People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1897 — PLACES IN NEW YORK [ARTICLE]

PLACES IN NEW YORK

A MONSTER BUILCING THAT IS A j, P TOWN IN ITSELF. ’ The E'versifletl Industries That Are Sheltered by Its Roof- —A Great Safe Deposit Vault and Its Impregnable Defenses—A , Woman's Interesting Story. Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer contributes to the .February Century a paper on "Places In New York,” in the course of which she says: If you enter one of the largest office buildings and go np and down and around in it, you will see that it is not a mere House, but almost a town irf itself. It nearly rovers the space of an entire city block. Thir-ty-two elevators serve the persons and the wants of .its denizens and their visiters, and they carry some 40,000 passengers each day. The great business concern which owns it fills a whole floor, with hajls as big as churches and regiments of clerks. On the other floors live many another big company and many an individual doing a big business if. this sort or of that, and their, number will act amaze you as much as the luxury with which prosaic ’tasks of -money making now surround themselves. I wonder sometimes what my grandfather would have thought of it. No one in New York did business in a bigger way, than he* sending his famous clipper ships to encircle the world aud traffic iu a score cf- ports. Yet, when my father began to "clerk” for him, the first of his duties was to sand his cffice floor, ; aud I eah remember how small and plain” was this office even at a muyh later day, with the bowsprits cf vessels almost poking themselves in at the win--dows-as they lay along the border of South street. . The people who dwell in the typical office building of today walk about on polished ma-blo ficois; the government has given them a postoffice just for themselves: a big library and a roslau-. . rant exclusively serve the lawyers, among them; another restaurant goner-?, Oudy serves --whOihscevsr may wish to eat; thtto are rows of shops' in tho huge, ibarrel vaulted main, hall; there are bar-T hers’rooms and bootblacks’ rooms, and bo forth and siren. You can almost believe t .mtam:. : might live in tins building. going firth only to sleep, and be' supp!.' u with pretty much cvef-j tiling he n. -. t_? .:ro, except the domestic af-feictici-is, a church and at! . It seems rather am-prising indeed -'hat a miesioi'u’.y :g:?l has not been ; turfed in one cf its ' • rno'rs, a roof gar: n for dr.vjr - pe-'f< rmauccspp on the hilltop called iis'rohf. But up on this roof you may fl: d the bureau which breeds our weather for us, aud down in its underground stories, in the very entrails of earth, you may confidently leave it your ■wealth to guard. Truly the steel clad burrows of a great safe deposit company look capacious enough to contain all the- wealthy of New York, and whether your sharera of it be large or small your needs can ■ be exactly met. You may hire a safe so little that a diamond necklace would almost fill it or so big that it is a good sized room, and its rent means the income of a good sized fortune—s7,ooo or so per annum. Narrow lane after lane is walled by tiers of these safes, •as streets are walled by house fronts; there is a second story below she first, and there are other places where other things than gold and silver, precious papers and jewels may be stored. There are -. rooms full of trunks, and I remember a big one with the sweat of steam glistening on its walls and ceilings, which was filled full and heaped and piled with bales of a shining cream colored stuff—raw silk, costly and also perishable, needing to be kept perpetually moist lest it lose its pliability. When in this treasure house of uncountable riches we see marble floors which can be lifted by levers so thatthey lie against the bases of doors im- • pregnable without them and vents which can throw curtains of scalding steam down upon the head of any onewho may try to tamper with them, it seems as though the days of oriental magicians had returned, with conspicuous modern improvements. Of course there are rows and rows of little cabinets, where Croesus may handle his wealth very privately, and fine large • waiting rooms, too, all shut in by gates and bars and passwords. "The ladies £3 waiting room is a great convenience,’’® said the gray coated guardian one day/l? "When gentlemen bring their wives down town and have business to do else- / where, it’s a nice place to leave them in. ” So it is, but if it is much used for this purpose I hope that its nicene.ss, not its terrific security, determines the fact.