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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 10, no. 244: November 16, 1872

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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