Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1913 — IS RIVAL OF EIFFEL [ARTICLE]

IS RIVAL OF EIFFEL

Woolworth Structure in . New York Is Highest in U. S. .Huge Building Scrapes the Sky at 750 Feet —Edifice When Complete Wil! Have Cost Owners $13,500,000. . r - New York. —The Woolworth build■ing, now almost completed, holds the record for height among all buildings ever erected by man’. It is true, the Eiffel Tower in Paris is 234 feet higher, but it is a mere steel skeleton and cannot be classed as a building in the sense accepted for that< term. The building proper, which occupies an area of 30,000 square feet, is 384 feet high and is surmounted by a tower, 86 by 84 feet, rising 366 feet above the main part of the building. The following list of the tallest structures raised by man may be interesting for purposes of comparisons: Feet. Colossus of Rhodes...., ;.......106 Pantheon, Rome '...160 St Isaac’s, St. Pttersburg ~..366 Statue of -Efberty (highest statue).3os Great Pyramid of Cheops ......450 St. Peters, Rome ...400 Rouen Cathedral . .490 Cologne Cathedral ........516, Washington Monument 555 H Singer Building 612 1-13 Metropolitan Tower .....70014 Woolworth Building ......750 Eiffel Tower .77..984 • 2 I, ’ _ ■_, The work of excavating for the foundations of the Woolworth building . was .begun on Nov. 4, 1910. Eixty-six caissons were sunk to a depth of 115 feet until they reached solid rock and the sixty-six concrete piers, resting on the. rock', constitute the foundation of the structure. The foundation was completed in the fall of 1911, when the erection of the steel frame was begun. The latter was completed in July of last year, and the brick and stone work was completed at the beginning of the present year. Twenty-four thousand tons of steel went into the.making of the building and the total weight of the structure is estimated at 250,000 tons. . \ The -building has fifty-five floors, twenty-five of which are in the tower, and the aggregate floor space is about thirty-three acres. The building and tower together contain about 2,000 flees, with 3,000 windows and as many doors. - - -- -■ . , -.-r To enable the occupants of the building to reach their respective floors there are thirty-four passenger elevators, of which twenty-four are grouped near the Broadway entrance, while the others are near the entrance from Barclay street and Park place. The equipment of the building when fully completed' will be thoroughly modern and as nearly perfect as it is possible to make it. The fifty-fourth floor will be used as an observatory,

and on top of the structure, beneath the gigantic flag, will be placed a powerful searchlight. The twentyeighth floor will be occupied by a luncheon club, and in the basement there will be a swimming pool, a restaurant and a rathskeller. The total cost of the building is estimated at about 413,500,000, of which amount >4,500,000 was paid for the ground. The building was erected for F. W. Woolworth, who was born poor at Rodman, N. Y., April 13, 1852, went through public school and a business

college, and in 1879 opened the first “flve-cent store” at Utica, N. Y. The venture prospered, and he extended his business to other cities, and now has a chain of more than 300 such stores throughout the country, from which he derives an enormous income. More than half of thd capital required for the erection of the Woolworth building was contributed by capitalists In France. The rent roll of the building is expected to be about >2,500,000 a year.