Siege

There is one type of structure, and only one, which the modern housewrecker with all his pneumatic drills and acetylene torches finds himself hard put to destroy. Even the late Jacob Volk, who called him- self ''the most destructive force in Manhattan," even the Napoleonic Herman Sonken of Kansas City, who has torn down whole towns and railroads in his time--even such experienced destroyers have much respect for vaults, especially vaults of reinforced concrete lined with steel.

Such a vault confronted World House-wrecking Co. Inc. in Manhattan last week. The late General Horace Porter of Civil War fame, onetime secretary to President U. S. Grant, had built it into his Victorian brownstone house at No. 277 Madison Avenue. His purpose remains obscure. When World Housewreckers opened the vault, it contained only an ancient artillery shell. Whatever the General's purpose, he did his work well. The house came down "nice and easy," but the vault required an arduous siege.* Said Foreman Jacob Camen: "We've been gnawing at it for three days now with pneumatic drills and acetylene torches and so far haven't made much of an impression. It probably'll take us two days more. I hope we don't have to use dynamite!"

*Epic among housewreckers' tales is the story of the demolition of the old vault in New York's Mechanics & Metals National Bank Building, when the site was cleared for the new Chase Na- tional building. Merely to remove the two 34-ton vault doors took three weeks. Four more weeks of siege and the roof was dislodged. Two 500-ton hydraulic jacks were then put inside the vault, and the walls were forced apart by internal pressure. The entire siege lasted three months.

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