THE SKYSCRAPER IN B FLAT (3)
By:
March 16, 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.
Presently some one raised a cry that the building was rocking, and the crowd, which now extended for several blocks, surged wildly back. It was true. Almost imperceptibly, but certainly, the dark top of the skyscraper was swaying against the starry sky. The workers inside the building came down-stairs at a run, and were cheered frantically as they emerged. The few police, taking advantage of the crowd’s retreat, established regular fire lines, and warned every one from the adjacent buildings. It was not hard to keep the affrighted people back, however, and every face was upturned toward the enormous structure that was expected immediately to come crashing down.
But it did not fall at once. The swaying motion increased, but very gradually, while the humming note of its vibrations rose to a sound of tremendous volume. Gently and slowly to and fro it rocked, and a shade further at each oscillation. In a few minutes the shell of masonry and stucco began to peel off and fall, in lumps at first, and afterwards in great sheets. Through the exposed iron skeleton streamed floods of electric light from the still burning lamps. The whole immense crowd fell silent, and there was no more noise or shouting. The magnitude and mystery of the event overawed them.
Just inside the fire-lines stood Bond, his hands clenched in his coat pockets, impotently peering from under his hat brim at his tottering fortunes. They were all locked up in that unstable frame of steel. So far as any theory of the catastrophe was concerned, his mind was blank. Only he felt convinced that an enemy had done this, and, being Western bred, he was not disheartened; — only wrathful and perplexed.
Hour after hour passed. In spite of the midnight December cold the crowds grew, and still the skyscraper did not fall. It swung ponderously, far out to the right, pausing as if hesitating to topple over, and then far back to the left. The slam of swinging doors resounded crashingly from every floor as it reeled. It seemed impossible that the fabric could endure longer, though it was a mere network of locked girders, almost as strong and elastic as a steel bar.
All that night the firemen and police swarmed helplessly about the tottering building. Bond had offered a thousand, then five thousand dollars, for a successful scheme for steadying it. All street cars were stopped within four blocks. They sounded the earth in the neighborhood and found it solid. Men were even sent into the sewers with delicate instruments to detect any subterranean trembling, but none could be observed. All the disturbance was localized in the building.
When the gray dawn came up over the prairie the skyscraper was still standing, though it swayed now like a flagstaff in a high wind, and it was very evident that its collapse was at hand. All the glass was broken from the windows, a great part of the masonry had fallen, and it looked like the gutted ruins from a fire. As it reeled from side to side with a terrific rush and swing the creak of the drawing rivets could be heard through the humming of its tense framework.
Bond’s only hope now was that it might not destroy too much other property in its fall. He had been furiously busy in helping to clear the adjoining buildings. He had been on his feet all night, but he did not feel either cold or fatigue. Only he decided at this stage to telephone to his wife, who must be in a state of extreme anxiety, for she had sent two or three messenger boys to find him during the night.
The nearest telephone happened to be in the store of a piano dealer in the next block. The proprietor, like most of his neighbors, had remained down town all night, and was just sitting down to a tray from a restaurant when Bond entered.
As he opened the telephone cabinet something snapped loudly with musical ring in the shop. Bond, whose nerves were at concert pitch, jumped, and the proprietor swore.
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.