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Cleveland circa 1900. "Perry-Payne Building, Superior Avenue." This fine old structure, completed in 1888, survives today as an apartment building; the Brown Jug next door has, alas, evaporated along with its "Fine Old Whiskies." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
The stack of the old had to be raised when they built the new building. Along with coal smoke, a health risk, comes coal embers, a fire risk. The builders of the Perry-Payne built the new stack with their building to ensure their own safety and to ensure that their brand-new building wouldn't immediately burn down. They probably also had a 'party-wall' agreement to allow direct connection to support and upderpin the wall of the older, shorter building on the Perry-Payne's new, deep foundation.
In the days when buildings were heated by coal it could be a problem if you were a small building right next to a tall one. No doubt the owner of the taller building preferred to not have his building smoke-stained by this shorter neighbor- hence the unusually long smokestack pipe.
Interesting that the shorter building has it's chimney outlet higher than the taller building so that the smoke wont blow in through the open windows. That's all well and good if the shorter building arrived second, but what would be required if the taller building arrived second? Would the shorter building be required to extend it's chimneys retrospectively, and who would foot the bill?
Below is the same view from July of 2016.
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