THE SKYSCRAPER IN B FLAT (1)
By:
February 28, 2025
“The Skyscraper in B Flat,” which originally appeared in The Black Cat (June 1904), is is an example of proto-sf’s fascination with the power of vibrations. HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize the story for HILOBROW’s readers.
ALL INSTALLMENTS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5.
In Chicago it would not have been a skyscraper, for it was only seven stories high, but here it towered far above every building in the city. It was built by Hickson W. Bond on the corner of Platte Avenue and T Street, a locality which only a year ago had been an almost valueless suburb, given over to corn and potato patches. But a real Western boom had since inspired the town, streets had been extended and paved, Platte Avenue had a car line, houses and stores were going up like mushrooms, and there was not nearly shop and office room enough for the demand. Consequently every one with a little capital was building.
Bond found his title to his lot disputed, and he had scarcely broken ground when he was checked by an injunction. The Greenberger Brothers, who controlled half the real estate business of the town, had bought up the contending claim, and the matter was fought out in the courts. Bond won, almost to his surprise, for his adversaries had spent much money and were confident of success.
With his surprise was mingled some apprehension. The Greenberger Brothers were hard men to outwit, and they did not easily forgive. any one who succeeded in doing it. They made their money like Hebrews and spent it like Christians, to their own ends. They had it in their power to embarrass him seriously, for he was operating a large business on a small capital, which had been sapped by recent litigation.
He proceeded with his building, however, and was relieved to find that the Greenberger Brothers made no sign of hostility. He strained his credit, but the building was finished early in October, with a great flourish of trumpets from the city press, proud of its new skyscraper. It was constructed, as usual, of steel girders covered with a thin shell of masonry, and was handsomely fitted up with marble and mosaic, with electric elevators, and mail chutes, and complicated heating apparatus. It was christened the Platte Building, and was almost filled with tenants as soon as its offices were opened for rent. The Central National Bank established itself upon the ground floor, and, at the prevailing rates of rent, Bond foresaw a golden harvest. He needed it badly, for he was skating on thin ice.
All went very well for a time. Bond’s rents began to come in, and he was elected a member of the Board of Trade. Then, no one seemed to know how, a report began to go about that the Platte Building was unsafe, that the building laws had not been enforced, and that the framework was insecure. Bond privately attributed these slanders to his late antagonists, but fortunately he was able to dispose of them by a signed statement from the Building Inspector. But such rumors always leave some poison behind.
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: James Parker’s Cocky the Fox | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Matthew Battles’s “Imago” | & many more original and reissued novels and stories.