Sunday, September 13, 2009
New York City, New York
The Municipal Building, facing City Hall Park at Park Row and Center Sts., contains offices for all the city departments and is the largest structure of its kind in the world. It is 34 stories, 580 feet high, including a 30-foot stature of Miss Civic Pride on tower. Foundation consists of 116 pneumatic caissons sunk 260 feet below water level. Total cost $13,000,000.
Hotel McAlpin, Largest Hotel in the World, Herald Square, New York.
Metropolitan Life Insurance Building
This building is on Madison Avenue, facing Madison Square. It is built of magnificent carved marble, mos elegantly finished. The building occupies an entire block, is 52 stories high, 700 feet high. Home office of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
Brooklyn Bridge, spanning East River from City Hall, Manhattan, to Sands St., Brooklyn, was opened May 4, 1883, and cost $21,000,000. It took thirteen years to build this bridge and it was the first suspension bridge of its kind in the world.
Why does the modern fascination with building to the sky seem quaint now? I wonder how some of these towers of their time compare to what came later. What is the tallest NYC building in the post-9/11 world? Empire State? I am amazed by the purchasing power of a million dollars in those days.
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