A Symbol in Brownstone page 4
         
   

 

    
                    
      After a final address by the President of the Peter Cooper Insurance Company, the Times reported that "the proceedings, which, considering the greatness and munificence of the work, were characterized throughout by a most republican absence of parade, then terminated."
  
The termination of the proceedings marked a turning point in the construction of monumental buildings and began an era that was to see the rise of the skyscraper and such vast housing developments as the East River village in New York City that bears Peter Cooper's name. Professor Allan Nevins in his excellent biography of Abram S. Hewitt ("with some account of Peter Cooper") reports that "the first horizontal rows of Trenton beams were soon in place; and they constituted the earliest fabric in America in which a rolled wrought-iron grid was used to support the flooring of a large and heavy structure. When the outer walls had risen sufficiently, the second floor was likewise laid."
  
There is a legend that keeps reappearing in accounts of The Cooper Union, that Colonel James Harper, head of the publishing house of Harper & Brothers, passed the site at this time and was immediately struck with an idea. The building housing his printery, warehouse and offices had burned spectacularly and he was anxious to rebuild as soon as possible. Seeing a young journeyman painter named Thomas Snell (he was later to grow up and become a trustee), Colonel Harper shouted, "Call Mr. Cooper for me, boy!"  Mr. Cooper was called down from the scaffolding where he was inspecting the progress of his building, and Colonel Harper forthwith bought all of the available beams for his new building near the Brooklyn Bridge, which thus became the first building in the world to be constructed of pre-fabricated members.
  
It is far more likely that Mr. Cooper or Mr. Hewitt, both business men with sufficient initiative to acquire the fortune that built and endowed The Cooper Union, sought out Colonel Harper soon after the fire and extolled the advantages of their new beams. In any case, beammaking for Mr. Cooper's project stopped and the machinery at Trenton began to turn out materials for the publishing house. It covered more than half an acre, was seven stories high, and remained in use until 1925. Its completion within a few months attracted wide attention and the same Federal government which could afford massive stone structures became the second customer for the beams.
  
The Treasury Department was planning to build an Assay office in New York. The new beams were suggested and adopted and once again work on the Foundation Building was held up while the product of the Trenton mill was diverted elsewhere. Mr. Cooper had been dreaming of his institution for a good many years. Its completion could wait, particularly since each delay for such a cause meant a profit that would strengthen its financial structure.
  
By word of mouth, news of the new material spread to every important builder in the country. They had passed government tests, they were supporting Harper's heavy presses, and a new educational building was going up at Astor Place that was light, airy and strong. The result, as Professor Nevins points out, was that there grew an active demand for the new beams at a price that was nearly double that for rails and at a time of depression in the iron industry that was a forerunner of the disastrous panic of 1857.
  
The architect for the Treasury decided to specify the new beams and girders for all public buildings under his supervision and during the winter of 1855-56 some six thousand tons of iron were bought by the government. The dome of the Capitol in Washington, the new mint in Philadelphia, buildings at Forts Proctor and Sumter, a branch mint in New Orleans, marine hospitals at Burlington, Vt. and Detroit were erected with beams rolled by the mill developed for Peter Cooper's institute.
  
"Whenever a disastrous fire occurred in some American city, and such fires were incessant," Nevins tells us, "Hewitt pointed out to prospective customers the advantages of his materials. It was easy, by using his beams, to render structures highly fire-resistant, if not fireproof. Outer walls might be made of brick, masonry or stone; the floors might be either terracotta tiles or brick arched between the beams and levelled off with cement. Hewitt offered prominent contractors a commission of five per cent for introducing his materials."
  
In a letter to one of these contractors, Mr. Hewitt offered a prime selling argument. "The insurance companies here," he said, "have already reduced their rates one-fourth for first-class risks for buildings built in this manner, and for the merchandise in them."
  
As a measure of the importance of Mr. Cooper's idea of developing iron beams for his monumental building we may turn to the statement in a recent report of the Institute of Iron and Steel Construction that 6,300,00 tons of iron and steel were used for new American buildings in 1952—a thousand-fold increase in less than a century.
  
All of the ironwork on the Foundation Building had been erected by the time the financial storm of 1857 broke. Brought on by over-expansion and speculation in the West, touched off by the failure of a Cincinnati life insurance company for seven million dollars, every day brought new bankruptcies. A new low tariff had been particularly rough on the iron companies, and American docks were piled high with English rails. More than half the iron mills in the country closed down, but although operations were reduced to a minimum and at times they seemed near the brink of financial disaster, the Trenton Iron Works weathered the storm.
  
The humanitarian spirit of Mr. Cooper was never more evident than throughout this period. Concerned with the fate of the workmen in the mills, he had letters sent to every possible customer offering to make iron without profit simply in order to provide work. Proposals were made to furnish rails for the bare cost of wages and materials, without charging for capital or overhead, to get the cash required to buy food for the men.
  
The superintendents were told to keep family men on the payroll and discharge bachelors whenever the force had to be reduced, and wages were lowered so that more men could be kept on the payroll. At times the pay was in food bought at wholesale prices on the theory voiced by Mr. Hewitt that "it is better to knock off 25 per cent all around at once, and pay in food at wholesale prices. Starvation at least will be avoided." When the banks suspended payment, the men were paid in orders on the stores in Trenton and nearby towns.
  
Yet while the financial storm raged, Peter Cooper went ahead perfecting the plans for his institute. "If the Lord wants me to build it. He will provide the money—if He doesn't, He will withhold it," he had once remarked. To one of such faith the Lord's intentions could be read in the way the Trenton Iron Company survived the panic. While the surplus had been wiped out and there were large losses on inventory, the capital was intact, every obligation had been promptly and honorably met, and not a single bill was left unpaid. The company's reputation was higher than ever after the disaster and the loyalty of the workmen was even stronger.
  
In 1858, the Foundation Building was finally completed. The total cost had been $650,000, more than double the original estimate, and Mr. Cooper gave $30,000 more for equipment to begin instruction. In the spring of 1859 the legislature passed the amended charter and on April 29, 1859 the Deed of Trust was executed by Mr. and Mrs. Cooper.
  
While the most far reaching in its effect, the idea of iron beams was not the only original idea in the building. The Great Hall was on the basement floor, easy of access, protected from street noises, and using space that might otherwise have been wasted. It was ventilated by means of a large fan designed by Peter Cooper's son, Edward, that is still turning on its original bearings, although the power was converted from the original steam to electricity more than half a century ago. So efficient is the design that it is never necessary to operate the fan at full capacity.
   
            
     
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  last updated January 20, 2011