Quote:
Originally Posted by Hayward
I think Chicago was on a bit of a gypsum block craze in the 20’s and 30’s. My old apartment building had interior walls made of gypsum blocks and that also wrapped the steel. In Detroit, all of the fireproofing was done with orange structural clay, but I’m sure both were common everywhere.
The floor slabs probably aren’t reinforced concrete either. I’m assuming it’s a composite block slab topped with concrete. Reinforced concrete was around in the 30’s but I doubt it was practical for a building this big. Too new and variable at the time. I’ll bet if the the plaster and grout is scraped away from the ceiling you’ll see that orange block
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I've totally seen buildings from that vintage that are reinforced concrete. The Pickens Kane building on Goose Island (now Lost Arts) is pretty enormous, it has entire reinforced concrete construction with
drop panels and mushroom capitals (photo from 1909).