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The   Kecord  and  Guid
 

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June 18, 1887
 

may not express itself architecturally in other and very different
forms- When Wagner's music was first presented in London and
New York the critics were unanimous in pronouncing it unintel¬
ligible and oj)posed to all musical traditions. From their point of
view the music of the Future would never do, for their canons of
musical art were based on the works of Rossini and the Italian
school of melodists. And no doubt the church, such as this pro¬
posed Cathedral ought to be, would be regarded as a monstrosity
by architects who think the Gothic the only form for a temple of
worship.
 

Fire Department Headquarters.

It is always a matter for public congratulation when the city of
New York puts up a decent-looking building for any municipal
purpose. Heretofore the very few buildings belonging to the city
that are of the slightest architectural interest or that were designed
by educated architects have been erected under special commissions.
Not one of the departments that have occasion to do any building
seems to think it necessary to employ a competent designer. The
Board of Education is the most culpable of all in this respect, and
it is not only in architecture that it suffers in consequence. It is a
shsme that the city should not possess a single schcol-house that
excites the interest of an architect or a student of architecture, but
it is even worse that there should not be one that has been planned
by a skillful architect. The devices such an architect would employ
to save room, to gain light, to adapt the building to its site and
exposure, to supply some more suitable place for recreation than
can now be had, are not missed simply because they have not been
furnished, and tbe board goes on building the same old stereotyped
boxes, with slight architectural variations that are not improve¬
ments, simply because it knows no better type. If the Commis¬
sioners retained an educated architect, who would thus be enabled
to study these special and difficult problems, they would be as much
gratified as the children would be benefited by the resulting
improvement. But though that board is the most conspicuous
offender, it is only by the number and magnitude of the opportu¬
nities it misses. The Police Board is as bad, so far as it goes.
These are no worse buildings, architecturally considered, or even as
concerns the meeting of their practical requirements, than the
station-houses, ill-lighted, ill-aired and inconveniently disposed
as they are.

The Fire Departmeet was as bad as the rest until the Commis¬
sioners had the good sense to employ architects of repute to design
their buildings, and selected Messrs. N. Le Brun & Son for that
purpose. The first good result of this retainer was an engine-house
in Old Slip, which people who cared for architecture actually found
themselves studying with interest, and which pointed our present
moral all the more sharply by its proximity to a very pretentious
and architecturally a very bad police station, designed under the
usual municipal system. This engine-house was described in these
columns at the time of its erection.

The Department has now erected, from the designs of the same
architects, a much more extensive and more interesting building
for its general headquarters in 67th street, near 3d avenue. This is
a five-story building, or six counting the roof story, of 50 feet
frontage. These dimensions seem unnecessarily large, but, besides
the headquarters proper, the building contains an engine-house, a
hook-and-ladder house, the gymnasium and " school of probation"
of the Department, and a watch-tower. These several uses the new
building fulfils amply and comfortably, but with no apparent
waste of room.

The architectural basement is of two stories in rough brown
stone, the superstructure in red brick relieved with the same mate¬
rial, except the upper stage or observatory of the tower, which is
in metal. The ground floor contains the two broad entrances to
the engine houses, spanned with metal girders, supported at the
sides by stout piers of stone and at the centre by a metal post. To
the right, at the base of the tower, is the main entaance to the
building. This is a segmental arch projected from the face of the
building, and carried on pairs of columns with polished red granite
shafts and capitals and bases of brown stone. Within the arch is a
level lintel, partly supported by corbels at the sides. This porch is
highly ornate. Carving is profusely bestowed upon the corbels,
the lintel, the angles of the piers, and the capitals, necking and
abaci of the columns, while the pediment above the arch is sur¬
mounted with a waving flame in brown stone, in allusion to the
purpose of the building. The feature is not very successful, in
spite of its richness. The carving is not bad, but the general form
is lumpy'and clumsy, and the capitals of the coupled shafts, which
have been united into one continuous capital on each side, are
singularly unfortunate pieces of design. The entrances to the engine
houses are plain, business-like and inoffensive.

The second story shows lintelled openings, one each over each
entrance to the engine-house below, subdivided into three by
moulded mullions of stone, and a smaller undivided opening over
the doorway, the position and size of which indicate the begin¬
 

ning of the tower. On each side of it is a tablet with an inscrip¬
tion setting forth the purpose of the building.

The importance of ths third story helps very largely to give the
building its individuality, and explains itself as soon as the purjpose
of the building is seen. The quarters of the firemen must of course
be immediately above the engines, and the plain second story is
devoted to them, while the Department headquarters are thus
raised to the third story, which is thus very properly made more
important both in size and in richness than either of the stories
below. Over each of the muUioned openings is a large and rich
round arch, moulded in brown stone with Byzantine leafage carved
on the roll moulding at the intrados, and a label with a dog-tooth
moulding stopped against a large leaf ornament. In the tower is
a much smaller round arch with a spiral moulding at the jamb,
and the moulded label of the large arches, which is carried along
the wall at the impost, continued through the smaller opening as a
transom. Under each of the large arches is a balcony formed by
a rounded shelf of slight projection through which the mullions of
the story below are prolonged like corbels, with excellent effect
both as giving a sense of support and in relieving what would
otherwise be the monotonous mass of the Byzantine carving with
which, excepting these members, the soffit of the balcony is over¬
laid. The balustrade of the balcony is a row of polished coUon-
nettes in black granite, with carved capitals and bases of brown
stone. This story is an excellent piece of design, and its superior
importance is cleverly signalized without impairing the unity of
the building.

The fourth story has a pair of arches over each large arch, and
over the smaU arch in the tower a single arch still smaller. The
fifth has a triplet of arches, with polished granite shafts between
them over each pair, and a small plain arch in tlie tower, the
voussoirs of brown stone throughout.

A brown stone cornice, more conventional and less spirited than
most of the detail, completes the wall above the fifth story. The
story in the mansard is lighted by two rather large dormers, each
with a pair of arches, and the roof is crowned with a gross cresting
in metal. The tower here partly disengages itself. Abreast of the
dormers it is pierced with a pair of small arches, and in the next
stage with a large opening, round arched and unglazed. An iron
balcony, of some two or three feet projection, surrounds it above
this point, the angles emphasized by gargoyles in metal, and the
metal lantern or observatory, considerably smaller than the shaft of
the tower, and steeply roofed, crowns the whole,

The general effect is very good. The detail is unequal, some
being clumsy and some refined. In general the carving is better
designed than the purely architectural embellishments of mould¬
ings and the like. The Fire Department headquarters would be
worthy of praise whoever hadbuilt^it, but it deserves especial praise
as having been done under the direction of a municipal department,
and giving the taxpayers something worth looking at for their

money.

tt-------------'

The Currency of the Country.

We have in gold, silver and paper about ?1,700,000,000 in circula¬
tion. More definitely, we have $16.49 in specie per capita, and
$15.18 of paper per capita, which is a good deal more than the
amount per capita of Great Britain and Germany, but much less
than France.

The question has been raised whether this is not more money
than we need. The Tribune seems to think that the wheat, coffee
and real estate speculations are to be credited to this abundance in our
circulating medium. But, as a matter of fact, eras of speculation
come and go without much reference to the money employed in
the channels of trade. France has in gold and silver alone about
|57 per capita, or vastly more than any other civilized commercial
nation. Yet speculation such as is known in England aud the
United States is scarcely ever set on foot in France. The people -of
that country buy and sell for cash aud do not deal in margins or
on credit. It is the banks and the credit system of Anglo-Saxon
nations which is to be credited with the speculative 'temper of the
people of Great Britain and the United States.

It may be. set down as a self-evident axiom that nations as well
as individuals cannot have too much of the precious metals in cir¬
culation as money. There is danger in an excess of irredeemable
paper money, but such a thing as too much gold and silver is out
of the question. It would be a gQod thing of itself if we could get
rid of not only national bank notes, but greenbacks, and supply
their places with either gold or silver coin money or certificates
redeemable in these precious metals. But it would be madness to
withdraw these paper obligations until there was an abundance
of gold and silver coin to redeem them dollar for dollar.

Then we should keep in mind that we are adding to our popula¬
tion annually something over 3 per cent. This necessitates a corre¬
spondmg addition to our circulating medium. Indeed, we ought
to add about $50,000,000 yearly to our gold and silver coinage.
Were we to double the monthly coinage of the silver dollars, which
1 we have legally a right to do, it woul(i absorb nearly all the pro-