Graham's Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 6, June 1852Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 6, June 1852
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Shortly after the death of Mr. Hoe, sen., his sons and successors,
finding the then premises insufficient, moved to the ground now occupied
by their great manufactories, occupying a hollow block four stories in
height, of two hundred feet front on Broome street, by one hundred in
depth on Sheriff and Columbia streets, as also a second lot on the other
side of Broome street, containing their saw works, hardening furnaces,
stables, and other necessary buildings. In these works, a bird’s eye
view of which is pre-fixed to this paper, and the ground plan of which
we here present, the Messrs. Hoe continually employ three hundred men,
some of them persons of great ability as draughtsmen, pattern-makers,
mechanicians, and the like—men literally of every nation, as nearly as
may be, under the sun; among whom are comprised several Armenians, said
to be persons of great intelligence and excellent deportment.
Besides this, their principal factory, they have another large and well
built establishment, containing ware-rooms, counting-house, blacksmith’s
shop, machine shop, and steam-engine room, in Gold street, nearly
adjoining Fulton. This, though in fact headquarters, we shall pass over
for the time being, premising only—in order to show the perfect method
and system of time and labor-saving with which every thing belonging to
this firm is conducted—that they have at their own expense, and for
their own private use, erected an electric telegraph, carried by the
permission of the proprietors over the roofs of houses, from the
counting-room to the up-town factories, by which the smallest message or
order is conveyed, and answered almost instantaneously. Nor are the
proprietors dissatisfied with the result, having found by experience
that the great original expense was very speedily compensated by the
gain of time, and yet more of precision which it introduced.
Returning up-town, therefore, we will descend into the vault under the
first yard, in which we shall find the moving puissance of all the vast
machinery of hammers, planes, lathes, drills, grindstones, tools and
devices, almost without name or number, which are constantly laboring
with their iron nerves, noiseless, tireless, indefatigable, through
every story of the great building—in the shape of the boilers and
steam-engine, which, beside furnishing all the motive power, supply
every part of the building, by a very ingenious application, with a
constant stream of evenly tempered, pure, heated air, at the same time
maintaining a thorough ventilation, and all without the slightest danger
of fire.
The spent steam is brought into a series of coiled pipes within a trunk,
through which a continual stream of pure external air flows without
intermission, and is carried by wooden tubes through every story and
room of the building; as is likewise an ample provision of Croton water,
as well a provision against fire, as for the cleanliness and comfort of
the men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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