Skyscrapers Old and New
Q. My 5-year-old son, Ethan, wants to know: How tall does a building have to be to be a skyscraper?
A. Great question, Ethan, but there is no official number; it depends on the year (or century) and the location. For instance, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Oklahoma!,” which takes place in 1906, a seven-story building in Kansas City is considered an impressive skyscraper. What is often regarded as the world’s first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building in Chicago in 1885, was nine stories. Today, Chicago is home to the 110-story Sears Tower.
What may be more significant than mere height is whether the tower looms over its surroundings. In this respect, the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings qualify, hands down. But many tall buildings in the financial district, or on Avenue of the Americas in Midtown, may appear less skyscraperish than shorter buildings elsewhere that have the surrounding air all to themselves.
The word “skyscraper,” by the way, was originally applied to the mast of a tall ship. It first became associated with tall buildings in Chicago in the 1880s, when steel skeletons began to replace load-bearing walls, and when rooftop water tanks became necessary to supply the top floors.
According to The New York Times’s archives, the first building this newspaper referred to as a skyscraper was its own. “The New ‘Times’ Building. To Be Thirteen Stories High and of Granite and Limestone,” read the headlines on June 13, 1888. The article was about the old Times building at 41 Park Row, which was adding eight stories. (The Times moved to Times Square in January 1905.)
A Fading Ornament
Q. Could you tell me something about the narrow, slightly rundown building at 4 East 43rd Street? For a commercial structure, it has more than the usual amount of ornamentation.
A. Oh, you mean the cherubs? The Italianate balconies? The elaborate columns and arches and furled curtains of stone? The shields with lions rampant?
In a 1990 article in The New York Times, the architectural historian Christopher Gray identified the seven-story structure as the former Mehlin Piano building. It was erected in 1916.
According to Mr. Gray, Klein & Jackson, a contractor-developer, built the marble-fronted building, and Andrew J. Thomas designed it. The Mehlin Piano Company leased the building for 20 years and moved out before the lease was up. (The ornate facade, surprisingly, has no distinctly musical designs.) Since then, the building has been used as offices.
Wave to Subway Ghosts
Q. When I’m riding the 4, 5 or 6 Lexington Avenue subway lines, I sometimes notice that the train slows down significantly as it passes the abandoned 18th Street Station. How come?
A. For safety. Glenn Lunden, the director of rail systems planning for New York City Transit, said the Lexington Avenue trains operate more slowly near the old 18th Street station because there are sharp curves a short distance away, at the 14th Street-Union Square station and just north of that point.
The abandoned station, at 18th Street and Park Avenue, was closed in 1948 after the nearby Union Square Station was lengthened. MICHAEL POLLAK