January 13, 1912





RECORD   AND   GUIDE





LESSONS   FROM   THE   EQUITABLE   FIRE.

Report of a Preliminary Survey By the Underwriters—No Protection on Columns and
Beams—Large Floor Areas and Numerous Floor Openings Aided Spread of the Flames.





Q INCE the destruction of the Equitable
*~^ Building by fire on Tuesday morning,
the pians which had been on file at the
Building Bureau for a G2-story edifice on
the same site have been withdrawn by the
architects and the best information obtain¬
able is to the effect that it is improbable
they will ever be used. The mem¬
bers of the executive committee of the
Equitable Life Assurance Society are re¬
ported lo be almost unanimously of the
opinion that the site on which the burned
building stands should be sold and a more
modest home erected elsewhere. At the
Building Bureau and at the local offices
of the architects of the projected building
the understanding is to the same effect.

"We have virtually decided," said an of¬
ficial representative of the insurance com¬
pany, "that the advertisement afforded by
a large downtown office building is too
costly. We believe better value can be ob¬
tained for our money from advertise¬
ments   in   the   press."

The bui'ning of the Equitable Building
was one of the biggest fires and on ac¬
count of the intense cold then prevailing
it was one of the most trying experiences
for firemen in many years. The greater
portion of the original building, facing on
Broadway, is entirely gutted, and the
floors to the extent of one-fourth of the
area of the building, to the west end, have
collapsed. Seven lives were lost. The as¬
sessed valuation of the building, exclu¬
sive of the vaults was $2,200,000, The
original  cost  was  much larger.

This was the first iarge office building
to be erected in New York. It was also
the first "elevator building," in that the
flrst section of it was the first building in
the cily designed to have an elevator. El¬
evators were in use in the Fifth Avenue
Hotel and the St. James Hotel before the
Equitable Building was erected, but the
buildings were not originallj' intended for
elevators. The first section of the Equit¬
able was built in 1869-70.

Pireiiruof  Construction.

The term "fireproof" has meant differ¬
ent things at different eras. Before the
Chicago fire it did not exclude wooden
doors, window-frames, floors and parti¬
tions—all of wood. The first so-called fire¬
proof building to be erected in this city
was the Park Bank, in 1868; the second
was the old New Yorlc Life Insurance
. Building, in 1S69. The Equitable Build¬
ing was built w-ith granite front walls ih
the prevailing French style, with Man¬
sard roof. The interior construction was
of masonry partition walls, iron beams
and segmental brick arches. It was orig¬
inally five stories high. Jer. T, Smith
was the mason; J. G. Patterson the gran¬
ite contractor and J. B. & J. M. Cornell,
the iron contractors. The additions at 78
to 82 Cedar street were built in 1874,
from  plans  by E.  H.  Kendall.

In 1887, the building was enlarged to its
present symmetrical dimensions, George
B. Post being the architect, and David H.
King, Jr., the builder. In the first sec¬
tion the fioors were constructed of com¬
mon brick arches between iron beams and
furred underneath with metal lath, plas¬
tered, to get level ceilings; the minor par¬
titions were of angle-iron studs, covered
with metal lath and plastered. In the
added portions of the building the floors
were of hollow burnt clay flat arches, be¬
tween iron beams, and the partitions were
of burnt clay blocks.

In its last form the building was mostly
nine stories and basement, except at the
northeast and southeast corners, w-hicli
were six and seven stories and basement.
The area was 48.000 square feel. Walls
were mostly stone and brick bearing
walls, except the portion at 13-15 Nassau
street, which had skeleton walls. Floors
of old-style brick arches and part flat tile
arches supported on unprotected steel
beams, cast iron columns and bearing
walls, except in the Nassau street section
before   mentioned.

A   Surveyor's   Report.

Supt. F. J. A. Stewart, of the Bureau
of Surveys of the New York Board of Fire
Underwriters, in a preliminary report,
states that there was no protection on col¬
umns or beams in the main building ex¬
cept that afforded by the brick and tile
floor arch construction. The floors were
surfaced mostly with wood, though there
was lile and other incombustible finish in
some of the hallways and other minor
parts. Floor openings were numerous—
stairs,  elevators  and  light  shafts.    Some





stairs and elevators were protected on
three sides by terra cotta shafts, but they
had open grills or wooden doors on one
side. There was one large interior court
extending above the second floor; approx¬
imately 35x90 feet, and four shafts, each
10x2s feet, near the north -n'all, enclosed in
terra cotta blocks, but having thin glas,-3
window openings to offices and halls. A
large portion of the building was occupied
by banking concerns, railroad offices, club-
rooms and the Equitable offices, all hav¬
ing large unbroken floor areas.

The report of Superintendent Stewart
further  says:

tiOention nud Progrress of Fire.
"Fire is said lo have started about 5 a.
m. in the basement storeroom at the
Broadway end. Considerable time is said
lo have been wasted before a public flre
alarm was turned in, owing to the fact
that efforts were made by employees to
extinguish the fire. When the Fire De¬
partment finally arrived the fire liad made
great headway, principally through stair
and elevator shafts to the floors above.
The greater portion of the original build¬
ing facing on Broadway is entirely gut¬
ted and the floors to the extent of about
one-fourth of the area of the building, at
the west end have collapsed.

"The rapid spread of the flre seems un¬
doubtedly to have been due to the fact
that a number of the tenants occupied
large unbroken floor areas, and there was
nothing to retard the vertical spread of
the fire o-^ving to numerous open light
wells, stair and elevator shafts. The spread
of the fire was further facilitated by the
fact that the abnormally high wind con¬
verted many of the hose streams into flne
spray, reducing their effectiveness. Wood
was also extensively used in the partitions
and    interior    trim."

It is apparent from the foregoing that
the building was not "fireproof" as the
term is understood now. Perhaps on the
w'hole it represented the best construction
of Us time. The Equitable Society had
both the means and the desire to build in
the most substantial manner, but the fact
remains that instead of the building be¬
ing one solid unit it was a collection of
units of various ages and types of con¬
struction, and planned by different archi¬
tects. The last architect, George B. Post,
designed but one corner of the structure
as a whole, other than the alterations.
With the contents of the building he had
nothing to do.

The application to present-day construc¬
tion is not very close, so far as the struc¬
ture of the building is concerned, but the
reference in the report of Supt. Stewart
to "large unbroken floor areas" is signifi¬
cant. There is nothing that will not burn
if exposed to flames long enough. The
contents of a building rather than the
nature of its structure is the danger ele¬
ment in the modern skyscraper. A prom¬
inent underwriter expressed the opinion
that the collapse of some of the floors was
due primarily to the failure of an unpro¬
tected vertical column.

Fire Commissioner Johnson said in a
statement that the destruction of the
Equitable Building, with its attendant loss
of life was an object lesson to New York¬
ers on the danger from methods of con¬
struction in the city. He described the
burned building as "an unrelated patch-
worli, started forty-two years ago, when
the paid department was in its infancy,
and W'as known to underwriters as 'sub¬
standard construction.'       This simply
means that the building was not fireproof;
but it was permitted to exist in its haz¬
ardous condition in the face of modern
fire   preventive   construction."

"New Yorkers, I fear," his statement
goes on, "are under the delusion that New
York w-ill always be free from such con¬
flagrations as visited Chicago, Boston and
Baltimore. The same fuel for conflagra¬
tion which existed in those cities exists in
Manhattan in the old wholesale drygoods
district and in the mass of buildings in
the "Swamp" and ail the way up the East
Side, as well as in several parts of the
Brooklyn waterfront. With weather con¬
ditions such as prevailed Tuesday morn¬
ing, and with an area of highly inflamma¬
ble buildings such as exists in the dis¬
tricts I have described, w-ith no barriers
of fireproof buildings around them. I am
somewhat fearful that history may repeat
itself."

Stnudintj;   WaUs    Not   MenaciuK.
Deputy Commissioner Ludwig,  upon an
inspection  of  the  ruins,  decided that  the
exterior  walls  did  not  present  a  serious





menace to the surrounding buildings. He
found the north ■wall, somewhat forced out
of plumb, but not to a dangerous degree.
AU the walls, however, would have to
come down eventually. The Building Bu¬
reau early put Co men at work, flrst, lo
make the ruins safe for workmen, and,
second, to look for bodies, and incident¬
ally clearing away the debris. Later the
force was strengthened to two hundred.

Mr. Ludwig said that the plans on file
in the Buildmg Bureau showed that the
building w-as a composite structure as it
had been erected in several sections at
different times, and had been the subject
of alterations repeatedly.

"It has always been supposed," said an
insurance man, "that what is know'n as
the old style fireproof building, which has
brick arches and exposed iron beams, was
a good risk when the structure was used
as an office structure as was the Equi¬
table Building. It has been clearly demon¬
strated that the old style fireproof struc¬
ture is not as safe as has been presumed."

The Equitable Building was distin¬
guished from others of its kind chiefly by
the magnificence of its appointments and
finishings. Artistically it was one of the
finest specimens of American architecture,
and for more than thirty years was one
of the show places of the city. Its mar¬
ble wainscotings on every one of its
eleven floors, with bronze and marble
statuary accentuating its mural decora¬
tions, gave to it a character that bespoke
both excellent taste and lavish and un¬
hampered expenditure on the part of
Henry E. Hyde, who founded the insur¬
ance company that was housed within
its  marble walls.

The general design of the building was
the Renaissance, the roof of the structure
being finished with cupolas several stories
high set around the base of a gigantic
tower.

The building was last assessed on the
tax books at $12,100,000—$9,500,000 for
the land, $2,200,000 for buildings and
§400,000 for vaults.

It was in 190S that the society figured
for a time on erecting the tallest building
in the world on the site. Plans were
drawn by architects and estimates of the
cost obtained. The building was to be
sixty-two stories in height—909 feet in
the air—not counting a flag pole. This
would have made it 209 feet higher than
the Metropolitan Life Building, 292 feet
higher than the Singer, 354 feet higher
than the Washington Monument, and 75
feet lower than the Eiffel Tower. The
cost was estimated at $10,000,000 which,
with the $10,000,000 valuation on the
land, would have made the amount in¬
vested $25,000,000. The present inten¬
tion of the directors is reported to be to
abandon this enterprise for a less costly
one.

The first architect was Bradford L. Gil¬
bert, who, with the founder of the so¬
ciety, planned things in the construction
and accommodations of an office building
that had never before been attempted.
The first unit of the immense structure
was erected at the southeast corner of
Broadway and Cedar street. It was oc¬
cupied in 1S70, and was enlarged until
the  building fronted on four streets.





A Growing Town,

The city of Poughkeepsie is at present
growing faster than any other place on
the central Hudson. Last year it erected
lb9 buildings of ali descriptions. When
It IS remembered that the Hudson River
towns were for many years—following the
panic of 1S93 and up to the present dec¬
ade—almost lifeless in their real estate
and construction departments, the rec¬
ord made by Poughkeepsie last year is
significant of a decided ciiange for the
better  along the  river.

Poughkeepsie has recently acquired a
number of new manufacturing industries
and is also getting the beneflt of an im¬
proved back-country ti-ade, owing to the
prosperous times farmers are having at
the expense of those who must pay high
prices for farm products. Poughkeepsie,
Newburgh and Kingston have for genera¬
tions grown at about the same slow rate.
They were thriving centers for large sec¬
tions of Eastern New York State before
the Erie Canal and the railroads were
built, and long before the big cities of
the West were on the map.