摩天大楼的有效性。

摩天大楼的有效性。

Last Sunday morning an interesting experiment was made by the fire department to ascertain what water pressure could be obtained on the top floors and roof of such a building as the “Flatiron,” at Twenty-third street and Broadway, Manhattan, in the event of its taking fire. It was one of the most satisfactory tests that has yet been made from any skyscraper. With two steamers in the street and nine lines of hose, a task was accomplished which would have been accomplished (if at all, which is not clear, considering how hose bursts under pressure at great heights) only by the use of at least twelve engines and an enormous amount of hose. It also showed that, with a properly trained band of employes (if they kept their heads) by means of a few lengths of hose, a fire could be fought in any floor in the highest building, if equipped with interior standpipes and their own hose. The “Flatiron” is twenty-two stories high. Inside it are standpipes connected with the engine in the building, running up from the cellar (thirty-five feet below the surface) to the roof, considerably over 300 feet above the level of the street. Each pipe is fitted with hose coupling at every floor and on the roof.

On Sunday last engine No. 1, the largest and most powerful in the fire department, and engine No. 14 were attached to the hydrants at Twenty-third street and Fifth avenue and Twenty-third street and Broadway respectively. Short lengths of hose were carried up in the elevators and distributed from the thirteenth floor to the roof. The water was then turned on in the roof pipes. The hose used was three inches in diameter, and the nozzle one and oneeighth inches. In about two minutes after the signal had been given, the water filled the hose and in something like another minute a very heavy stream was thrown over the roofs of the buildings adjoining on the south. So strong a wind was blowing that the carrying power of the stream diminished, but it reached the roof of Park & Til ford’s store at Twenty-first street and Broadway, while the spray rendered the Broadway pavement thoroughly wet from Twenty-second street to Nineteenth. After a little, the pipe was turned towards the west, and, in spite of the wind, the roofs of the buildings on the west side of Fifth avenue and far down the cross streets were drenched.