The Coolidge examiner., 1932-06-10
prepared by the National Geographic
Society. Washington. d. C.l
(WNU Service.)

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ESPITE its youth and expert
ence compared with London,
and the recent flow of gold
toward the British capital, New
York retains its position as the
worlds leading banker.
New York is a city of superla-
tives. 1t is mans incompatible
feat! AS incredible almost as that
ants should have built the Andes!
Go up on any high hotel roof after
sunset and watch the city come to
life. By electric moons, rainbows,
and fixed comets you see Manhattan
blaze from dusk into gorgeous theat-
rical illumination.
Its twinkling skyline ebbs and
flows in tides of tempo and color. AS
each edifice melts into new lights
and shadows, all the architectural
phantasmagoria of the ages, linked
even with earth's ancient scars,
seems to unfold. In fancy you see
phantom city, a kaleidoscope riot
Of Alps and AcrOpolis; Ming tombs,
Tai Mahal, and Pyramids; Gibral-
tar, Panama canal, Tower of Babel,
with Grand canyon and Yangtze
gorges formed by street caverns far
below; Cologne cathedral, Pixies
Peak, and st. Peters, a Chinese
Wall against a 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 1t again-realistic, noisy,
it's streets crowded with traffic. New
York never rests. Higher and ever
higher rise the skyscrapers. Their
mastodonic bulk; their grace Of ge-
ometric 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 merely pigmy structures
of six and eight stories. Here and
there, up from among them, other
skyscrapers rise in this swiftly
changing region of Mid-Manhattan
Vertical Travel Is Immense.
These high buildings, that visitors
from all over the world stare at
with such astonishment, make New
York what 1t is-the supreme won
der Of the modern world. When the
first "skyscraper," of only 13 stor-
les, went up on lower Broadway,
people feared it. Those in adjacent
houses moved out in alarm. Now,
high and higher they go-50, 60, 20,
So stories. SO many there are. and
so high, that today the vertical
travel in New York actually exceeds
the horizontal. In other words, ele-
vators carry more passengers than
do all the surface cars, elevated
trains, taxis, busses, and subways
combined.
In one skyscraper 81 elevators
cover a 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 $1,000, and even 20,-
600 workers. In some are found peo-
pie from practically every state in
the Union.
Even with express elevators, it
takes nearly an hour to empty some
of the larger buildings and get the
people away from the ground floor
and entrances, because Of congested
subways. If they all came down at
once, it would pile people up ten or
twelve deep in the streets.
The New York skyscraper is a
city in itself, with all a city's prob
lens of traffic. water, heat, lights,
sewage, fire and police protection,
and cleaning. It's total floor area
equals that of many a farm. To
run the elevators of one Of them re-
quires a starter, six assistant start
ers, 80 operators, and a crew of
ten maintenance men.
Since water from fire hydrants
can be squirted upward only about
80 feet, and since firemen cannot
drag a hose up 80 or rs stories, a
skyscraper has its own upright wa
for mains tanks and hioh-DrpSSura