"In the later nineteenth century, the tops of skyscrapers often took the shape of domes, surmounted by jaunty gilded lanterns; later came ziggurats, mausoleums, Alexandrian lighthouses, miniature Parthenons. These charming follies contained neither royal corpses nor effigies of gods and goddesses; rather they contained large wooden tanks filled with water."

Source : 1982 Quoted in Laura Rosen Top of the City: NewYork's hidden rooftop world (1990), foreword.

Brendan Gill

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