The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-10-11
A LIMIT FOR sKYsCRAPERs.
Can't me Made to Pay If Higher thai
 Twenty Stories.

The announcement recently that { forty-story building in New York wal contemplated set architects and build CTS talking of the possibilities of sucf an enterprise. Many persons believe that a law should be passed prohibit ing the heights of buildings here. oth- erwise, they think the buildings may grow so tall that they will topple over and cause a dire calamity. Both the laws of physics and finance have all ready set a natural limit to the height of tall buildings, which will be more potent than all the laws capable of be- ing devised by man.
 The one great law that will in future keep down the height of buildings is that fit will not pay" to put up any building higher than some of the tallest now in existence. because experience has shown already that some of the tallest have exceeded the point where capital gets It's greatest returns on the amount of the investment. The tenden- cy in the last year has been to reduce the number of stories of skyscrapers instead of increasing the height. re- suit of this tendency to reduce will be that in the next decade there will be revulsion from the thirty and thirty two story buildings and the tendency of the times will be to keep the roof down
 
 There are two principal reasons why it will not pay to build skyscrapers any higher than some already in existence. They are the loss of floor space caused by increased elevator service and the extra cost of the foundations and steel supports on the bottom floors. The matter has passed beyond the experi- mental stage. Experience has shown that whereas the buildings under twen- ing from to 6 per cent. upon the capi- ing from { to6 per cent. upon the capi- tai invested, most of those nearly thir- ty stories high have to be satisfied with less income than can be derived from an investment in United States bonds
 The cost for making big steel sup ports for a forty-story building, it Is estimated would initiate against such a structure in two ways. The price of the metal itself would be a very power full deterrent. and the bigger the sup ports on the lower floors the less space there would be on the very floors where space is most valuable. The extra cost of strengthening the foundation and the first ten floors of supports 1t Is esti- mated would eat up the profits of the rents of the top ten floors for the next hundred years.
 The question of internal transporta- tion is the thing that calls a sharp halt to the height of skyscrapers. There comes a point in the erection of all tall when the addition of one more elevator eats up a whole floor of space because 1t takes out about fifty square feet of space from each of the twenty or twenty-five floors. When that point Is reached 1t means that the architect who tries to carry the buildings any higher is merely cutting off the profits of one end of the building in the hope of adding 1t at the other. The theory that one could make a building pay extend ing it indefinitely has already led to appointment.
 Thus without any other than the nat ural laws of mechanics and finance, New York builders have hit upon a linn It to the height of buildings which im- aglnative Europeans thought could on- ly be limited by the laws of man. Those who passed the high building laws in Europe found that the avarice ana ann oltion of the rival builders would even tually shut off all natural light and lresh alr from the streets of big cities unless the all-wise legislators stepped m m 10 save the people. New York let me capitalists discover for themselves that there was natural limit be, ond which 1t would not pay to epcroach upon the domain of the birds.