The Last New Yorkers

In the decade following its completion in 1909, New York's once-tallest building, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower, suffered a series of unfortunate mishaps. In rapid succession it was exposed to poisonous gases, submerged under twenty thousand feet of water, struck by the tail of a comet, and transported back in time to the pre-Columbian era. Each time, the building somehow emerged intact. Dimly, like the daybreak glimmer of a sky long wrapped in fogs, a sign of consciousness began to dawn in the face of the tranced girl. Once more the breath of life began to stir in that full bosom, to which again a vital warmth had on this day of days crept slowly back. And as she lay there, prone upon the dusty floor, her beautiful face buried and shielded in the hollow of her arm, a sigh welled from her lips. Life-life was flowing back again! The miracle of miracles was growing to reality. Faintly now she breathed; vaguely her heart began to throb once more. She stirred. She moaned, still for the moment powerless to cast off wholly the enshrouding incubus of that tremendous, dreamless sleep.