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A Record-Breaking Feat of Modern Construction

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A Record-Breaking Feat of Modern Construction 1'1Iii~~17jlt::~~~::~~~~;'~::Yi~'> ~ ~~ ,,'~-~~~~~ ii; ? j I'il II \i A RECORD-BREAKING PEAT OF MODERN CONSTRUCTION and Fuller had recently ascended to their fabulous, mechanistic structures we were position of dominance in the industry going to build.m "New York was the place 'Ii as "national builders," prevailing during for the man who wanted to build sky­ an extended period of labor conflict in scrapers," Paul Starrett added.s It offered 11\ New York-an outgrowth of the tens of the optimal economic and geographic con­ thousands of industrial strikes nationwide. ditions for conquering vertical space in !lll, 'II During the 1880s and 189os, the conflict the open "frontier" of sky. Popular maga­ had left the body politic reeling from the zines such as Everybody's similarly lauded shock, and especially from the violence the builders' force ofstructural ironworkers Ii' CHAPTER FIVE of the Haymarket (1886) and Homestead as "cowboys of the skies," a reference to II (1892) strikes, throwing up a seemingly the heroic masculinity identified with III impassable barrier between capital and Theodore Roosevelt's "rough riders" of A Record-Breaking Feat of labor.'" In reaction, Fuller promoted strat­ 1898, the self-taught regiment ofcowboys 1,1 egies of "peaceful" labor conciliation, who charged up Cuba's Kettle Hill to­ 'Ill Modern Construction designed to mask the day's deep division ward Sanjuan Ridge during the Spanish­ \1 between the employer and the employed. American War (fig. 5.1).9 The enterprise 1\1 1 The Woolworth Building's promotional of constructing skyscrapers, the magazine literature supported and furthered the de­ further suggested, reflected the nation's 111\ ception: It was not the "national builder," preparedness for battle, its persisting belief \llj ~\ but rather "master builders" and their in manifest destiny, and its current policy force ofartisanal "free labor" that collabo-'­ of expansion overseas. III oolworth and Gilbert's determination to build the highest sky­ II rated to construct New York as a modern In competing for the contract to con­ scraper in the world was rivaled only by the ambition of the skyscraper metropolis.sIn actuality, how­ struct the Woolworth Building, builders II men who vied to construct it, among the most vocal of propo­ ever, Thompson-Starrett and Fuller had such as Paul Starrett and Louis Horowitz :1 1\ -wnents for modernizing the city. "From 1905 to 1914 ... there seemed to be thoroughly reorganized the construction were, in fact, reacting to the localized, among modern builders an epidemic of heroic design, a veritable competition industry in the effort to circumvent such speculative market pressures inciting 'II 'II in lofty ambitions." New York's skyline was reshaping itself seemingly over­ conflict. They had employed their own expansion skyward-pressures that Wool­ , \ ,:1\ night, and from the perspective of the builder, "nothing man-made" produced forces of construction labor along with worth had likewise exploited as a source 1 1,I \1 "an equivalent thrilL''' Such a context of competition, described in the builder that of subcontractors under the new sin­ of capital and an instrument for attaining ,'I Paul Starrett's autobiographical account of enterprise and "can-do," Chang­ gle-contract system. In aiming to complete his headquarters' visibility. They and their 11 '\ , ing the Skyline, may have inspired Gilbert to assert his professional authority as large-scale projects in record time, they contemporaries in the building industry I had imposed a new level of modern ratio­ had invented new mechanical devices, \' an architect among New York's most noted builders. Starrett, he warned, 1;:\, nalization, efficiency, and financial control techniques, and methods of construction, should not enter the Union Club through the front door, but instead through :1\ over the entire construction process. besides systematizing the entire process the tradesman's entrance.2 But Gilbert also knew that Starrett, as president 1\\1 Horowitz later elucidated the builders' toward the end of modernizing the city 1\1 of the George A. Fuller Company, signified an economically powerful, thor­ II enterprising zeal and conviction about at a breathtaking pace. Exemplary of 11 ! 111 oughly twentieth-century phenomenon. Starrett headed one ofNew York's C~~nging the skylines ofmajor American this modernization, during what Thomas two giant, recently incorporated general contracting firms, two among the few C1~les, his spirit of conquest resonating Hughes has called the "era of technolog­ big enough to compete for the contract to build the Woolworth Building. WIth the widespread enthusiasm for tech­ ical enthusiasm," the Woolworth Building Regardless of Gilbert's view of Starrett, the builder wielded tremendous ~ology and for feats of daring construc­ was characterized by extremes.10 These tiOn 6 "E . power as the chief protagonist in the creation of the Woolworth Building once h" veryone ofus In the company felt were evident in the depth of its caisson­ Irnself to be an adventurer. We visioned constructed foundation and the record­ construction began. Louis Horowitz, president of the Thompson-Starrett th '. e CitIes ofAmerica rising to dizzy, gleam­ breaking height ofits structural steel as well Company, the firm that ultimately triumphed over Starrett's Fuller Company lilgh' h elg ts. We dreamed of unshaped in­ as in the workers' assembly of that steel to secure the project's contract, later asserted that "an architect could dream \Tentio h ns t at would become part of the in record time. Such evidence of modern­ and plan, but we could make the dream come true.'" Both Thompson-Starrett 16 166 7 1'1 \1' , I' 1\'1 A RECORD-BREAKING FEAT OF MODERN CONSTRUCTION , I CHAPTER FIVE worked on several big projects in several they set up headquarters in New York.19 ,i, big cities at once.14­ Before 1909, Thompson-Starrett had William Aiken Starrett, the vice pres­ founded offices in Chicago, San Francisco, "I I, II I ident of the Thompson-Starrett Company Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburgh, , during the Woolworth Building project, Salt Lake City, and Portland-and steel­ I later recounted that national builders had framed speculative office-building projects pioneered an "administrative revolution composed by far the largest proportion II' in construction," and so "raised contracting ofthe firm's total volume ofconstruction\20. 1,1 I": from a limited trade to both an industry Similarly, Fuller had established offices 11 and a profession" by "visualizing the build­ in Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, ""I, 'I!,I ing problem in its entirety.ms Theodore Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Chatta­ Starrett and Paul Starrett, brothers ofWil­ nooga, Kansas City, and Philadelphia.21 By liam Aiken, apprenticed with the Chicago 1911, Horowitz had developed Thom~on­ ",I 1 architect Daniel Burnham in the late 1880s Starrett into what he called a "modern and early 1890s. Both admired Burnham's building organization": a still larger, more ,'I II organizational capacities and largeness of systematized, and more efficient variation 16 \ vision. Theodore served as president of of Fuller's original single-contract sys­ II "\ the Thompson-Starrett Company from its tem.22 Regardless ofThompson-Starrett's I, I founding in 1899, and Paul became presi­ and Fuller's new national scope, however, " I II', I dent ofthe Fuller Company in 19°5.17 Well New York remained the industry's dom­ I I "I I before competing for the Woolworth Build­ inant center. Ifwe are to believe Starrett, ~ " \ I ing contract, both Thompson-Starrett Fuller constructed 80 percent of Man­ F" I G U RES, I cowboys of the Skies, showing steelworkers on the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower, 'I i and Fuller had taken charge of and, for a hattan's new buildings during the years II \ New York. From Everybody's Magazine, vol. 19 (November 1908). photograph by Arthur Hewitt I 2l I fixed percentage fee, had systematically around 1910 alone. Within such a context, and Frederick Colburn Clarke. \ \ organized all aspects of the large-scale Woolworth's skyscraper offered not only ,I 1\ I of1886-89. For the first time, Fuller built construction process: planning, financing, a profitable contract, but also the potential ',11111 ization presented a stark contrast to the City a skyscraper within a contractually pre­ and engineering, along with the subcon­ for advertising that contract, and with it, I Beautiful movement's highly esteemed tracts required to assemble labor and the builders' skills, organization, and mod­ I determined frame of time for a predeter­ horizontal landscape of axial planning, materials, chiefamong them the big con­ ern methods of construction in record time. ~~ 11 "II mined price, then "delivered" it as a I gardens, and Beaux-Arts monuments. But tracts for structural steel. product to its owner, the Chicago lawyer I by the time the New York City Improve­ Thompson-Starrett and Fuller predi­ I and businessman Wirt D. Walker, ready ment Commission published its first large­ cated their growth nationally as corpora­ THE WOOLWORTH ,',\ II!I to occupy. Subsequently, the Fuller Com­ scale plan, in 1905, New York's real estate tions on procuring big projects through BUILDING CONTRACT pany built up its reputation on taking '11111 speculators, bankers, and financiers had full financial responsibility for such proj­ strategic salesmanship, that is, on their Even before Woolworth began discussing \. already identified the city's audacious, ver­ ects, either on its own or through letting ability to convince a speculator of a pro­ his project with Irving National Bank's ',1111 tical skyline with its stature as a world subcontracts to othersY It incorporated posed project's future income-earning board ofdirectors in 19°8, several ofNew financial center. capacity.1s This markedly distinguished 1111, in 1890 and by 1896, set up an office in NeW York's largest builders-the George A.
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