The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-09-09

A rainbow cutting across the sky of industrial depression was re- vealed to-day in an announcement made by Metropolitan Square Cor poration, holding company for John D. Rockefeller, Jr's $250,- 100000 midtown building project popularly known as Radio City,. After careful and complicated call culations, engineers of the develop meth have computed that 10,0OO,- 900 days of eight hours each will be consumed by the workers who produce, transport and erect all the material and equipment that will go into the ten great build- ing units.
 The, number of people employed directly or indirectly, will be well over 56,000, which is the numeri- cal equivalent of two regular army divisions 2S,000 strong. If one man were able to do all the work, 1t would take him oS,- 330 years.
 The vanguard of this army has been engaged in wrecking and re- moving most of the 229 old build ings which stood on the three blocks from Fifth to Sixth avenues, between 4Sth and 51st streets. Closely following the wrecking crews have come the excavators with a large force of steam shovel operators, rock drillers, powder men, truckmen and laborers.
 In the meantime the "army of supply" which is estimated to in- clude at various stages of the work approximately 46,000 men, has been mobiliZed for action
 Included in this number will be miners of iron ore in Alabama and Michigan; of copper in Arizona; of lead in Colorado; of asbestos in Quebec ; of asphalt in Trinidad, and of coal in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. There will be "lumberjacks," log-rollers and mill men in the great timber areas of the South and of the Pacific Northwest and in the mahogany forests of the Philippines and South America. Supplementing their efforts will be workers on the rubber plantations in South America, brick makers and cement mill workers in establishm along the Hudson and quarry men in the granite quarries of Vermont, the limestone quarries of Indiana and the marble quarries of Ten nessee and Italy. Perhaps one of the largest units will be made up of workers in iron and steel in the great blast furnaces and rolling mills of the Pittsburg district. Automobile truckmen. locomotive engineers and trainmen, tug boat crews, lighter men, longshoremen and thousands of factory workers will contribute some part of their time to the job of producing and transporting to building sites vast quantities of material and equip ment. The estimate of 10,000,000 "man days" includes some 7,000,- 900 days labor for this army of supply and transportation"
 The "shock troops" employed in the actual erection of the buildings will be a much smaller but more highly concentrated force. Probably the number of men on the job at one time or another will total 10,- 900. This includes the wreckers and excavators already at work. Almost before the big steam shov- els have loaded the last truck and excavated material ,legions of carpenters, cement workers and masons will get busy on the foun- dations. When this job is com pleted, the towering super-struc- lures will begin to take shape at the hands of thousands of workers of many different trades. Steel erectors, riveters, riggors and der rick men will be followed up, story after story, by brick and stone masons, carpenters, cement workers. elevator erectors. plumb CTS, steam filters, sheet metal workers, fathers, plasterers. tile setters, glaziers, roofers and hun dreds of workers in other trades too numerous to mention.
 It Is estimated that when this second army has completed the erection and equipment of all the buildings it will have accounted for another 3.000,000 "man days. A building project of such scope is bound to have marked effect In leading the country out of the wilderness of the business depres- sion through which it has wan dered rather aimlessly during the past three years.
 The building industry and car loadings have been for years an index of business conditions. Ihe Rockefeller development will give a measurable boost to the figures in both fields.
 Included in the development are the worlds largest office building in floor area: two 45-story ofnce buildings and one of 31 stories: the International Music Hall. pig gest theater ever to be erected; spacious sound motion picture the ater. two 6-story buildings front ing on Fifth avenue, and two other buildings, the size and use of which have not yet been an- nounced.
 Todd, Robertson. Todd Engi- neering corporation and Todd x Brown are builders and managers The architects are Reinhard Hofmeister; Corbett, Harrison