Evening star., 1941-01-12

gack laid the corner stone for the
new building amid ceremonies on
February 81, 1899. The building
was outwardly completed about a
year later, but there were many
finishing jobs to be done on the in
side, and the gigantic task of NOV
ing in was a matter of the first
magnitude
Moving of Plant.
The job of occupancy proved a
herculean enterprise. 1t consisted
in moving the greatest printing
plant in the world during the period
of nine months, without greatly i'm
peding the service in one of the
businest years on record, 1910. AS
the Government Printing Office op-
crates on a f1ve-day week most OF
the moving was done on Saturday
and Sunday, so that it was pro-
tracted over a long period of time.
The entire job of removing equip
ment and stock required careful
planning, and even so, it will be well
into 1941 before all new space is
taken over.
The new building is the last word
in functionally designed printing
establishment and neither expense
nor planning was spared to make it
modern. 1t is of structural steel,
fireproofed with concrete, and has
reinforced concrete floor slabs. Sec
tions of floor slabs under the tabu-
lating card presses, monotype casting
machines and the offset and strip
film cameras are isolated from the
structural slabs by Is inches OF cork.
The exterior of the building Is a
salmon -colored brick with stone trim
to correspond with the 1903 struc-
ture. The architecture, although
fully modern, presents a pleasing
harmony with the old building.
The floor capacity averages 400
pounds per square foot, a compared
with 300 pounds in the old printing
plant. The first floor has 500 pounds
capacity for paper storage, part OF
the sixth floor 1000 pounds capacity
for typemetal storage. Offices and
file vaults on the eighth floor have
1875 and $50 pounds, respectively.
The front of the building is equip
ped with two gearless passenger
elevators. with 1000 pounds capacity
each and a speed of 500 feet per
minute. There are also six freight
elevators. rated $500 pounds each,
and two freight elevators with
Is OOO-pound load capacity at lesser
speeds of 300 and $50 feet per minute.
The largest two elevators run as
high as the fifth floor, the highest
point at which presswork is per-
formed.
Lighting System.
Lighting of the building is gener-
ally direct, using glassrsteel dlf1users
with 3O0-watt lamps. All proofrooms
and offices on the eighth floor have
indirect lighting. Fluorescent lights
have been installed extensively IN
the composing rooms and are prov
ing highly satisfactory.
A new feature of the building is
air-conditioning, which is supplied
to the main press section CENTRE
fourth floor; job press (part OF
third floor; offset, tabulating card,
roller storage, offset platemaking and
paper seasoning centre second
floor; record pressroom, plate-fln-
ishing and woodworking (part OF
fifth floor. This feature of air con-
ditioning is not only pleasant for
workers, but increases the life of the
printing equipment, inks and chem
icals.
The space assignment was worked
out to give each division and section
adequate working room, arranging
them by function, so that work
would flow through on the assem-
bly, line" principle, and handling
and trucking would be reduced to
an absolute minimum.
| From the method of space assign