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jETwwf for novel approach to 'buyers* purses and rising rents of ground- 

 floor locations may lead retailers to favor roof -gardens on top of hotels and 

 high-class office buildings. Now that telephone orders exceed personal calls 

 the possibilities presented in this article may appeal to practical minds. 



HE FLORIST of today is 



Tmost certainly not a celes- 

 tial in his mode of cere- 

 bration. He is no wor- 

 K. A sniper of things bygone. 

 1^1..^ He looks up, not down; 

 ^~v^ ahead, not behind, and he 

 #^ ^'O' is eager to lend a hand 

 ^bsb:^bJj wherever and whenever it 

 will contribute to the ad- 

 vancement of his craft. So it is not 

 too much to expect him to do the un- 

 usual, the startling, the bizzare, in his 

 effort to lure the lucre. 



The recent completion of the sky- 

 garden on the roof of the Hotel Penn- 

 sylvania, New York's newest and most 

 elaborate hostelry, lends a flavor to the 

 foregoing remarka that lingers in a re- 

 flective mind. Time was when a florist 

 could establish himself in a street-level 

 store and cultivate assidu- 

 ously whatever genius he 

 had in arranging window 

 displays and making profit 

 commensurate with his in- 

 vestment. But with the in- 

 creasingly forbidding main- 

 floor rentals in the con- 

 gested office building, hotel 

 and department store sec- 

 tions of the city, his orien- 

 tation b^omes relatively 

 complicated. 



Lure Aloft. 



The whole thing resolves 

 itself into a question of ob- 

 jective. What is the cali- 

 ber of the game he is after t 

 If it is small fry, his 

 troubles are virtually at an 

 end, for he can retire to a 

 basement or an upper floor 

 and keep the wolf from the 

 door. If, however, he is 

 after something worth while 

 in the way of customers, he 

 finds himself under the ne- 

 cessity of maintaining an 

 elaborate establishment on 

 the street level or of find- 

 ing an equally advanta- 

 geous location elsewhere. 



And right here the sky- 

 garden comes in, for what 

 is more natural than that 

 he should make capital out 

 of his quandary and retire 

 to the roof, where with a 

 well stocked sky-garden he 

 has every bit of human 

 psychology working for in- 

 stead of against him! The 

 advantage of light and fresh 



air is all on his side. The lure of an 

 always fascinating panorama constantly 

 draws buyers. In fact, he is right on 

 top of hundreds of possible customers, 

 whether his greenhouse tops a hotel or 

 an office building. Then, too, it has the 

 added attraction in the eyes of the big 

 game of being out of the path of the 

 rabble. Moreover, from such a vantage 

 point the attention of the patrons would 

 not be divided by some object foreign 

 to the main issue. 



Sky-Oarden Worth Study. 



The structure topping the Hotel Penn- 

 sylvania is worth study, altogether 

 apart from the possibilities this erection 

 has suggested. The main greenhouse is 

 60 X 90 feet, of what the engineers style 

 the 3-hinged arched construction. It 

 was figured to support a dead weight 



Greenhouse atop New York Hotel may route Retailers Ambitions 



of ten pounds per square foot plus a 

 wind pressure of twenty-five pounds per 

 square foot. And when one considers 

 tnat it is a steel and glass structure, 

 that it stands 300 feet above the street 

 level, that it passed the test of the lynx- 

 eyed engineers of the bureau of build- 

 ings of the borough of Manhattan, it 

 seems like a postulation to say that its 

 builders, the American Greenhouse Mfg. 

 Co., have contributed something notable 

 to greenhouse architecture. The ma' 

 greenhouse is connected by a smp' r 

 one at right angles to it, 18 z 45, ^d- 

 ing to the big roof garden dinin' oom. 

 The original purpose of E. M. otatler, 

 the famous hotel proprietor, in erecting 

 this sky-garden was to have a prome- 

 nade for banqueters, a place where they 

 might stroll through majestic palms and 

 strange, exotic flowering plants, undis- 

 turbed by the vulgar noises 

 of the street. However, as 

 the work of the erection 

 progressed, the plans of the 

 hotel management became 

 more elaborate. The idea 

 was conceived of lighting it 

 by electric bulbs in the 

 shape and color of butter- 

 flies, modeled and tinted 

 as nearly like nature as 

 possible, and Butterfly 

 Conservatory was suggest- 

 ed as a most appropriate 

 name. 



Versatile Structuro. 



Whether the greenhouse 

 will be merely a conserva- 

 tory for the enjoyment of 

 the hotel's patrons, or 

 whether the Hotel Pennsyl- 

 vania will follow the lead 

 of a number of other hotels 

 and establish a florists' 

 business in connection with 

 it, is not yet certain. The 

 opportunity, however, is 

 there for some enterprising 

 florist with a big vision. 

 Not only there, but every- 

 where. For in cities, as on 

 the proverbial ladder, there 

 is always room at the top, 

 and as everything else obeys 

 a natural impulse to go up 

 these days, why not the 

 florists? 



A paragraph in the New 

 York notes in The Review 

 two weeks ago read: "The 

 roof garden seems likely to 

 become a feature in the fu- 

 ture com "rAction of large 



