The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-10-22
skyscrapers of American


 cities.
 The managers of great enterprises are spending much money and exer- cising their ingenuity to meet the de- mands of their patrons for fresh air. In the new .subways in this city young man has rec gently been wandering from point to point. collecting air in bottles that 1t may be examined by experts. and means adopted to safeguard the breathing material of the army of New Workers who are .,aily whisked about beneath the streets. The subway builders arc still studying the problem; the modern motel keeper, SC far as hts own enterprise is concerned, has mas tered the difhculty.
 The visitor to the metropolis is filled with admiration when he sees rooms decorated by artists of more thar national ~eputation and equipped with costly furniture made of wood gathered from the four corners of the earth. He may not realize 1t, but large share of the hotel guests enjoyment of his sur roundings is due to the fact that he is breathing air which has been freed from dust and germs, warmed in winter and cooled in summer, moistened when tho weather is dry and dried when the atmosphere without is damp. Close the windows and doors tightly and this greatest of all blessings Is forced upon
 
 less because unseen and so by many unappreciated. There are no draughts or chills, no dust or noise as when ven- tilation came from open door or win dow. Pure air enters every room through adroitly concealed openings near the ceiling, and flows downward to be carried away through equally un- obtrusive gratings near the floor.
 Far below the street level in great houses of entertainment are the pure air factories. If you go into the deep cellars of the new Astor Hotel, the $1,- 00o.00 hostelry which rises at the side of historic Longacre Square. you find battery of centrifugal fans and blowers driven by electric motors. Connected with them are two huge air shafts ris- ing abov ethe level of the roof or more than 100 feet in air. Down one of these shafts the powerful lungs of the hotel. as they might be called, inhale the fresh air at the rate of many thous- ands of cubic feet a minute. and cir culate it to every part of the building through hundreds of pipes and con duits concealed in the walls and be- meath the floors. Through the other shaft is expelled the vitiated air drawn from kitchen, dining room, lobby and guest chamber.
 The score of giant fans and blowers can force through the building more thal 250.000 cubic feet of air every min ute of the twenty-four hours. The ven tilating plant is divided into five dis tinct systems, for independent control, each of which has both filling and ex- haust fans. The separation of the sup ply ducts that connect with the regis ters all over the house is made mainly in the basement and some of the pipes are more than 300 feet long from their starting point at the great fans to where the air Is discharged. while the velocity with which the air whirls through them is a little higher than that at which 't passes down the main shaft, where it travels at the rate of 1,100 feet a minute.
 It might be supposed that air taken from the top of lofty building would be regarded as pure, but as a matter of fact the atmosphere about a great city is heavily charged with dust. germs and all sorts of undesirable things, No up-to-date hotel would think of fur nishing to it's patrons this sort of breathing material, any more than 1t would tolerate impure or improperly cooked food. So all the air blown through the Astor's ventilating system Is carefully filtered as soon as IL is drawn from the upper regions. The filters are made of fne-woven cheese cloths. re-enforced by wire screens, and there is d series of these screens in the main air duct arranged Eigzag. so that they present a surface area equal to forty times that of the duct itself. Ev- cry particle of dust and every inIpurtty is removed from the air as 1t passes these purifiers. The amount of matter which is screened out--mat- ter which no one would care to inhale lis something surprising.
 One feature especially distinguishes tine ventlating system of the Hotel Astor. IL is an arrangement by which there is always a draught Of air away from the public rooms which guests into and through the working departments. The exhaust fans fin the kitch en and engine rooms, for instance, expel more air than is forced Into either of these apartments by the blow CTS. which supply So.oe0' cubic feet Of