Glass in the Woolworth Building would form 
 a Canopy over all of Madison Square 
 
APR 26 1913 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 108 993 6i