Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-09-11
NEW Works. GREATEST WONDER.
Skyscraper Suspended From Bridge
Will Be Built Downward.

From 325-t ton steel bridge suspend
ed $50 feet above Fifteenth street and
Irving place the engineers of the Con-
solidated Gas Company are preparing
to hang d seven story building. The
bridge may be considered as a gigan-
tic trapeze, 90 feet long, from which
the building will hang by it's teeth.
: Extraordinary engineering feats are
common in New York, but there ART
few to equal this. When the build
ing is completed it will be the only
one of its kind in the world. Although
similar operations have been perform
ed once or twice on much smaller
scale this is the first time any attempt
has ever been made to use them on
a large structure.
Two years ago the gas company tore
down its old home on the corner of
Fifteenth street, and Irving place and
inst behind it, in the center of the
block, erected a new fireproof strue-
ture, T. stories high.
At that time the officers of the
company thought that with "A new
building on the old site. added to the
new twelye-story skyscraper, they
would have one completed structure
ample enough for all their needs
But they were wrong. Before the
final specifications We're drawn it was
plain that if the gas company was
really to have all the room its needs
demanded the building must be spread
out much more.
1t found itself with lis feet on FIT
tenth street and 81 feet on Irving
fx-srr 4.
occupied by the new building, the
other lis by the ruins of the old Al
together il did not have anything like
as much ground as it wanted -
Some hastY financial operations
took place 1Ney ended in the acquir-
ing by the gas company of more land
on the east side of the new building
This left it with a twelve-story build
ing in the center of the block and
two lengthy stretches of vacant land
on each side. Altogether this gave it
297 feet 6 iRches-a good frontage, but
not enough TO make advisable
tweIve-story building. The new home
was not sufficiently wide, So it would
have to be higher 1t was finally de-
cided to make it 10 stories.
II,
was brand-new twelve-st build
ing. erected in accordance with pre-
vious plans and entirely unadapted to
the new The first u stories, of course,
could easily be joined to the first Il
of the nineteen-story building. The ad-
dtonal seven, though, presented
problem.
The foundations of the twelve-story
building were not strong enough to
support seven stories more. What was
to be done? Naturally, the gas com
pany didn't like the idea of two big
buildings with little one in the mid
die.
Besides, it needed those additional
seven stories for floor space. 1t could
throw a bridge across at the twelfth
floor. but that would mean the sacri-
fee of 500 feet of office room. The
bridge itself would take up a couple
of floors That wouldn't do. The en-
gineers deliberated for weeks over the
problem. Finally they arrived at a
solution.
They would throw the bridge across
the gap at the top of the nineteen
story buildings and hang the seven
stories from it.
That is exactly what is being done. |
The bridge is composed of eight grid
ers of structural steel, each weighing |
40 tons. They We're made in the shops '
Of Miliken 4 Co, on Staten Island, .
the firm which has charge of all the
iron work in the building. Completed. (
they each stand eight feet high and |
sixty feet long. As specimens of I
struetnral steel their proportions are
1t viii require special
tfp 80 Hstl.ttfttt.