The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1904-04-16

big drums for the cable power houses
and the giant spools on which the sub
way conduits We're carried.
These great caissons We're all deposit
ed in some big excavation which mark
ed the site of /; modern Office building.
They represented ORourke's adapta-
ton of the diving bell principle to the
building of walls OH foundation of
solid rock. In no other city in the
country are the problems of foundation
work so complex as in New York Wal
ter and quicksand and the great depth
at which hardpan or solid rock is
found called for new methods of sink
ing foundations when commercial re-
Quirements demanded buildings weigh
ing one thousand tons or more and
running up i'll the air twenty and more
stories. OROurke solved all these
problems in the early days of the sky
scraper.
The site OF the Offender building,
at Wall and Nassau streets, presented
difficulties Which made experienced ell
gineers shake their heads. The lot was
small and the rock was only to be
reached through {; deep bed of treach-
erous Quicks;nd. O'Rourke undertook
the foundation work and the entire
building was put up on three piers,
Which support the whole series Of col
}1,p +.,1
built these piers through the quicksand
on the solid rock With iron girders over
hanging them. He reached the rock
by sinking his caissons straight through
the quicksand.
The foundation for the new Stock
Exchange, in Broad street, was notable
for it's construction in that the first
thing Mr.. O'Rourke did was to build
an inclosing wall of concrete around
the entire lot, sinking this through wa
ter and quicksand until the solid rock
was reached. Then, inside his huge
dam and free from danger of any out
side flow of earth or waterbury cave
in-the contractor proceeded with such
speed that to all intents and purposes
he might have been working Oh the
cellar excavation for any ordinary
building
The pneumatic caisson foundation
been developed by Mr.. O'Rourke to the
highest point. He has introduced many
improvements in this line, notably Il
special system of construction combin-
ing rapidity and economy by Il wooden
stave method instead of shells.
The graybeards who rrowned down
as long as they could the first sugges-
tons of the ardacious skyscraper archi-
tects predicted that to build IL foun(la-
ton for a twenty-story building in New
York would mean the topping over of
buildings adjoining, the excavation be-
ing made twenty and forty and sixty
feet lower than their wallis O'Rourke,
in the early days of his work in this
line, put the graybeards to ridicule, by
producing Il substitute for "undcrDin-
ming" or snoring up which made
the adjoining buildings decidedly the
gamers by the big hole dug alongside
and SO far below their walls.
He applied the Breuchaud process
SO called from it's inventor, who is now
building the $G,OOOOOO Croton dam
and placed long stills of solid concrete
under the walls from which the lateral
support had been withdrawn. He did
this by piercing the wall, which seemed
to be in danger, and which perhaps
had been built down to twenty feet
below the surface ut intervals of about
fifteen feet. In these interstices lie
introduced steel pipe cylinders from fiji
teen to thirty inches in diameter. and
by pneumatic or hydraullc pressure
drove them down to the solid rock.
These when filled with concrete gave
the building Il much more substantial
foundation than it had before.
While MI. O'Rourke was doing all
this work and showing that he could
produce results in less time than eX.
perts had figured out as the minimum
some of the moneyed men of this city
got together and decided that IL man
who could conquer obstacles that ma
ture and older engineers appeared tC
stamp as insurmOuntable was Il good
business proposition to invest money in
Then was Incorporated the O'Rourkt
Engineering Construction company
with S1,00O,OU0 capital.
John f. O'Rourke is president, ant
the secretary and treasurer is George
=, w. Young, president of the United
States Mortgage and Trust company, T;
director of the marlborough RaDit
Transit company and of thirty-on,
other corporations. Other directors ar,
James n. Burden, Ir.; Andrew Freed
man, II. III. McCurdy, De I4ancey Mic
oil and Valentine p. Snyder, presiden
Of the Western National Bank.
This company has it's offices ut Nc
26 Nassau street, on the Cedar stree
corner, where two copper tablets al
nounce to the thinking passer-by tina
the character Of the occupants is some
what different to what might be eS
pected from their surroundings Of tn
financial district. The tablets show tn
seal of the COMPANY. which is su,