Construction of Lewis's, Leeds

As the Chrysler Building was going up in New York in 1930, Leeds is putting up its new Lewis’s department store, with construction workers similarly balancing on steel girders.

Despite the Wall Street crash just three months earlier, Lewis's goes ahead with building an impressive department store in Leeds, putting to work some of the growing unemployed. It’s a wonderful document of construction from the time, filming the entire building project from beginning to end: with large sections of steel frame arriving by horse drawn carts and not a safety helmet in sight. One shot is taken from inside a bucket as it gets transported on an overhead pulley.

Lewis's announced their plans for a new store in Leeds in October 1928, ahead of the depression that was to settle over the US and Europe. On completion, ahead of schedule, it was the largest department store outside London, though its upper floors weren’t finished until 1938. On the day of its opening, by the Lord Mayor on September 17th, 1932, over 100,000 people visited the store. It had 157 different departments, selling almost everything, and saw escalators arrive in Leeds for the first time. With inspiration from American stores, it had 10,000 square yards of floor marble and 400 square yards of wall marble. Its innovative Aerodome floors, designed by Sir Edwin Airey, apparently saved 4000 tons of steel.