The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1932-06-10

prepared by National Geographic Society.
Washington. d. C.)-WNU Service.
IN ESPITE its youth and expert
ence compared with London,
- and the recent flow of gold to-
ward the British capital, New
York retains its position as the worlds
leading banker.
New York is a city of superlatives.
1t is mans Incompatible feat! AS in
credible almost as that ants should
have built the Andes! Go up on any
the city come to life. By electric
moons, rainbOws, and fixed comets you
see Manhattan blaze from dusk into
gorgeous theatrical illumination.
It's twinkling skyline GIBBS and flows
in tides of tempo and color. AS each
edifice melts into new lights and shad-
ows, all the architectural phantasma-
| goria of the ages, linked even with
earth's ancient scars, seems to unfold
| In fancy you see a phantom city, a
| Kaleidoscope riot of Alps and Acrop-
! oils; Ming tombs, Tai Mahal, and
y
Tower of Babel, with Grand canyon
| and YangtZe gorges formed by street
caverns far below; Cologne cathedral,
| Pixies Peak, and st. Peters, a Chi
nese Wall against Sahara desert of
lamp-lit sky; towers and turrets,
mosques, minarets, domes, steeples,
roof tanks and penthouses all heaped
| and crowding and seeming to burn as
smoke moves in electric light.
Next day, from the same high place,
see it again-realistic, noisy, its streets
| crowded with traffic. New York new
er rests. Higher and ever higher rise
! the skyscrapers. Their mastodontic
| bulk; their grace of geometric design /;
| their dizzy height and fearsome beauty
at first they almost hint that mans
monsters have run away with him.
| Stare up at such a building and it
| fairly dominates ones mind and body.
| From their upper stories you see
bits of fog floating by. Miles to the
east stretches Long Island; to the
south is the Statue of Liberty, and
] Staten Island; to the west spreads
| New Jersey. and to the north that
part of the city beyond Central park.
Below lie mere pigmy structures of
six and eight stories. Here and there,
up from among them, other skyscrap-
ers rise in this swiftly changing region
Of Manhattan. In their myriad
windows one sees girls pounding type
writer's or powdering their noses; but,
save for faint metallic city hum from
far below. there is no sound.
Vertical Travel Is Immense.
These high buildings, that visitors
from all over the world stare at with
such establishment, make New York
what it is-the supreme wonder of
the modern world. When the first
'skyscraper," of only Ii stories, went
up on lower Broadway. people feared
it. Those in adjacent houses moved
out in alarm. Now, higher and higher
they $3.50, 60, 20. 50 stories. So
many there are, and so high, that to-
day the vertical travel in New York
actually exceeds the horizontal. In
other words, elevators carry more pas
sengers than do all the surface cars,
elevated trains. taxis, BUSES, and sub
ways combined.
In one skyscraper q elevators COW
er mileage equal to the run of the
Twentieth Century Limited from New
York to Chicago, daily. One of the
big problems in New York is getting
the occupants of skyscrapers in and
out on time. The larger buildings
hold anywhere from 5000 to 1900,
and even 10000 workers. In some are
found people from practically every
state in the Union. If all these ten
ants had to walk downstairs, it might
take hours to empty a building.
Even with express elevators. it taxes
nearly an hour to empty some of the
larger buildings and get the people
away from the ground floor and en-.
frances, because of congested subways.
If they all came down at once. it would
pile people up ten or twelve deep In
the streets around a building
The New York skyscraper is city
In itself, with all city's problems OF
traffic, water, heat, lights. sewage, fire
and police protection. and cleaning.
It's total floor area equals that OF
many farm. To run the elevators
of one Of them requires a starter. six
assistant starters, 80 operators. and
a crew of ten maintenance men.
Since water from fire hydrants can
be suuirted upward only about $50
feet, and since firemen cannot drag
q hose up so or IS stories, a skyscrap-
er has its own upright water mains,
tanks and high-pressure pumps. with
al. elaborate system of alarms and ex-
tinguishing apparatus.
Speed In New Construction.
Beneath one building are turnta-
bles for buses from railway terminus
Tunnels lead from II in many direc-
lions. Through them thousands Of its
tenants arrive each morning after
many miles Of underground travel, and
through them one ma! wander, as in
the streets Of a subterranean city. In
this human prairie-dog town are more
than so places to eat, and stores sell
ing everything from office supplies and
lingerie to thermos bottles, sunray
lamps, cigars, books and haberdashery.
From these commercial catacombs one
NAV ride all the way out to Long Is