Floor 24: Themes of the Novel

 

Floor 24, Martin Hill Ortiz 
Oliver-Heber Books.

"From the mob underworld to the tops of new skyscrapers, Floor 24 is a heart-thumping New York 1920's historical mystery!" - Holly Newman, bestselling author of A Chance Inquiry mystery series.

My novel, Floor 24, is the first installment in a trilogy called The Skyline Murder Mysteries. Taken together they tackle an ambitious theme: What went wrong in the 20th century. The skyscrapers rising in Manhattan symbolizes the wild growth of the 1920s: a vertigo of optimism that would soon meet the crash of the Depression. 

        The modern world began at Number 50 Broadway—a lot of blame to place on a single building. . . . the architect settled on an impossibly tall and thin design. All the buildings which had come before, like beetles, had been supported by their outer shells, becoming as big and as brawny as their stone or brick walls could be stacked. Castles and cathedrals reigned as the tallest buildings in the world. The Tower at 50 Broadway took its cue from evolution: creatures could grow taller and more immense using internal skeletons. So, the architect cried, "Let there be life!" and constructed his new beast using an inner framework of steel, thus giving birth to a modern breed of titans, giants with spires that raked the sky. (From Floor 24)

Actual buildings figure prominently in the book. Two iterations of Number 50 Broadway, the Adams Express Building, the Vanderbilt Mansion at 666 Fifth Avenue, the World Building, the Capitol Theater, the Gotham Hotel, and the Columbia Trust. Others make brief cameos. 

Number 50 Broadway, the Tower Building (center)
The first building to be fully supported by an internal steel skeleton,
providing the template for skyscrapers.
Photo taken after it had been dwarfed by its neighbors.

 

Cliffs rose around Wall Street. The masses and the masters separated. Those above owned the sun and towered over the rest of us, who were cast into a pit of shadows. With the people and the prestige separated, New York became even more concentrated as a center of power, until that power became a monster, more imperious and more controlling than the cathedrals and palaces of yesteryear. (from Floor 24)

666 5th Avenue. Vanderbilt Mansion 
It's creepy and it's spooky, it's altogether ooky.

The New Century

The 20th century began with wild optimism. New inventions including electrical lighting, motor cars, and telephony were creating a modern world. European wars seemed to belong to a distant age, as far away as the days of Napoleon. Modern thinkers explored the mysteries of the universe and the mind. Women began to have rights. With motion pictures, the people had a populist medium and stories promoted the triumph of the underdog as expressed by the works of Charlie Chaplin. Flooded by immigrants, America boomed. But all was not well. In 1914, longstanding jealousies and grievances plunged the world into its first global war. New inventions were created to enhance killing. Every new medium for communication becomes co-opted by propagandists. In 1915, the film, The Birth of a Nation, revived the Ku Klux Klan who promoted an anti-minority and anti-immigrant nativism. This revolution swept over the United States. In the 1920s, a boom of wealth for a moment masked our hatred and divisions. Women had the vote. In 1928 Catholic was nominated to be president, a Jewish man to be the governor of New York. The skyline of Manhattan grew with ever-taller buildings. But behind the official sobriety of Prohibition was rum-running, gangsterism, and corruption. The wealth of the roaring twenties proved illusory.

With the Depression, around the world despots took advantage of the economic turmoil. The new medium of communication, radio was conscripted as a propagandist tool to bring long-simmering hatreds to a boil.

The demolition of the Vanderbilt Mansion (1926)
is featured in my book. The "S's" in the stairway railing
stand for Stanford White, the architect.
Construction versus destruction is a theme of my novel.

This is the simplified story of the rise and fall of the early 20th Century, the backdrop to my novel and to the series. The world could have turned out very differently. In January 1933, Hitler managed to become Chancellor of Germany after receiving only 33% of the vote. In 1928, Franklin Roosevelt won the governorship of New York by a mere 0.6%, launching him into position to take the White House four years later. He was inaugurated as President on March 4, 1933. On March 5, Hitler held the last multi-party elections in Germany, consolidating his power.

Progress versus regression and building versus destruction have been at constant war with one another.

Martin Hill Ortiz

The Adams Express Building, center

The Columbia Trust Building.
Originally, The Knickerbocker Trust.

The Capitol Theater, Movie Palace.