New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [375]
William stared at her. He hadn’t even seen the damned house at Newport this summer. Rose had been up there, but she told him it wasn’t habitable with all the workmen. He hardly knew what she was doing to the place, though she assured him it would be spectacular when it was done. Meanwhile, she talked about her plans to all her friends.
Strangely enough, her activities had been quite helpful to the brokerage. “If Master’s spending all that money on his Newport house,” people said, “the brokerage must be in good shape.” At a time when so many others were going under, it had raised his prestige on the street.
Even so, another hundred thousand?
“God, Mother,” exclaimed Charlie, “do you have to?”
His mother ignored him.
“What’s it for, Rose?” William gently inquired.
“Marble, dear. From Italy. The hall’s going to be all marble. Nancy de Rivers has a marble hall,” she added, with a hint of reproach.
“Ah,” said William.
“You’re obsessed,” said Charlie.
“Can you finish the house if I give you another hundred thousand?” asked William.
“Yes,” said Rose.
“All right then,” he said.
He’d just have to find the money, somewhere.
By Friday, September 19, the great steel cage of the Empire State Building was nearly complete. It was almost two weeks ahead of schedule. The bricklayers had been keeping pace, and they only had about ten floors to go. Eighty-five floors in six months from the start of construction. A staggering achievement.
The foreman was in a friendly mood when Salvatore approached him with his request. Could his brother Angelo spend the day with him? “He’s an artist,” Salvatore explained. “He wants to make drawings of us, working on the building.”
The foreman considered. The site was by no means closed. Boys went up selling water to the construction workers all the time. Photographers had taken pictures of the steelworkers perched on their girders in the sky. The promoters liked that sort of thing. “Will he be safe?” he said.
“He used to be a bricklayer,” Salvatore told him. “He won’t do anything stupid.” He grinned. “In fact, he just made a sketch of you a few minutes ago.” He gave the foreman a small drawing Angelo had dashed off.
“Well, blow me down, that’s me all right,” said the delighted foreman. And he waved them through.
As they went up in the service elevator, he glanced at his brother. Angelo was wearing a suit and a small homburg hat. He looked as handsome and contented as on his wedding day. The only change was that his face was a little fuller, and he had an air of modest success about him too. There was enough painting work to keep him busy, evidently. He’d also designed the logos and paint jobs for the trucks of several Long Island businesses. There was no question, Angelo had found his feet.
The new Otis elevators that would soon carry the occupants to their offices had been specially designed to travel up at almost double the speed of any elevator before, but even the works elevators moved at a rapid clip. Salvatore was proud of the building, and described its wonders as they went.
“Any day now,” he said, “they’ll start to build the mast on the top.”
The Empire State Building’s top office floor was higher than the tip of the Chrysler Building by two feet. But whereas Chrysler had beaten out the opposition with his cheeky, but useless spike, the Empire State would be topped by a huge mast, containing observation platforms, at the top of which there would be a dock at which huge dirigibles could be moored and their passengers disembark. “The whole place will be ready to open by Easter next year,” Salvatore said.
They came out at the seventy-second floor, and Salvatore went over to the outer wall where he was working.
The construction of the Empire State Building had proceeded rapidly because its design was so simple. First came the network of huge steel girders which carried the building’s entire weight. Some of the vertical steel columns would support a weight of ten million pounds, but they could have taken far more. The building was massively over-engineered. Between the girders