engineering

People's Office Building

People's Office Building is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand People's Office Building rather than just read about it. In short: The People's Building at 18 Broad St. was Charleston, South Carolina's first "skyscraper", erected in 1910 and 1911 at a cost of $300,000. It was designed by a Swedish architect, Victor Frohling of Thompson & Frohling, of New York and built by both Simons-Mayrant of Charleston and also the Hadden Construction Co.

Key takeaways

People's Office Building belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect People's Office Building to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of People's Office Building from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The People's Building at 18 Broad St. was Charleston, South Carolina's first "skyscraper", erected in 1910 and 1911 at a cost of $300,000. It was designed by a Swedish architect, Victor Frohling of Thompson & Frohling, of New York and built by both Simons-Mayrant of Charleston and also the Hadden Construction Co. Construction began on December 7, 1909. The pile driving so weakened a nearby residence that the People's Building & Investment Co. had to buy it. The structure is a steel framed building with iron framing whose engineer was D.C. Barbot. Work continued throughout early 1910. The construction of the building became a popular spectacle for residents to watch. An American flag was placed atop the building's frame when it was topped out in late April 1910. The owners of the building considered installing a rooftop garden to take advantage of the superb views from the building. The project was organized by R. Goodwyn Rhett, mayor of Charleston and president of the People's National Bank. He organized a group of 50 local leaders who amassed $150,000 in contributions to the enterprise; Mayor Rhett successfully sought a mortgage of the same amount against the yet unbuilt building from New York backers.

Many saw it as a sign of progress while others were afraid it would ruin Charleston's skyline. President William Howard Taft, who viewed the city from the top of the building, said, "I don't believe that it did ruin the skyline, but if it did the view from up here makes it worth it." When the building opened in April 1911, people came just to ride the steel frame elevators. The first two floors of the building are faced with Winnsboro granite, while the upper floors are faced with buff-colored brick and terra cotta. The eight-story building is constructed of concrete and steel and rated as fireproof. Originally it had, in addition to the banking space, nine rooms on a mezzanine and thirteen rooms on each of the upper floors, and the building was steam heated. The People's Bank closed in 1936 and the building was purchased by the Southeastern Securities Co., Charles L. Mullaly, president. Mullaly installed the two white marble leopards at the main entrance. Carved from Italian marble by an unknown 18th-century artist, the leopards were brought to Charleston from an estate near Boston, Massachusetts. In 1990, a plan was approved by the Board of Architectural Review which would have replaced the leopards with gas lamps, but the plan was not executed. The leopards were removed for repair in 2003 and reinstalled the following year. In June 2011, the leopard on the right of the entrance was destroyed by vandalism. The remaining statue was moved indoors, and both were reproduced in 2013 by Kevin McLean, an art student at the College of Charleston.

Plans to restore the building as high-grade office space foundered in 1990, and potential developers backed away from a possible purchase of the building over fears that the local market could not support the project in the event of a recession. However, portions of the building were later developed as upscale condos. The two-story penthouse became the most expensive residence (but not house) in Charleston in March 2020 when it sold for $12 million; the previous holder had been the Col. John Ashe House. It remained the most expensive residence on the peninsula until June 2021 when the house at 10 Legare Street sold for $13,500,00. The building hosted ABC News' Charleston coverage of the August 21, 2017 solar eclipse.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with People's Office Building

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what People's Office Building claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to People's Office Building before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about People's Office Building ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of People's Office Building

In research: People's Office Building appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses People's Office Building in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: People's Office Building is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Buildings and structures completed in 1911, Buildings and structures in Charleston, South Carolina, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for People's Office Building outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study People's Office Building in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what People's Office Building means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain People's Office Building out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is People's Office Building in simple terms?

Why does People's Office Building matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study People's Office Building?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on People's Office Building.