New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-09-19
A Mechanical Triumph.

A careful survey that was recently made
showed that the west wall of the brick
building No ia West Twenty fourth street
encroached eighteen inches upon the neigh
boring lot. The owner of the lot needed
more room, and therefore babe Mr. Mott
the owner of the encrOacbng building, re
move his wall. The wall is sixty feet
in height, sixty feet in length and of an
average thickness of fourteen inches, and
the ordinary method of tearing down and
building new wall would have entailed
heavy expenses and much time. The build
ing was being used as livery stable. and
Mr. Mot was unwilling to vacate the prem
Uses Tor so long time as he was told would
be necessary. The builders whom he con.
suited, Weeks Il Brothers, III ged him, how
ever, to allow them to attempt to move the
wall bodily, and with his consent they
finished the undertaking yesterday morn.
ing, They had previously severed the
connection of the west wall with
the north and south walls, and had
t tken from the last two about two feet ot
brick and mortar. They had also sawed oil
from the floor timber lengths of eighteen
inches, and had sharpened the new ends of
the timbers 80 that they might iii into the
old beam holes on the moving up of the
wall. Then, at height Of about four feet
above the foundation stones Mr.. Weeks
had pierced the wall at intervals of elk feet,
hdu III tdCl UUlt SO ludDt u
double set of heavy needle beams. The
lower beam of each set had been firmly
imbeded in earth work. and the upper beam,
upOn which the weight OF the building was
to rest was much shorter than the lower.
but otherV ise II correspondent in size; and
the two lay with their vertical faces in the
salIe plane The horizontal faces which
were brought in contact were plared
smooth and creased Then the brick work
snn rftpfr . has nall hnl tnlr
"uu puo ru.suu V".
ed on the peedlt beams.
Yesterday morning, at halt-past FIVE
o'clock large acks were dashed to the
upper sides of the lower beams, which, as
has been said, we're much longer than the
upper beams, so that the end of each screw
pressed against the end of an upper beam
in such way that the jacks whe n operated
made the beams, with the whole wall on
top of them, slide along the creased surface
of the lower beams. There were ten of
these screw ,cks, and man stood at each
one with lever in his hand. At signal
given by Mr.. Goodwin, who superintended
the work, the ten men with their levers
worked the j4cks in unison, SO that no part
of the wall should be pushed forward more
rapidly than another. The greatest nicely
was demanded, for the great wall,
more tnan sixty feet square. was
wide, and jar, however slight.
would have turned it over to bury the men
working at its base. 1t is the first time that
the moving of u detached wall has been at
tempted in such way, and mum Der of dis
tiDguished builders and officials of the
building department attended. The work
was slowly and carefully done. Several
times the jacks were stopped, and lines were
dropped from the summit TO the base, only
to show that the wall remained plumb, and
delicate measurements were taken to retain
the face of this wall true. 1t was nearly
ten o'clock when the work was finished, and
then the wall stood exactly upon the line
marked by the survey RS, and the floor TIM
bers rested in the old beam holes. Nothing
remains to be done but to close the narrow
gaps at the corner of the building, and to
build new foundation under the wall.
The weight of the wall exceeds go toms
Ne,c York iSun.