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The HUDSON TERMINAL BUILDING, on Church street, between Fulton and Cortland, is the terminal of the Hudson River tunnels to Jersey City, and the nucleus of all the underground railway systems that con-verge under lower Manhattan. The twenty-two stories have 4,000 offices, with an estimated population of 10,000. The building occupies 70,000 square feet of ground. The cubic areas are 14,500,000 cubic feet above ground, 3,650,000 cubic feet below ground, or a total of 18,150,000 cubic feet. Here are some of the official figures that give an idea of the amount of material necessary in the construction of this New York sky scraper. To build the walls above the curb 16,300,000 bricks were necessary; there are 1,300,000 square feet of tile partitions, 5,200 doors, 5,000 windows, and a total glass area of 120,000 square feet; 500,000 square yards of plastering, 16 miles of plumbing pipe, 29 miles of steam pipe, 56 miles of woodbase, 65 miles of picture molding, 95 miles of conduits, 113 miles of electric wiring, and 30,000 electric lights. Special features of the building are perhaps the largest electric storage battery among New York city sky scrapers, and an arcade which is a great glass-inclosed uassageway, lined with shops and booths. It is larger than any of the famous European arcades.
The highest achievement in New York historical skyscrapers is the Woolworth Building, which occupies the entire block front on Broadway from Park Place to Barclay street. It has fifty-five stories and rises to a height of 793/ feet above the Barclay street entrance.
A curious effect of the New York sky scrapers is the influence the mass of steel in their frames has on the compasses of the shipping in the harbor. Commanders of steamers at Hoboken say their compasses show a difference of as much as seven degrees in leaving their docks, which lessens as they get down the bay, but some pilots assert that the variation is notable as far out as the turn in the Gedney Channel.
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