A MONUMENT TO THE SKIES

The proposed Larkin tower in New York is to be 1208 feet high. It will overtop the Woolworth building and the Eiffel tower, and it will seriously threaten the limits of human credibility. It is to be an office building, with the four top stories given over to sightseers; but from the architect's drawing there is to be no mother-of-pearl gilding such as makes the Singer building gaudy. It is to be strictly business.

Nevertheless one wonders if Mr. Larkin does not feel something of the pride which moved Cheops when he built the pyramid which was rather a sensation in his day, of Nebuchadnezzar when he ordered the hanging gardens. There will be no awful monument to a heath on god atop the Larkin tower, and no pleasure palace for a buried king. Nearly a quarter of a mile above the level of the street, business men will put down the ticker tape with a sigh, light a cigar and go to sleep; stenographers will take the opportunity to powder the insatiable nose; and secretaries, peering softly through the door, will tell visitors, "he's in conference." Over their heads Girl Scouts from Waukegan will scream at the wind, and their little brothers will all but dive into New York Harbor at the sight of the liners going out to sea.

The Larkin Tower will stand like a defiant answer to the Tower of London in the rival city across the sea. London Tower will say, "I'm a thousand years old;" Larkin Tower will say, "Look at me." Homesick Americans all over the world will extoll this newest of Gotham's wonders; and if some stranger should ask, "Who is this Larkin? Some great general of yours?" they will stop a moment and reply, "Why no, he's the fellow who built it, I suppose."