Page:Popular Mechanics 1928 01.pdf/40

 into day. The cities' business hours will be twenty-four instead of eight or ten; people will work in six-hour shifts. The churches will be located atop of the great commercial buildings, commanding attention, or be buried in nondescript buildings below."

Mr. Corbett bases his prophecies on a lifetime of leadership in designing great buildings, and is a world authority. He continued: "Buildings will cover entire blocks, reaching in series of lifts and towers to supreme heights.

"Some of the skyscrapers will be a half mile high and will house small-sized cities. Stores will occupy lower floors. Then will come banks of floors devoted to offices. Atop of this section will be the residential part, floors where those who are employed in the business division of the structure might live. Schoolrooms, churches, theaters and social features will take over the next section of floors. The roof will be used for airplane landings or station stops for air transit to various sections of the country, or for that matter, the world.

"Imagine these new cities with no smoke, where the heat, the power and the light are all supplied by burning coal at the mine that is transformed into electric power and sent to the cities, where the upper portions of the buildings are more attractive than the lower, where we can take advantage of our terraces and use them for our gardens, if we wish."



But there are problems other than that of foundations to offset such a great dream, says Major Curran, who is counsel for the New York city club and member of the New York board of aldermen and himself an authority on city activities.

Major Curran sees in the skyscraper the cause of much discomfort. "There are everyday workers who count their ribs on release from its elevators and the subways that take them to their offices. They must pop out of kiosks like prairie dogs and move in the center of crawling motors that spit fumes from curb to curb."

Major Curran continued: "Now a New York architect announces a building of 110 stories! This inverted spyglass is to rise 1,200 feet in the air, thus outstripping not only Detroit's effort but also the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which is still the highest piece of construction in the world."

The physical difficulty of digging into the earth may deter the super-super-super-skyscraper. Perhaps a great accident will have its effect, for as the new building's foundations must be dug, the old ones must be watched carefully, and frequently a new foundation must be placed beneath the adjoining structure. Such complicated underpinning and transferring of loads running into thousands of tons are accomplished in the face of the ever-present menace of flood, fire and explosion. 