Shanty De Luxe.
What is to be probably the finest “shanty” ever erected in the United States is being put up by Frederick L. Cranford, Inc., subway contractor, at the southwest corner of City Hall Park, close to Broadway, New York City. It is to have a height of three stories, the first to form a sort of arcade to allow free passage for pedestrians along the Mail Street sidewalk. The building will cover the entire width of the broad sidewalk for a distance of seventy-five feet.
Shanties of some sort are always erected by contractors on subway work, and if this one had had to go up in some other place, it would have no doubt resembled a real shanty on stilts by the time it was finished. In this case, however, the public service commission required the contractor to build an extra nice-looking structure, because of the fact that it is located on the edge of the park and in front of City Hall. The plans had to be approved by Park Commissioner Ward before the work could be begun.
“The shanty will be divided into two separate buildings,” said a representative of the company to-day. “One side will serve as headquarters for our field force, and the other as quarters for the men engaged in tunnel work on the subway. The labor law requires, you know, that where men are engaged in tunnel work rest quarters must be provided for them. There will be wash rooms and lunch rooms, with lockers, where the men may change their clothes on going to and leaving work. The whole structure will cost from five to six thousand dollars. The building will be painted an attractive color.”
The pretentious shanty will serve only the tunnel men and the field engineering force of the section of the new Interborough subway running under the post office. This section begins at West Broadway and runs through Park Place, under the post office, and through Beekman Street, to William Street. This section will connect the new Seventh Avenue subway with the tunnel under the East River to Clark Street, Brooklyn. The contract price for this section is $1,571,363.50. It is the section that was held up so long because of the opposition of Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo to granting an easement for digging under the post office.