Sally Spencer: Blackstone and the New World

So why would a man who could afford to pay the forty dollars passage money not buy himself another, smarter suit? Johnson asked himself.

The man inside the suit was also worthy of further study. He was rather tall for an Englishman — over six foot — and as thin as a rail. Yet he seemed to exude great physical strength, and in a fight between him and one of the beefy bully-boys who swaggered around the Bowery, Johnson had no doubt which of the two he would put his money on.

Then there was the man’s general attitude. From the moment the ship had pulled away from the dock, the rest of the passengers had seemed positively desperate to mingle. They had attended the tea dances, dined at each other’s tables and had swapped their life stories with the reckless abandon of people who know they are never likely to meet again.

The man in the brown suit, in contrast, had kept himself very much aloof. From the very start of the journey, he had eaten alone, strolled around the deck by himself, and merely shaken his head — in a firm, though not unfriendly manner — when asked if he wished to join in any of the deck games.

Yet, for all that, it seemed to Hiram Johnson, the man in the brown suit had missed nothing — for all that , he had probably learned a great deal more about his fellow passengers than they (despite their loquaciousness) had learned about each other.

And so it had continued for the six days, one hour and seventeen minutes they had been on the ship. Now, as they were sailing towards the dock, the man in the brown suit stood on the deck, looking out over — and apparently absorbed by — the Manhattan skyline, and it seemed to Johnson that if he were ever to crack through the man’s shell, this was not only his last chance, but also the best one which had been presented so far.

He sidled up to the rail, coughed discreetly, and when the Englishman noticed him, held out his hand and said, ‘Hiram Johnson.’

He would only have been slightly surprised if the other man had turned away at that point, but instead the Englishman took the proffered hand and said, ‘Sam Blackstone.’

The man had a powerful grip, Johnson thought, but it was a natural power, rather than one designed to intimidate.

‘Could I ask you if this is your first visit to my country, Mr Blackstone?’ the American said.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘And what do you think of it?’

‘I’m impressed,’ Blackstone said.

Johnson felt a surge of satisfaction course through his veins.

‘And what, particularly, is it that you find impressive, Mr Blackstone?’ he asked.

‘Those very tall buildings, beyond the port. We don’t have anything like them back in London.’

Johnson nodded. He supposed it would have to have been that. It was the tall buildings just beyond the port which impressed everyone .

‘Over here, we call them skyscrapers,’ he said. ‘It’s a term that was originally applied to tall sails on ships, you know.’

‘Yes, I did know that,’ Blackstone replied, though without any hint of superiority in his voice.

‘They look like they’ve been here for ever, don’t they?’ Johnson continued. ‘As much a part of the natural landscape as your own baronial castles back in England?’

‘Well, perhaps not quite as much as the castles,’ Blackstone said, in polite disagreement.

‘No, perhaps not,’ Johnson conceded. ‘And, in fact, they haven’t been there very long at all . The first one was completed in ’89.’

‘Only eleven years ago,’ Blackstone said reflectively.

‘Only eleven years ago,’ Johnson echoed. ‘And that particular building has quite a story attached to it, if you’d care to hear it.’

‘I would,’ Blackstone agreed.

‘It all started when a smart young silk merchant by the name of Stearns bought a vacant lot at 50 Broadway. He planned to put up a building that he could rent out as offices, but the problem was that the frontage was only twenty-one and a half feet wide, and if he built it out of stone — which is what all buildings of that nature were built of at the time — the walls would be so thick there wouldn’t be enough space inside to turn a profit.’ Johnson chuckled. ‘And we Americans, you know, always want to turn a profit.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ Blackstone said.

‘Well, sir, Stearns pondered on the problem mightily, and then the solution came to him in a flash. Why not build it on a steel skeleton framework, a bit like a bridge — although in this case, the bridge would be standing on its end, rather than spanning a gap? If he did it that way, he argued, the walls would only have to be twelve inches thick, and need bear no weight at all.’

‘Very clever,’ Blackstone said.

‘Not everybody thought so. When the newspapers got to hear of it, they soon started calling it the Idiotic Building.’

Blackstone’s lips twitched, forming a slight smile. ‘That does sound rather unkind of them,’ he said.

‘Yes, it was rather unkind,’ Johnson agreed. ‘But you could see their point, because apart from Stearns and his architect — a guy called Gilbert — there wasn’t a soul in New York who didn’t believe that it would blow over in the first strong wind. Then, one Sunday morning in ’89 — when all thirteen floors had been finished and there was only the roof left to be put on — there was one God Almighty storm, with the winds reaching up to eighty miles an hour. Stearns and Gilbert rushed straight to their building, as you’d imagine they would, and by the time they arrived, there was already a crowd there — just waiting for it to come toppling down. And do you know what Gilbert did next?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Blackstone said.

‘He grabbed a plumb line and began to climb a ladder up the side of the building. The people who’d come to watch began screaming at him, telling him not to be such a reckless fool and to come down before he was killed. But he didn’t pay them no mind.’

‘A determined man.’

‘A very determined man. He climbed right to the top of that thirteen-floor building, and once he was there, he crawled on his hands and knees along the scaffolding, until he reached the very edge of the structure.’

‘This would be where the plumb line comes in,’ Blackstone suggested.

‘You’ve heard the story before, Mr Blackstone,’ Johnson said, sounding a little disappointed.

‘No, I promise you that I haven’t,’ Blackstone replied. ‘Do please go on, Mr Johnson.’

Well, Gilbert got the plumb line out of his pocket, held one end, and let the other — the one with the lead weight on it — fall towards the street. And there it was — hanging taut. Which meant, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, that the building wasn’t vibrating at all. And that day, sir,’ Hiram Johnson said, with an impressive swelling to his voice which indicated he was reaching the grand finale of his story, ‘was the day that changed the history of New York City.’

‘Is that the place?’ Blackstone asked, pointing at a domed building in the distance.

‘Why, no sir, that’s the Pulitzer Building. It’s named after its owner, Joseph Pulitzer, the publisher of the New York World newspaper, and that’s got a story of its own.’

The ship had almost reached the dock, and already there was a flurry of activity, as stevedores prepared to unload the cargo, and customs offices stood waiting to come on board. Within half an hour or so, he would be on American soil for the first time in his life, Blackstone thought.

‘I said, the Pulitzer Building’s got a story of its own,’ Johnson repeated. ‘Would you care to hear that, too?’

Blackstone smiled again. ‘Why not?’