Steel Scarcity Retards Building.

New York Times 100 years ago today, October 27, 1912:
Harder Now to Get Material for Structural Work Than in Many Years.
THREE MONTHS USUAL DELAY
Big Operations All Over the Country Have Suddenly Flooded the Mills with Orders.
    Not in many years has there been such difficulty in obtaining the necessary steel material for new buildings as is the case at the present time. Inquiry among the leading builders and contractors last week elicited the fact that many structures started early in the year, and which, under ordinary conditions, would be nearly finished now, have made scarcely any progress. The Situation means that a number of loft and other commercial buildings which the owners hoped to have ready for occupancy this Fall or by Nov. 1 will not be completed until early next Spring. Several apartment houses on the upper west side have suffered from this congested state of the steel market. In Forty-second Street only a small proportion of the steel frame has been placed in position on the new Stern store, just east of Sixth Avenue. The excavations for the building were finished late in the Summer, and had the steel been ready the skeleton framework would now be nearly, if not entirely, in position.
    The average delay, according to building contractors, is about three months, but even with this they admit that there is really no assurance that still further delays in shipments may not arise.
    "Conditions are worse than they have been for many years," explained Chief Engineer Simpson of the Thompson-Starrett Construction Company yesterday. "Fortunately, most of our work in this city was well advanced toward completion before the rush for steel all over the country suddenly flooded the mills with orders. We only suffered on a small job in Buffalo, but it illustrates the prevailing conditions, for instead of getting our steel shipments, as expected, by July 1, we did not get deliveries there until Oct. 1."
    Mr. Simpson explained that the enormous demand for steel came upon the mills at the end of a long, quiet period, virtually like a clap of thunder out of the clear sky. For some time up to last Spring the mills had actually been waiting for orders. Then all at once demand for steel came from all over the country, with the result that the rolling mills have since that time been unable to supply the material fast enough. Where formerly it was possible for contractors to receive definite dates for shipments, with the confidence that the steel would be there promptly, no definite contracts now can be made. Orders must now be put in at least three months earlier than has been customary for the last few years.
    In discussing the situation The Iron Trade Review, in its current issue, says:
    "The greatest exertions possible are falling to produce tonnages of finished material to meet the tremendous demands of consumers. Tonnages of shapes, bars, and plates which can be obtained for delivery before July of next year, except from a few mills at high premium prices, are gradually diminishing. Inability to obtain anything like prompt deliveries is delaying many projects and causing less activity in placing new orders. This is a welcome relief to overcrowded mills. October is proving to be the banner month of the year for rail orders, and more than 600,000 tons have already been placed. In practically all cases the loading systems are largely increasing their requirements, compared with last year, and all indications point to 1913 as a record-breaking period in rail output."
    New York had had a great deal of building work going on for the past year, such enormous structures as the Woolworth Building, the Grand Central Station, the McAlpin Hotel, the tall 80 Malden Lane building, and other large downtown and midtown loft zone structures, in addition to the Park Avenue and west wide apartment house construction, demanding many thousands of tons of steel.
    But not only is the building activity pronounced in this city. It seems, from the reports, to be virtually a Nation wide movement. In Chicago some immense operations are under way, one of which, the Continental Commercial Bank, a twenty-three-story building, is reputed to be, in cubical contents, the largest office building in the world, and will only be exceeded by the thirty-six-story structure about to go up on the Equitable block. In Cincinnati, St. Louis, and other Middle Western cities, and also on the Coast, notably in Seattle, Tacoma, and San Francisco, there has been marked activity in building, while the big operations in the Southwest have been of such a character as to attract the attention of the business world. Texas has been especially prominent in respect to the number and cost of its new buildings.