Characteristics
The superstructure "Superstructure (Engineering)") was largely made of metal.[10] The cylindrical columns, made of cast iron, supported 25 cm deep floor beams.[34] The building was advertised as fireproof, using only a minimal amount of wood.[34][42] However, similar structures with iron columns collapsed during the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, either due to extreme heat or when they were suddenly cooled by water from fire hoses. However, the steel superstructure was left exposed in the Western Union Building and largely survived the fire of 1890. The mansard roof was constructed with iron beams, supported only along the exterior walls, thus reducing the number of columns needed for the seventh floor. The iron truss beams supporting the top of the mansard roof were 20 m long.
The floors consisted of brick arches between 25 cm iron beams. The brick arched floors were covered with Beton Coignet artificial stone tiles, surrounded by a border of encaustic tiles. The hallways were covered entirely with encaustic tiles.[15] The Western Union Building also contained gypsum block partitions and plastered ceilings.[34].
The Western Union Building served as corporate headquarters, with administrative and operational departments.[6] There were two basement levels. On the first floor was the supply department's packing room, where goods were sorted and items were packed, while the second basement contained the engine room.[44] The ground floor contained several departments. The treasurer's office had a separate entrance from Broadway and had a vault beneath the main entrance steps. Just inside the main gate was a public passage 24 m long and 6 m wide, running from west to east parallel to Dey Street. On one side of the hallway was a continuous mahogany counter for Western Union's cable, general courier, city, and delivery departments. The hallway connected to the elevator lobby and a women's waiting room. At the rear, or western, part of the ground floor was the supply department and the stores manager's office. The ground floor floor surface was laid with mosaic encaustic tiles.[45] The first and second floors were originally used as rental flats, while the third to fifth floors contained several offices.[46].
On the original sixth floor was the battery room, which contained the incoming and outgoing telegraph cables, as well as thousands of cells that generated power for the telegraphs.[27] This floor had a 3 m ceiling and was lit by low windows.[3] The cables entered the battery room from the balcony surrounding the seventh floor.[3][47] There were also changing rooms for operators on the sixth floor.[48] The battery room had been moved. to the second basement before the fire of 1890.[7].
The original seventh floor, which contained the telegraph operating room, had dimensions of 44.2 by 21.3 m and a ceiling of 7 m. The seventh floor was largely free of obstructions, except for four iron columns at its eastern end, which supported the clock tower. north of the room, which measured 8 m long, 2 m wide,[52] which carried three hundred telegraph cables in total.[53] There were more than eighty mahogany operator's tables, each divided into four parts by glass partitions.[51] The different genres worked in a separate part of the room and were separated by a 2 m high partition.[54] The control room on the seventh floor had a ceiling fresco depicting the heaven.[55].
The original eighth through tenth floors were used as employee quarters and storage rooms.[3][56] The eighth floor originally contained the accounting department,[57] operators' dining rooms,[58] the offices of the New York Associated Press,[59] and a water tank with a capacity of 18,927 L.[6] On the ninth floor were the kitchen, washing and drying rooms, refrigerators, and employee dining rooms. The tenth floor contained a message store and another water tank.[60] A flight of stairs led from the tenth floor to the clock tower.[61]
When the original sixth through tenth floors were destroyed in 1890, they were replaced by four flat-roofed floors. The new sixth floor was converted into offices, while the control rooms were divided between the new seventh and eighth floors.[7] The replacement rooms measured 22.9 by 61.0 m and were illuminated by thirty-six large windows. The seventh floor also had a business news department. There were ten switchboards in the control rooms.[62] The new ninth floor was converted into a restaurant, kitchen and utility rooms.[7].
In the basement there were six tubular steam boilers of 41 HP each; three were used to heat the building, while the other three were used to power machinery, including elevators, pneumatic tubes, and freight elevators. On this floor there were 18 shafts, each of which was sunk 15 m deep to a water stratum beneath the underlying hardpan layer. The wells could extract a combined total of 1,136 L of water per minute. Another pump could send up to 3,785 L per minute to water tanks on the upper floors. The wells were placed because Post or Western Union assumed that the Croton Aqueduct would not provide enough water in the event of a fire.
It was built with three passenger elevators between the ground floor lobby and the fifth floor, and a steam elevator and extended between the basement and the tenth floor. Two of the passenger elevators, for public use, ran on steam and had a capacity of eighteen passengers each. The third passenger elevator, exclusively for Western Union employees, could accommodate fourteen passengers and was originally hydraulically powered.[63] The hydraulic employee elevator was difficult for the elevator operator to control, so in 1891 it was replaced by a steam elevator.[25] A set of iron stairs also connected all floors.[64] The clock tower could be accessed by a flight of stairs.[61].
A system of pneumatic tubes transmitted messages between the control room and the ground floor departments. These also connected to the Corn Exchange, the Produce Exchange, and a Western Union auxiliary office on Pearl Street (Manhattan).