Would have been only seven years old in this year, but I'm sure this vista would have inspired her immensely. Her late 30's Chrysler Building gargoyle picture still gives me vertigo!

The steel insides don't seem all that different from contemporary construction, but it's shocking to see the lower unfinished levels - airy and open with all that massive (granite?) density above. With older buildings I tend to believe the that the external skin is structural even if I know better and this messes with that illusion.

I'm not sure if I could handle working on those stage platforms like those guys that are cladding the structure.

What is the process here? Is it concrete, brick or some other rendering over the steel.

It sure is a handsome building.

Hard to imagine that everything on that building was hauled there by horse teams and freight wagons! Sure would like to see some SHORPY photos of that procedure.

[Don't forget trucks. By 1910 there were thousands of motor trucks and electric trucks on the roads. Below, an ad from 1911. - Dave]

The beautiful Penobscot building replaced the smaller building on the far left of the photo 15 years later, sitting nicely next to the tallest building on the left edge of the photo, the Ford Building.

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Looks like the crew on the left has a one story lead over the crew on the right.

The ornate rooftop at lower left was Detroit's old City Hall, demolished in 1961. But the Dime Building is still there. Happy centennial, Dime.