Page:Popular Mechanics 1928 01.pdf/38

  Other piles showed the same result. There was not enough resistance and the piles disappeared into the soft earth below. Then the engineers placed a twelve by twelve timber on top of one of the concrete posts and set the pile driver to work. The pile, as a consequence, went down 112 feet before it hit hardpan. Geologists who were watching said that solid rock was down still farther.

The Albany building is not a great skyscraper as such buildings are known. It is designed to be but thirty-four stories high, and such a height is dwarfed in these days. While New York is located on solid rock, some geologists claim that the weight that can be piled on this rock is limited.

Meanwhile other cities continue to plan giant buildings. Harvey Wiley Corbett, noted city planner, who champions the skyscraper, predicts that American cities will soon have buildings twice as high as those of today, which many people are claiming as too tall. Major Henry H. Curran, also of New York, opposes Mr. Corbett and points to the impossibilities of such buildings in terms of human happiness as well as construction.



Mr. Corbett as an architect shows what he believes New York will look like in 1975. There will be other cities like it—Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, perhaps. "American cities will be composed of gigantic towers," he says. "Pedestrian traffic will be separated on elevated highways from vehicular traffic moving in "canals" below.

"The big cities will be modern Venices with motors instead of water filling the canals. The big stores will have two entrances, one below for automobiles and one on the second-story level for pedestrians. Shoppers will be able to walk from store to store undisturbed by traffic. The open park plazas will be lifted to a level with the pedestrian lanes and the space below will be used for parking automobiles.

"The step-back skyscrapers of the future will have moving stairs on the outside of the buildings instead of elevators, with facilities for passengers to alight at any floor," Mr. Corbett declared. "There will be airplane landings everywhere. Artificial light, now in its infancy, will revolutionize our life, turning night completely 