Construction

The building takes advantage of new building methods that were being discovered at the beginning of the 20th century. Instead of having beams and joists depending upon the outside walls for support, the weight of the Turk’s Head building is distributed through a great cage of steel which depends upon pillars of concrete extending down into the earth to a firm foundation of bed rock or hardpan more than 20 feet below the tidewater. Although the Turk’s Head building was regarded by the contractors, Thompson & Starret, as a small undertaking in comparison with other skyscrapers which the firm had underway in New York, such as the Municipal and the Woolworth buildings, its construction presented many of the problems which had to be worked out in erecting the larger structures.