E. B. White said Jake had “a genius for speed.” He toppled the Third Avenue El to make way for the subway. He tore down banks so that bigger banks could rise. After Jake died, his brother Albert used the Upside-down Method to clear three midtown blocks for the construction of Rockefeller Center. Two hundred buildings were demolished.
Around the time of the Upside-down Method, Jake got another idea. Ramming had been used for razing since Mesopotamia. But ramming wasn’t effective on New York’s multistoried buildings. How do you ram a sky-scraper? On the other hand, what if you could ram
in the air
? What if you could attach something to a crane and what you attached did the ramming? What if the thing that rammed was on a chain that swung so the rammer could build momentum? The wrecking ball was born.
Jake took down the old Bankers Trust Building at the corner of Nassau and Wall Streets, directing a hundred men from the ground with a megaphone. According to
Distinguished Jews of
America,
although the work was dangerous, “one of the great characteristics of Mr. Jacob Volk is that he never sends a man where he would not go himself.”
Jake loved every part of taking down a building, from laying the plans to selling the mantels. In thirty years he demolished twenty-five hundred buildings. That’s eighty-three buildings a year, or one and three-quarters a week. Jake hated the buildings of Stanford White. They were made too well. “When he built ’em, they stayed built,” Jake said. Normally when his men chopped a hole in a floor ten percent the size of the floor, the other ninety percent caved in. Not in a White building. The firm of McKim, Mead & White (hundreds of whose landmarked buildings still stand) patented a vaulting system that used four-inch by eight-inch Guastavino tiles. Between two layers of these tiles was a layer of concrete. A White floor was self-supporting. If you made a hole in a White floor ten percent the size of the floor, you’d have to make nine more holes.
Is this something only a demolitionist’s family fantasizes about? I like to pretend I have the power to knock down any three buildings in New York. Most of the time, it’s the same three buildings, the three that bring me up short every day: 40 East Ninety-fourth Street, a faceted beige-brick behemoth with bronze windows completely out of scale and character with my neighborhood. And 45 East Eighty-ninth Street, an Emery Roth & Sons tower with a scooped-out façade that creates a punishing wind tunnel whenever there’s a breeze. And the MetLife building behind the Helmsley Building. The Helmsley Building didn’t need a backdrop. Looking south, the silhouette of the Helmsley Building (originally the New York Central Building) was an instant blast of neo-Baroque light-shaped beauty and a salute, with its giant gilded God-flanked clock, to the glory and precision of America’s railroads. The MetLife Building (still called the Pam Am building) turned a fifty-one-block vista into a dead end. I’d be happy reducing it to rubble.
In keeping with tradition, Jake and his sisters all named their firstborn sons after their father, Sussman Volk. My father is Sussman Volk too, and his three first cousins are Sussman Stavin, Sussman Fleschner, and Sussman Joseph. The four boys were nicknamed Sussel, which became Cecil. Cecil Volk, Cecil Stavin, Cecil Fleschner, and Cecil Joseph. They never changed their names legally, but that’s what it says on their passports.
When Jake died, he left an estate worth $254,000. Finally his sisters agreed on something. They wanted that money. Ettie, Becky, Hannah, and Anna got together and sued to take Jake’s children from their mother. They said Ethel couldn’t manage money. That she’d squander the children’s annuities. The sisters were right. Ethel didn’t know the first thing about money. When she wanted something, “No” wasn’t an option. If she passed a store with something pretty in the
Around the time of the Upside-down Method, Jake got another idea. Ramming had been used for razing since Mesopotamia. But ramming wasn’t effective on New York’s multistoried buildings. How do you ram a sky-scraper? On the other hand, what if you could ram
in the air
? What if you could attach something to a crane and what you attached did the ramming? What if the thing that rammed was on a chain that swung so the rammer could build momentum? The wrecking ball was born.
Jake took down the old Bankers Trust Building at the corner of Nassau and Wall Streets, directing a hundred men from the ground with a megaphone. According to
Distinguished Jews of
America,
although the work was dangerous, “one of the great characteristics of Mr. Jacob Volk is that he never sends a man where he would not go himself.”
Jake loved every part of taking down a building, from laying the plans to selling the mantels. In thirty years he demolished twenty-five hundred buildings. That’s eighty-three buildings a year, or one and three-quarters a week. Jake hated the buildings of Stanford White. They were made too well. “When he built ’em, they stayed built,” Jake said. Normally when his men chopped a hole in a floor ten percent the size of the floor, the other ninety percent caved in. Not in a White building. The firm of McKim, Mead & White (hundreds of whose landmarked buildings still stand) patented a vaulting system that used four-inch by eight-inch Guastavino tiles. Between two layers of these tiles was a layer of concrete. A White floor was self-supporting. If you made a hole in a White floor ten percent the size of the floor, you’d have to make nine more holes.
Is this something only a demolitionist’s family fantasizes about? I like to pretend I have the power to knock down any three buildings in New York. Most of the time, it’s the same three buildings, the three that bring me up short every day: 40 East Ninety-fourth Street, a faceted beige-brick behemoth with bronze windows completely out of scale and character with my neighborhood. And 45 East Eighty-ninth Street, an Emery Roth & Sons tower with a scooped-out façade that creates a punishing wind tunnel whenever there’s a breeze. And the MetLife building behind the Helmsley Building. The Helmsley Building didn’t need a backdrop. Looking south, the silhouette of the Helmsley Building (originally the New York Central Building) was an instant blast of neo-Baroque light-shaped beauty and a salute, with its giant gilded God-flanked clock, to the glory and precision of America’s railroads. The MetLife Building (still called the Pam Am building) turned a fifty-one-block vista into a dead end. I’d be happy reducing it to rubble.
In keeping with tradition, Jake and his sisters all named their firstborn sons after their father, Sussman Volk. My father is Sussman Volk too, and his three first cousins are Sussman Stavin, Sussman Fleschner, and Sussman Joseph. The four boys were nicknamed Sussel, which became Cecil. Cecil Volk, Cecil Stavin, Cecil Fleschner, and Cecil Joseph. They never changed their names legally, but that’s what it says on their passports.
When Jake died, he left an estate worth $254,000. Finally his sisters agreed on something. They wanted that money. Ettie, Becky, Hannah, and Anna got together and sued to take Jake’s children from their mother. They said Ethel couldn’t manage money. That she’d squander the children’s annuities. The sisters were right. Ethel didn’t know the first thing about money. When she wanted something, “No” wasn’t an option. If she passed a store with something pretty in the
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