Article December 5, 1901 Issue

At the Cradle of the Monolith

Granite Quarries of New Hampshire a Titan Industry.

New York Herald

The white, dream-like beauty of First Church of Christ, Scientist, corner of Ninety-sixth Street and Central Park West [New York City], that day by day grows in its magnificent proportions as the workmen swing the snowy blocks into place, is a part of the epic of granite. It is the culmination of a strenuous beginning in the quarry, channelling where, to the music of the machine and the thunder of the blast, the granite is torn from the earth, and there begins the marvel which develops to perfect beauty. The New Hampshire cradle of the monolith, near Concord, is a place of massive achievements, supplied with all the magic of modern science, all of which the workers take as prosaic matter of fact, but which is an impressive wonderland to the outsider.

The great increase in the granite trade of Concord this year is due to three large contracts, the first of which is for the stone of the New York church; the second is for the Frick Building of Pittsburg, the largest all granite business building in the country; the third is for the Marshall Field Building of Chicago. The last two contracts are keeping eight large and twenty small quarries and sheds in Concord busy; while to the work of supplying the material for the church structure the company having the contract is devoting its entire force of three hundred and twenty-five men, night and day.

The work for the church involves not only the quarrying of some forty-five thousand cubic feet of granite, but a vast amount of artistic work as well. The stone must be of symbolical whiteness, and in this respect it is a significant circumstance that, not only is Concord the home of Christian Science, but in its granite is found the peculiar bluish tint which gives it a lustre and purity possessed by no other granite in the country.

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