After the demolition of adjoining building was completed in early 1920 (see yesterday’s post), the New York Stock Exchange started constructed of its new north wing. This building included an expansion of the trading floor at the base and office space above. The picture above shows the site during foundation work, and is a good reminder of why I don’t talk much about foundations when looking at old construction photos: they’re vitally important, but hard to see.
Here’s the steel frame in progress:
And here’s the frame near completion, with not quite half the facade put on:
The most interesting part of the structure is not visible in the long-range photos in this collection, but is easy to show with a close-up. The trading floor required a large column-free space, while the offices were built with an ordinary column grid. The columns that would have been in the way at the first floor are transferred using floor-high trusses:
That’s…a lot of rivets.