Ben Hecht

“ But at least until the window washers have removed the chalk paint and the tower has ceased to grow there remains for us the warming proprietary emotion. This building which our anticipations seem to have reared and which, now that it is almost finished, fits so mysteriously into our senses—this building is more alive in our thoughts than all the books we have read and dramas we have seen in the theater. It is something that has bloomed out of the endless crowd that passed. ”

“ When there was nothing but mud and donkey engines, scoop shovels and teamsters bellowing at thick-bodied horses and wash-tub shaped motor trucks crawling up and down the wooden inclines—when there was nothing but a blurred and petty confusion behind the wooden fence we were already staring with troubled, fascinated eyes at the empty space above our heads. ”

“ It is part of the powerful and glittering sweep of walls which we who pass in the street mysteriously erect. High and white, an irreproachable monument, it has grown out of the little greeds and sordid obsessions consuming us from day to day. ”