AND   BUILDERS'   GUIDE.





VoL..X.                -     NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 18T2.                       No. 244.





Published Weekly hy

THE REAL ESTATE RECORD ASSOCIATION.

TERMS.

One year, in advance.......................$(3 00

All oominunieations should he addressed to

•7 AND 9 WAIIUEN STIIKKT.





No receipt for money due tho RkaTj Est.VTE Rkcord
will be acknowledged unless signed by one of our regular
collectors. Henry.D..Smith, or TjiomAS F. Cummings.
All bills for collection will be sent from the office on a regu¬
larly printed form. -





Special Notice.

•■ Messbs. Mtt.TiEb & Coates, who laid all the tiles for tho
throe stories of the two new win.gs of the Capitol at Wash¬
ington, aud who have for the last twentj'-two ye.irs done
Kimilar work for many leading public buildings and the
finest private dwellings, still continue at their old place, 279
Pearl street.





THE   LESSOITS OF BOSTOH AND   CHICAGO.

The fearful calamity whicli oTertook Cliicago
a short time ago, and that which within the last
day or two has laid the whole hnsiness portion of
Boston in ashes, has naturally set every one to
thinking how we can hest put our own house
in order, in case some similar disaster should be
suddenly sprung upon us. That there is noth¬
ing whatever, either in the construction of its
buildings or the efficiency of its fire depart¬
ment, that could prevent New York from being
at any moment subjected to the same fearful
trials as Chicago or Boston is patent to any one
who takes the trouble to make a calm review
of its condition. Boston, at least, was in no
wise considered inferior to New Tork in the
efficiency of her fire department, and as to that
portion of the city which was especially sub¬
jected to destruction, we have really nothing
here to compare with it, either in the splendor
or solidity of the buildings consumed. So sub;
stantially were these colossal business structures
erected, that one writer said the streets looked
to him like narrow sinuous passages carved out
of a solid mountain of granite'. And yet Avhen
the Fire-fiend had been allowed to take a firm
hold upon these lordly edifices, the stoutest of
them crumbled to pieces like so many heaps of
sand. It is true that the peculiar construction
of Boston, with its tortuous narrow streets, gave
great facility to the spread of the flames, but,
even in this respect, there are many important
parts of our city scarcely any better off. Take,
for instance, the great business centre rejire-
sented by Church, "VVhite, Leonard, and the ad¬
jacent streets; with their lof ty and magnificent
rows of stone and niarble commercial palaces.
Suppose a fire should break out on some very
frosty windy night in that confined neighbor¬
hood, and what could possibly, save the whole





of that portion of the city, with its accumulated
we.ilth of incalculable value, from sharing the
fate of Boston ? We are no alarmist, but the
time has come for property-owners to look
these matters squarely in the face.

The New York Wo7'ld of Sunday last con¬
tained a very suggestive article, showing how
a city could be erected so as to be fixe-proof,
and, singularly enough, in the very same issue
appeared the announcement of the dreadful
conflagration in Boston. This is very useful
in its way; but we have just now to deal with
New York not as it might or should have
been but as it is, and probably the best way
of insuring the avoidance of danger is by
pointing out the quarters from which dan¬
ger may be most apprehended. This has
been very well done by Mr. McGtREGOK, the
Superintendent of Buildings, in an interview
with a reporter of the New York Wo7'ld. Among
the features which made Boston such an easy
prey to fire Mr. McGregor mentions the imi-
versal use of Mansart roofs, thinness and im¬
proper construction of partition walls, the
common use of hollow cast-iron pillars, the neg¬
lect of providing buildings with iron shutters
to the windows, and the lack of provision for
closing the space of elevators, traps, and other
air-vents running from top to bottom.

Taking these consecutively, the Mansart
roofs appear to have been the greatest crimi¬
nals in the recent catastrophe ab Boston. It
was through them that the flames easily burst
and leaped from house to house, after having
consumed these pretty but dangerous adjuncts,
like so much stubble.

Thinness of partition walls is another prolific
source of danger. In this respect the Boston
building laws seem more lax than our own,
although enough attention is not paid to it here.
There are cases of partition walls between
buildings which are nominally twelve inches
thick, but which, through the insertion of
beams from each side, are in countless points
reduced to only four inches in thickness. It
will readi.y be conceived how, in the event of
these beams being either consumed by fire or
removed from their places, if of metal, by the
contraction when water is poured on the heated
mass, would at once give easy vents for the
extension of fire from one house to another.

Hollow cast-iron columns are also very dan¬
gerous things to rely on in cases of great fires, in
spite of the excessive strength with which the
popular notion invests them. They are the
most treacherous features in moments of trial,
because, relying- upon their stirength, upon them
is made to fall the whole internal weight of a
buildiag: Cast-iron, columns are of so brittle a
material that, .when intensely: heated and then
suddenly cooled by ha,ving water poured upon
them, they break hke glass, and consequently





bring' to destruction the whole floor that was
depending upon them. How this difficulty is
to be met is not easy to say, unless in the adop¬
tion of some totally different kind of column.
One has been suggested consisting of an interior
tube placed inside another larger tube, the in¬
terior tube being made sufficiently strong to
carry the superincumbering weight in case of
necessity, and the intervening spaoe between
the two tubes filled with plaster-of-paris or.
other non-conductor of heat. By this arrange-;
ment, whatever might befall the outer coating
of metal, it is presumed that the heat would
not reach the internal core, and consequently
the supports of the building be saved. It is
certainly time that this, or any other equally
feasible method, should have a fair trial among
our builders, for it is evident that the . present
mode of constructing cast-iron columns hq.ve
been over and over again proved to be exceed¬
ingly faulty.

Besides an efficient fire department—which is
our Alpha and Omega of safety—we should, for
instance, see that we have always on hand suf¬
ficient water to meet any possible emergency;
and this it seems is scarcely possible, in the
present condition of our water-works, unless
we find some ingenious method of turning to
account the superabundonca of salt water which
Nature has placed within our immediate reach.
Among other suggestions. General McClellan
has proposed one for tunnelling certain streets
in the lower part of the city, so as to bring a
stream of salt-water from the East to the North
River, with stationary engines to throw water
from a dozen streams if necessary. Some such
provision, in various parts of the city, might,
with our unlimited supply of water, enable us
to defy the fiercest efforts of the Fire-fiend,
even though New York were ten times., more
combustible than Constantinople.





AailFICIAI STONE versus BRICKS.

Dr. Adolph Ott recently read a paper
before the Polytechnic Club of the American
Institute on Portland Stone, Cement, Stone^
and Brick. He said :—^European experience,-
extending over a period of more than forty
years, has established the fact that cpn^truc.-
tions of Portland cement or baton will resist
the influence and changes of climate equally as
well as the verj^-best building-stones. ^ Portland-
cement stone, if properly made, is almost im¬
pervious to water, while this cannot be said of
brick and sandstone. Since warmth and mois¬
ture are peculiarly favorable to vegetable
growth, these/ latter bnildi^^, materials are
more .liable to disintegration than, others with
less absorptive power. The resistance to frost
is absolute, even, in structures the roofs of
which are terraced .w.i'^ thi^ material. Wit^
regard to the absprptiqn of ^ inoisture of brick,
Mr; Edwin Chadwick,. who' wa^ appointed tq
report upon improved dwellings at the Paris E:^-
hibitiqn", ss^s:—" ^here is qaother great source