99% Invisible - 99% Invisible-27- Bridge to the Sky

Episode Date: June 3, 2011

There are rules that dicate what you can build and how. Rules of physics and rules of men who sit on various bureaucratic boards and bodies. These rules dictated that if silk magnate John Noble Stearns wanted to build one … Continue reading →

We get support from UC Davis, a globally ranked university, working to solve the world's most pressing problems in food, energy, health, education, and the environment. UC Davis researchers collaborate and innovate in California and around the globe to find transformational solutions. It's all part of the university's mission to promote quality of life for all living things. Find out more at 21stCentry.ucdavis.edu. This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Strange, isn't it? Well, from the point of view of physics, it will seem a little less strange.

Finding new ways to create new buildings with new technology has been the bread and butter of the leading edge architects since there have been leading edge architects. And today my friend Nate Domeo, a Nate, Hey Rowan, has the story of one of those men, a man whose time on the leading edge was brief but dramatic. Nate is the creator of the memory palace, a history podcast that is all about being brief and dramatic. This is the story of visionary Daredevil architect Bradford Gilbert. Take it away. Take it away. Bradford Gilbert had spent his career close to the ground.

At 23 he took a job as the architect for the New York Leake Eri in Western Railroad. It was 1878. As an older man, he would redesign Grand Central Station. But his early 20s saw him designing less grand stations in less central locations. The places you waited to get places where things actually happened. But by a ticket for Manhattan or St. Louis or Chicago, and you could find other architects building

more impressive things, six and eight and 10 story structures, mammoth blocks of stone and brick in Rod Iron, made for the kings of the modern American insurance industry. The Emperor is of imports and exports. John Noble Sterns had made a lot of money importing silk, and he was looking to make a lot more in real estate. He bought some land in a prime location at 50 Broadway.

But there was a problem. The lot was only 21 and a half feet wide. There are rules that dictate what you can build and how. Rules of physics and rules of men who sit on various bureaucratic boards and bodies. And those rules dictated that if Sterns wanted to build one of those ten story towers that were all the rage in 1888, he would need to build walls of stone and brick that were five feet thick. And that left room for an interior that was only 11 feet wide.

Slice off a few feet for a hallway, a few for a bathroom, a couple for a coat closet, another for some filing cabinets and an umbrella stand. And he would be asking the quintessential modern Titan of American industry to work in a dark cell better suited for a dark age's monk. Sterns asked all the best architects for a solution and they all told them it couldn't be done. Everyone except Bradford Gilbert. The in-house architect for the New York Lake Erie in Western Railroad had a theory. Hundreds of tons of cars and cargo were hurtling over

tiny train trestles every day. What if he turned one of those bridges on its head? What if he built a bridge up instead of out? He told Sterns that if he turned one of those bridges on its head? What if he built a bridge up instead of out? He told Sterns that if he did this, the walls wouldn't have to be five feet thick. They could be just nine inches each, and in the 20-foot wide office spaces that that would create, the quintessential modern American Titan of industry would have room to stretch out his legs. While he made his rant check out to John Noble Sterns, architects came in from all over the country to watch the tower building rise

to pour over Gilbert's blueprints and they all pretty much agreed. Gilbert and Sterns were idiots. Sterns begged Gilbert to change the plans, but he refused. He said he was so confident in his design that he would move his offices to the top two floors of the building

The building blew down. You would have the farthest of fall The first stiff winds of a hurricane blew into Manhattan on a Sunday morning in 1889 The tower building stood nearly complete And people lined the streets to watch it tumble A man pushed through the crowd and began to climb to watch it tumble. The man pushed through the crowd and began to climb. When Bradford Gilbert reached the top of his tower, the wind was whipping through its skeleton frame at more than 80 miles an hour, he crawled out to the center of the building and pulled from a bag, a rope, with a lead weight attached to one end. He tied the other to a

girder and tossed the weight down through the open floors below. When he crawled his way back down, he found the lead weight hanging in the air, stock still, held up by a building that wasn't going anywhere. For years after, Gilbert could sit in his penthouse office in the still standing tower building and stretch out his legs and watch a whole city stretch ever higher. Taking his idea and building on it. 99% Invisible was produced this week by Nate Dimeo. I'm your host, Roman Mars. This program is made possible with support from Lunar, making a difference with creativity. It's a project of KALW, the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco, and the Center

for Architecture and Design. To find out more, and get a link to Nate DeMail's brilliant memory palace podcast, go to 99%invisible.org.