INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



ing, the total uplift on a single column amounting, 

 for maximum wind pressure, to 470 tons. To provide 

 against this the columns are anchored to the caissons, 

 and the margin of safety against lifting is in no case 

 less than 50 tons to the column. The effect of the wind 

 pressure on the leeward side of the building also affords 

 some interesting figures. Thus, the total dead load 

 at the foot of one of the leeward columns is 289.2 tons, 

 which represents the weight of the steel work and ma- 

 sonry. The live load, which includes furniture, fittings, 

 and the maximum crowd of occupants, totals, at the 

 foot of this column, 131.6 tons. The downward pres- 

 sure on the leeward side of the building due to wind 

 pressure is 758.8 tons, and this, added to the dead and 

 live loads, brings the total load on these columns up 

 to 1,179.6 tons." 



The Singer Building is neither the tallest nor the 

 largest office building in the world, this distinction 

 being held, for the moment at least, by the Metro- 

 politan Building in New York. The tower of this 

 building is 700 feet high, and the total floor space of 

 the building is over 25 acres. A close second for size 

 is the City Investing Building, thirty-three stories 

 high, with a total floor space of 670,000 square feet, 

 accommodating 6,000 people. Both these figures are 

 surpassed by the combined sections of the Terminal 

 Building whose basements are occupied by the termi- 

 nal stations of the Hudson Companies' tunnels. But 

 since these sections are separated by a street, and are 

 not under a single roof, they cannot be considered as 

 a single building. 



