[HN Gopher] The short life of New York City's first skyscraper
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The short life of New York City's first skyscraper
Author : benbreen
Score : 136 points
Date : 2023-10-02 03:00 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com)
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Reading this lead me to Google "lower Broadway commerce canyon"
| which found this remarkable image. One does not normally
| associate horse-drawn wagons with skyscrapers. In NYC, they did
| briefly coexist.
|
| https://www.loc.gov/resource/stereo.1s06711/
| leoedin wrote:
| I live in London - which saw vast expansion of its suburbs in
| the 1870-1910 period. It's fascinating learning about the
| logistics involved - railway was king back then and so they
| built rail yards everywhere. Building materials were brought in
| from across the country by train and then pulled by horse and
| cart to the building site. Everything was dug by hand. They
| built a 5 mile wide ring of houses around the city.
| bryancoxwell wrote:
| This is really cool, thanks for sharing.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > In NYC, they did briefly coexist
|
| Along with the _electric transport_.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Perhaps surprisingly, a lot more than briefly. That's 1915 -- I
| recently saw the 1948 detective movie "The Naked City" set in
| NYC, and it still shows the milkman delivering milk via horse-
| drawn carriage, amid all the cars.
|
| It's a fascinating movie BTW -- as much of a documentary of
| 1948 NYC as it is a plot-driven story.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| I'd have to find the image if I get a chance, but if you look
| through some online collections of Manhattan photos from the
| 1970s, there were still horse-drawn carts driven between the
| immense modern towers of the City by men who recycled scrap
| and trash..
| gumby wrote:
| > "In 1905, [Gilbert] told The New York Times that after he
| wrestled with the problem for months, the solution came to him
| 'like a flash': He could support both the floors and the exterior
| walls on a concealed iron skeleton, like an iron bridge standing
| on end," wrote Christopher Gray in the New York Times in 1996.
|
| This is a bit bogus since the first buildings constructed this
| way were in Chicago and the revolutionary approach of hanging a
| building off an iron skeleton was very widely discussed, even in
| the popular press. The article even mentions this later on:
| "Though metal cage construction had been used to create Chicago's
| Home Insurance Building in 1885, Bradford brought the technology
| to New York..."
|
| The article calls Bradford Gilbert "Gilbert" in one place and
| "Bradford" elsewhere so I suppose expectations should be low.
| dgoldstein0 wrote:
| Why should we assume he was familiar with the building
| techniques used in Chicago? Perhaps he just reinvented what
| already existed.
| gumby wrote:
| Your general point makes sense: it's true that 150 years ago
| news was more local.
|
| But thanks to the telegraph and train even local news
| contained wider affairs. And as I put in my comment, the
| Chicago building was famous -- world famous in fact. It was a
| technological phenomenon like the telephone. And an architect
| of large buildings couldn't have not heard about it any more
| than a programmer not have heard of an LLM today.
| [deleted]
| diogenes4 wrote:
| [flagged]
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Sounds like Gilbert would make a great Founder in our era.
| [deleted]
| m463 wrote:
| When it was built, it probably looked a little like:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/432_Park_Avenue
|
| I wonder what happened when the views were obstructed by the
| building next door.
| mgbmtl wrote:
| Definitely in terms of "how is it possible that this building
| is not falling over". I remember first seeing 432 Park and
| immediately checking online to understand how it was physically
| possible to build. I'm still a bit skeptical. With increasingly
| frequent extreme climate events, I wonder how resilient the
| building will be.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| It's had some problems, not sure how much the height is a
| factor
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/realestate/luxury-high-
| ri...
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The aspect ratio is the problem. If it was steel it
| wouldn't be an issue but it's all reinforced concrete,
| flexing away in the wind on its spindly superstructure. In
| 50 years I'd expect it to be condemned.
| prmoustache wrote:
| If at some point it was deemed unsafe and impossible to
| fix, I am wondering how you could do a controlled
| destruction of it without damaging nearby buildings.
|
| I guess you'd need to dismantle it floor by floor? Are
| there any example of very high skyscraper having been
| destroyed/dismantled on purpose, not by 9.11 attacks?
|
| EDIT: found a table on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/
| wiki/List_of_tallest_voluntarily_de...
| defrost wrote:
| Most high buildings in that table were "deconstructed".
|
| This one, at 46 floors, was the tallest imploded:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IFItCikJUk0
| m463 wrote:
| I remember trying to figure it out. It is 93' x 93' x 1396'
| tall, which is 15:1, while a cigarette standing on end would
| be 10:1
|
| I wonder if the answer might be
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorf_on_Golf
|
| _" He is ... about as tall as a 5-year-old; his height and
| some humorous movements are achieved by Conway standing in a
| hole, with fake shoes attached above his knees."_
| crazygringo wrote:
| For anyone curious about the history of early skyscrapers in
| general:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_skyscrapers
|
| Especially this bit regarding the linked building gives more
| national context:
|
| > _In comparison, New York trailed behind Chicago, having only
| four buildings over 16 stories tall by 1893. Part of the delay
| was caused by the slowness of the city authorities to authorize
| metal-frame construction techniques; it was not until 1889 that
| they relented and allowed Bradford Gilbert to construct the Tower
| Building, an 11-story iron-framed skyscraper. This encouraged the
| building of more skyscrapers in New York, although the city
| remained cautious about the technology for some years. Finally,
| in 1895 a breakthrough was made with the construction of the
| American Surety Building, a twenty-story, 303-foot (92 m) high-
| steel development that broke Chicago 's height record. From then
| on, New York thoroughly embraced skeleton frame construction._
| wodenokoto wrote:
| > an 11-story iron-framed skyscraper.
|
| Here in Dubai, it is not uncommon for skyscrapers to be built
| on top of an 11 story parking building / platau / base.
|
| I think 11 stories would be considered low-rise and even
| 20-story buildings looks tiny against the Marina skyline.
| grishka wrote:
| > Here in Dubai, it is not uncommon for skyscrapers to be
| built on top of an 11 story parking building
|
| And that looks awful when you're up close on the ground. Some
| buildings hide it better than the others, but still the
| architecture of Dubai really only looks nice when you're
| seeing it from a distance (or a height). I even tweeted about
| that:
| https://twitter.com/grishka11/status/1595045771744780292
|
| New York City is much nicer visually because it wasn't built
| around cars and is overall much denser. Manhattan somehow
| manages to look nice both from the streets and from a
| distance.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| Your tweet isn't showing the parking
| wodenokoto wrote:
| This is vida hotel in Dubai Marina. The base is "only" 10
| stories though:
|
| https://cloudfront--us--east--1-images-arcpublishing-
| com.cdn...
| grishka wrote:
| The second one in the thread does
| Macha wrote:
| Replies to individual linked tweets don't seem to render
| for logged out users on mobile these days. I only see one
| tweet, not a thread.
| grishka wrote:
| Oof. Musk is at it again. Here's the second tweet:
| https://twitter.com/grishka11/status/1595046077438328832
| wodenokoto wrote:
| I wasn't commenting on the aesthetics, but the size. I
| think it's crazy that what was once called a skyscraper is
| today considered parking.
| tokai wrote:
| If you read the article you would understand that its not the
| height but the construction that makes it a skyscraper.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| re Chicago:
|
| https://www.architecture.org/
|
| has wonderful, informed architectural tours you can take, some
| walking and some by bus, and the _really_ popular river cruise.
| I 've done a whole bunch of them.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| You should also read Devil in the White City, which is
| nominally about the construction of the 1893 World's Fair but
| really gives you a feel for the free-for-all that Chicago
| architecture was in that time period.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| read it.
|
| _Thunderstruck_ is not really that great, though. Two
| stories forced to be in parallel although they don 't
| really go together.
| elijaht wrote:
| River cruise is awesome, would definitely +1 it. Gave an
| awesome context to so much of the skyline
| Stratoscope wrote:
| Another river architecture fan here! It was one of the
| highlights of my recent trip to Chicago, along with the
| Field Museum (dinosaurs!) and a side trip to the Gilmore
| Car Museum in Hickory Corners, Michigan, near Kalamazoo.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| Wayback link (as the original seems down now):
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20231002140515/https://ephemeral...
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| >Though metal cage construction had been used to create Chicago's
| Home Insurance Building in 1885, Bradford brought the technology
| to New York, paving the way for the first generation of
| skyscrapers:
|
| >stated The Sun. "It came as an experiment, gained success in
| spite of general ridicule, and finally formed a beginning for all
| high buildings of recent times."
|
| But then the linked article about the Chicago building says,
| "this 10-story structure employed innovative engineering
| techniques and architectural features that _laid the foundation
| for skyscrapers of the future_ ".
|
| So why are these writers trying to give New York City credit for
| anything other than copying what Chicago already did?
| throwaway2990 wrote:
| It says it used a technique used in Chicago that people
| doubted. Using it in New York proved the technology viable and
| thus laid the foundation...
|
| > "When high winds blew during construction, crowds of
| onlookers gathered (at a safe distance) waiting for the radical
| new structure to fall over," according to a PBS/American
| Experience article.
|
| > "It was only when the architect himself climbed to the peak
| of the building and declared it perfectly safe that they were
| convinced otherwise."
| shermantanktop wrote:
| As a left coaster, I've been hearing variations on "it
| doesn't count until it happened in New York" for my entire
| life. That may not be what you intended, but that's what it
| reminds me of.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| True, but in architecture I think that battle was lost a
| long time ago. Chicago might be The Second City in a lot of
| things, but not in architecture.
| Swizec wrote:
| > "it doesn't count until it happened in New York"
|
| More importantly, a new standard isn't standard until it
| works in different locations implemented by different
| companies.
| datameta wrote:
| Credit is given to NYC... for NYC's first skycraper. I think
| that's rather straightforward.
| [deleted]
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