Clean reading copy
New Library Safe, Declares Engineer
NEW LIBRARY SAFE, DECLARES ENGINEER The New York Times, April 29, 1911 Local OCR extracted from page 2 of the full issue.
NEW LIBRARY SAFE, DECLARES ENGINEER em Officials. and Experts Inspectithe Great Structure and Its; Multiple- Equipment. PRECAUTIONS AGAINST FIRE Ingenious Arrangements for the» Selection of Books and Their Delivery to Readers, Speaking before about 3800 engineers of} the New York Electrical Society at the | Engineering Societies Building, 29 West } Thirty-ninth Street, last night, Frank <A. } Pattison, the consulting engineer. who! supervised the electrification of the new} Public Library Building. described its electrical equipment in detail and met recent Statements that the building is not j fireproof with the declaration that its electrical fittings are all_sheathed in iron, and the building itself “‘as safe as any | building can be made with the scientific ee at hand en this date of April 28, 1911.”’ Later by special permit of the Directors of the library, the Park Department, the architects and builders, Mr. Pattison led the engineers through the library itself, lighted up in sOme parts that they might see for themselves the things he had just described to them. They expressed themselves generally in terms of enthusiastic praise over the equipment. “The electrical equipment of the library,”’ said Mr, Pattison, “is simple throughout, presenting no novelties, and is merely a good illustration of the practical application of electricity. There has been no attempt at the dramatic or melodramatic, no intentional attempt even to burn down the building. We had no trouble at all, except such minor troubles as waiting for seven years for money with which to do things that needed to be done, and cther similarly trivial and nes- | lizible matters. We started in 1897. and } every administration that has come to? the city since then has been from Missourti. “The building now has about 20,000 lights and 700 horse power in motors. In the generation of its electricity the coal is carried in by electrically-driven conveyors to a hopper above the boiler room, from which it is dumped: by firemen, and weighed while dropping in chutes to the boiler room. |. In the engineroom are two 800-horse power engines and four dynamos, two of 500 and two of ilikewise by 200 kilowatts. In the oiling system the oil fs carried from a central oil tank, you know it's ready for you. used, filtered, and then used again and again, ag long as there is life in it. ‘* Designed though it was in 1897, the building is thoroughly up to date, and when we get through we shall place upon it with absolute confidence the stamp of* 1911. There hag been a saving of thou-~ sands of dollars through the installation of a 250-volt plant. The switchboard, of white marble throughout, contains all the usual switches, 120 feeders for light and powcr, and a section fer. storage hbatteries containing 141 cells, with a capacity. for 120 amperes for eight hours. The oniy novelty about the switchboard is that it will really be used for the purposes for which it is made, ‘‘ Every feeder runs from a switchboard in the form of an insulated rod, and all crossing is done in a fireproof box at the, top of the board. Each tool is opatalen, by its own individual motor, and every piece of apparatus is cleaned and blown out by compressed air. All the lifting is done by a large fifteen-ton crane. ‘ “Under the head of transmission, I want to answer the question that has often been asked: Are the wires in iron conduits? Every one of them is in an iron conduit, and this applies not only to the wiring in the building itseif but in