The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-09

New York. August 8.-The actual arriv- al of the 10O0-foot high office building in this city has developed a serious prob lem and new profession. The problem foreseen for some years is that of get ting up and down in these cloud scrap CTS, and in some ways much resembles the early problems of transatlantic steamers of which 1t was predicted that no vessel could be built large enough to carry sufficient coal to run it. So of the modern 50 or 70 story office building it has been predicted that the elevator problem would prove unsurmountable.
 A generation ago one could mount to any office in New York by the stair route; today that is out of the question, and the resultant situation has given rise to the newest profession of vertical en- gineer whose province it is to solve the problems of vertical travel-the question of getting up and down in New forks great office buildings.
 Already New York does more climbing than Switzerland, although for purely commercial purposes. Figures Just col- lected by one of the new vertical engi- neers illustrate this in the following sur prising fashion, indicating even now how large a field there is for advance ID the line of vertical travel. New Workers, although loath to do so, still do climb stairs, as is indicated by the following figures:
 Could all the stairs ascended and de- scended daily by residents in the city of New York be grouped into one enormous stair representing the total, that stair would be 10000 miles In height. And could the millions of stair climbers be consolidated in single individual repre- senting them all, that individual would be a giant more than 100000 miles tall, with his head somewhere close to the moon Great, therefore, as are the prob- lens of horizontal travel, those of verti- cal travel whether in getting above or below the street level, are hardly so 1n- significant as many persons might think What with stair climbing to and from the subway and the elevated roads, in the older office buildings and especial ly in homes, it is a conservative estimate which figures that 5,00O000 stair trips of one fight each are made in New York daily Allowing 30 seconds for each trip, this means that every day a total of 2500,000 minutes, equal to 1,666 hours, 1736 days or almost five years, is spent by New Workers in ascending and de- -scendng stairs. In a year the total Of the time spent in this way amounts to more than 5000 days or almost 1l50 years. That even as matters stand to- day is the waste which the vertical en- glneer' must eliminate.
 The energy which New Workers thus expend in raising themselves in the world amounts to more than 100000 horse power every day, since a trip up an av- craze fight of stairs in half a minute in- wolves the expenditure of energy roughly equal to one-fifth of a horse power. This total, could it be applied would furnish power for all New York's engines.
 Five years of stair climbing totaling rise of more than 10000 miles and calling forth 100000 horse power; that is the total not of all New York's daily verti- cal travel, but simply that which is &C., complished without the aid of any labor saving device. People have been going to and fro upon the earth ever since the example was set by a certain well known person, but since they quilted trees as habitatons they have been little con- cerned with getting up and down. Con sequently horizontal travel has received all sorts of study and new appliances, while vertical travel, until within a few years, has been given little attention. As a result the great majority of New York's population plods up and down stairs in the old way, means of verti- cal travel which corresponds to the now despsed 'shanks mare" method of pro- gress on the level
 That the solutions of the problems of vertical travel are rapidly assuming greater importance cannot be doubted. The saving of precious minutes and en- ergy for business men in all fields is daily becoming more necessary. As New York grows upward, so does vertical travel expand, and the comparative neg lect which this field has received in the past may be chiefly attributed to the fact that the necessity for subways, ele-