HOW A SKYSCRAPER IS MADE
As more and more people came to the city the business area on Manhattan proved too small, and with water to the east, to the west, and to the south, there was no possibility of spreading out in these directions. Yet business kept increasing, and the cry for added room became more and more urgent. Finally, the building of the ten-story Tower Building in 1889 solved the difficulty. It showed that, though hemmed in on all sides, there was still one direction in which the business section could grow—upwards. And upwards it has grown. To-day lower Manhattan fairly bristles with huge steel-framed skyscrapers which furnish miles and miles of office space, twenty, thirty, forty, in one case even fifty-five, stories above the street level. The supplying of office and factory space is not the only use that has been made of these steel buildings. Great apartment houses from twelve to fifteen stories high provide homes for thousands. Mammoth hotels covering entire city blocks furnish temporary homes for the multitudes which visit the city each year. Fifteen of the largest of these can house more than 15,000 guests at one time—a good-sized city in itself. Thus has Manhattan become one of the most densely populated areas on the globe. In the boroughs of Queens and Richmond, on the other hand, large tracts of land are given over to farms and market gardens.
Manhattan is at once the smallest and the most important borough in the city. Here are the homes of more than 2,000,000 people, the business section of Greater New York, and the chief shipping districts.
A MAMMOTH HOTEL
When building the narrow irregular streets of their little town on lower Manhattan, the inhabitants of New Amsterdam little dreamed that they would one day be the scene of the enormous traffic of modern New York. Those old, narrow, winding streets to-day swarm with hurrying throngs from morning till night and are among the busiest and noisiest in the world.
The newer part of the city from Fourteenth Street north to the Harlem River has been laid out in wide parallel avenues running north and south. These are crossed by numbered streets running east and west from river to river. Fifth Avenue runs lengthwise through the middle of the borough, dividing it into the East and West sides. On the East Side you will find the crowded homes of the poorer classes, where many of the working people of Manhattan live. On the West Side are many manufacturing plants, lumber yards, and warehouses. On the upper stretch of Fifth Avenue, and on the streets leading off, are the homes of many of New York's wealthiest residents. Opposite Central Park are some of the most costly and beautiful mansions in the city.
In this regular arrangement of streets, Broadway alone is the exception to the rule. Beginning at the southern end of the island, it runs straight north for more than two miles, then turns west and winds its way throughout the whole length of the city. About its lower end, and on some of the neighboring streets, center the banking and financial interests. Here are many of the city's richest banks and trust companies.
