July 27, 1912





RECORD AND  GUIDE





171





Panel No. 4—Stucco wail touilt by last-
ening metal lath to wood studding. The
mixture ol the cement plaster used in
this wall was particularly designed to pre¬
vent hair cracks and other imperfections
to which stucco walls under alternating
weather conditions, when not properly
built, are subject, but it seemed to
stand the abuse about as well if not
better than Panel No. 1. This furnace
was fired the full two.hours, the highest
temperature reached being 1,943 degrees.

Plate. No. 41 shows the condition of the
wall after "fire and water."

Panel Xo. 5—Four-inch hollow metal
lath. It had full two hours' fire, reach¬
ing  1,976  degrees   at   the  highest.

Plate No. 29 shows the metal lath
slightly exposed on the inside of the
wall. The outside of the wall received
no  damage  and   the   inside  is  still  good.

Panel No. G—P.laster board on wood
studding. This partition had a total fire
of 74 minutes at a maximum ol 1,562 de¬
grees and then water was allowed to flow
on it at low pressure to quench the fire
in the partition and after that the
full stream was turned on for half a
minute with the result shown in Plate 35.
Cniumittee   Coiuiilling   Data.

Mr. Allen is having the committee com¬
pile the data with the expectation that
very shortly the full official report illus¬
trated and In pamphlet form can be had
for a small fee.

Research of th's c'.iaracter so carefully
carried on means much to all who are
interested in .building construction. In
these times ol exhaustive study ol all
subjects pertaining to fire-waste and its
prevention, it would seem necessary that
any cities having pride in their growth
and the welfare of their citizens should
follow up such educational work as this
in all lines in a way that will solve these
problems. Too often the good salesman¬
ship of the manufacturers and a mental
inertia on the part of the one who says
what shall be used, result in the accept¬
ance of materials whose use is a menace
to life and property.

The United States Bureau of Standards
has begun investigations to determine the
physical properties of all 'building ma¬
terials and it would seem proper that the
State and city governments should make
appropriations in a similar course, that
they may determine for themselves what
is s'ale to use.                             ,   ,      .     .

Cleveland has made a good beginnmg
and what it has done has been well done.





ENDS DELAY IN JAMAICA.

Terminal Improvements Will Create Great
Center Here.

Justice Crane's granting ol a certificate
ol necessltv allowed the Long Island Rail¬
road Company to take possession ol the
J. K. O. Sherwood plot and resume work
on the big terminal improvements at Ja¬
maica, which some authorities predict will
make Jamaica the business as well as the
traffic center  of Long Island.

The property had been in litigation for
three years. Condemnation commissioners
will be appointed. It is expected that the
entire work ot yard elevation and im¬
provement will be completed by the end
of next year and the new station and ter¬
minals for transfer of passengers will be
completed in time for use for next sum¬
mer's traffic.

The plan provides for the elimination
of ten or twelve existing grade crossings
in the villages of Jamaica and Richmond
Hill and tor the carrying of eight or ten
highways that do not now cross the
tracks beneath the elevated line ot the
railroad, thus providing for that number
of new crossings to connect the north and
south sides of the village.

The company will also next year begin
the elevation of its tracks east of Ja¬
maica and through Queens village to the
Nassau County lines, the order for which
has been issued by the Public Service
Commission, the State having appropri¬
ated $250,000 as its one-fourth share of the
work. Eventually the electric service will
be extended to points as far eajst as Baby-
Ion on the Montauk division and to Oyster
Ray and Huntington* on the north side.





Site for Richmond Court House.

Mayor Gaynor has approved the selec¬
tion that has been made of a site for the
additional county court house in the
county of Richmond. The Corporation
Counsel is now authorized to instittue con¬
demnation proceedings for the acquisition
of the land.

The site is north of the Borough Hall
in the block bounded by Stuyvesant
place, DeKalb avenue. Jay street and
South street. Carrere & Hastings, are
drawing the plans for the building.





GRAND CENTRAL \^ORK.

Contract for Hotel  Biltmore—Last Bite
in Excavating.

The awarding ol the general contract
lor the erection ol the Hotel Biltmore,
which will be an integral p&rt ol the
Grand Central Station, to the George A.
Fuller Company, of 111 Broadway, signal¬
izes the' advent of a very important stage
of the construction of the great terminal
works. It means that the last "bite" of
the underground operations Is well ad¬
vanced, and that from now on the evi¬
dence of the progress of the work will
be more visible to the public eye.

The hotel will occupy the plot between
43d and 44th streets. Vanderbilt and Madi¬
son avenues, will be twenty-five stories
high and contain a thousand rooms, not
counting baths, expansive corridors, re¬
ception rooms, banquet halls, and other
attachments that char^icterize the modern
inn. It will cost $5,500,000, exclusive of
furnishings and  the value of the  land.

The site is owned by the New York
and Harlem and the New York Central
and Hudson River Railroad companies,
and the building is being erected jointly
by the New York Central and the New
York, New Haven and Hartford Rail¬
road companies. The hotel will be oper¬
ated by Gustave Baumann and John M.
Bowman. Beneath the building will be
the Incoming station for the railroads.
The first fioor of the hotel will be a
lew   leet  above  the  street  level.

The base of the superstructure will
have a granite exterior, the next section
will be limestone, and the main body of
the building, which will have two wings,
will be faced with brick. In ail respects
the building will be fireproof, and the
materials and workmanship will be the
best.

The south half ol the hotel will be
given over to commercial business, where
rates reasonable, but yet consistent with
successlul operation and the best service
will be in vogue. The dining rooms in
the north wing will be operated on a
somewhat higher scale. All the public
dining rooms will be on the flrst floor,
but there will be private dining rooms
on other flo(/rs, with separate ways ol
getting to and Irom the kitchen. On the
twenty-third floor will be a large banquet
hall and ball room. Guests arriving by
the railroads will pass into elevators
connecting with the lobby ol the hotel.

Unless the railroad managers are mis¬
taken, the hotel and the other buildings
which will eventually cover the twenty
blocks included in the terminal premises
will be the uptown civic and social cen¬
ter for the whole city. It will ibe even
more tlian a semi-subterranean capital
of   a   vast   transportation   empire.     The





magnitude ol the terminal work as a
whole exceeds anything of like nature
ever undertaken before, when a compari¬
son . is made on the basis of cost, as it
will represent an expenditure of some¬
thing like $180,000,000, which includes the
cost of electrification, as well as of land
and  buildings.

The facade of the "head house" is now
far enough advanced for the public to
glimpse the general architecture scheme
which suggests a "gateway" to the city.
The central part is in the form of a
triumphal arch, to and through which
Park avenue with Its tesselated pave¬
ment will lead from the north, flanked
on either side all the way from SOth
street by monumental buildings each ot
which  contributes  to  the   general  effect.

The problem out of which the whole
big improvement scheme was evolved was
to create a loop system that would per¬
mit trains to enter and leave the station
without being switched. Then in Janu¬
ary, 1902, an accident happened in the
tunnel which prompted the Legislature
to demand the abolition of steam and the
use ol electricity as a motive power.
This act lurnished another and the larger
motive lor the whole project.

Electrification meant underground tracks
and platlorms, and this use ol the lower
areas, in turn, enabled the architects to
restore the ground-level space, lormerly
used lor yards, to the public for high¬
ways and buildings. Must of the streets
had been closed, and were represented
only by foot brodges.

It put at the disposal of the railroad
company many acres of new surface over
the tracks, but level with the ground
and suitable for occupation by buildings.
In a measure this added space for rev¬
enue producing structures recompensed
the owners for having to put the tracks
underneath.

The excavating Is three quarters fin¬
ished. In another year what remains to
be done under that head' Will not Inter¬
fere with the general usefulness of the
station. Next January the Concourse in
the main building is due to be ready.
and in the lollowing October the hotel
will be ready also. In- 1915 the -whole
project, so lar as the railroad end of it
is concerned, will be completed, but long
before that time the temporary Incon¬
venience to the public will have ceased
and all the new facilities-will be in use.

The real estate development of the sec¬
tion will continue until' the' surface of
the Park avenue approach consists of
two unbroken lines of monumental- build¬
ings, erected by the railroad corporations,
with rows of private apartment houses
beyond, and on either side—on the east
as well as on the west^a general re¬
construction of private premises in con¬
formity with the new character of the sec¬
tion.







THE   HOTEL   BILTMORE.
The general contract for its construction was awarded this week.