THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL EAGLE.

However rapidly a city grows, it reluctantly quits its first central point. In New York, for example, the substantial people held fast to their residences in the Battery quarter long after the town had stretched out beyond Canal street and crept toward the country "above Bleecker." So Brooklyn had become thickly occupied in an easterly direction years before the old Fulton Ferry settlement ceased to be its most important part. The EAGLE was slow to turn from the lower end of the chief thoroughfare, not merely from sentimental or associative reasons, but because the familiar site seemed entirely to satisfy all business considerations. From a commercial standpoint the old quarters answered all the necessary purposes of the EAGLE, but a new and modern establishment at last seemed to be a demand of the times. The erection of fine buildings by the city, county and federal government and also by successful business houses, made the managers of the EAGLE feel that it was due the city in which it had prospered so well, to contribute to its architectural beauty, by the erection of a handsome and imposing structure, and finally the corner stone of such a building was laid on the 27th of November, 1890, on Washington and Johnson streets. In making this removal the EAGLE was obliged to go but a short distance from its original home. The City and County buildings, the Federal edifice, the financial companies, the converging railroads and other interests will keep the pivotal municipal point just where it has been for so many years. The change of the channel of travel between New York and Brooklyn, while it has affected lower Fulton street, has stimulated the activity of City Hall square. The bridge in diverting traffic from the ferries has impelled it in that direction.

The engraving of the new structure on the opposite page gives a fair impression of the completed building. From foundation to roof it is put together and finished in the best style of modern art. Its site is familiar as that of the two Brooklyn Theatres. Old citizens recall the place when St. John's (Dominie Johnson's) church stood thereon. The new home of the EAGLE has a frontage of 68 feet on Washington street and runs 106 feet along Johnson street, and rises to a height of 130 feet.

The basement will be occupied with the heavier machinery employed in the making of the newspaper. In this work the latest improved presses designed by Hoe are used. Than these magnificent machines it seems that ingenuity can produce nothing more completely adapted to the purpose. In order to put the EAGLE promptly into the hands of the people, four of these double perfecting presses are required, "perfecting," because the revolving cylinder turns out a perfect paper, printed on both sides. The capacity of the EAGLE's new printing vaults is indicated by the fact that each of these presses is able, according to the shifting adjustment of its parts, to deliver in an hour 24,000 complete papers of four, six, eight, ten or twelve pages, cut, inserted, pasted and folded, or at a reduced speed, papers of sixteen, twenty and twenty-four pages. For the working of these machines there is necessary the force of two engines of 150 and 90 horse power, respectively. The basement will also contain the electric light plant, the pumping machinery and storage room for printing paper. The boiler house is separate from the main building and will contain three large tubular boilers.

The first story, on a level with the street, is to be used solely for the publication offices and delivery departments. The counting room, 45 by 81 feet, and 18 high, is to be in oak and finely fitted. The five upper stories will also be devoted to the uses of the EAGLE: the fifth for the job printing branch, the sixth for job presses and bookbinding machinery, the seventh for the editorial offices, library and restaurant, the eighth for type setting, stereotyping and proof reading, the ninth for cloak, storage and tank rooms.

The remaining stories, the second, third and fourth, containing the finest private offices in the city, are set apart to be rented.

The elevating, heating, ventilating and illuminating appliances are the best ever provided, and the fire-proof EAGLE building challenges comparison with anything of the kind in this country.

These liberal and costly improvements in the material features of the business involve no radical change in the character and methods of the paper. There will be no new departure. There has in fact been only one departure in the history of the journal-the departure upon which it started when it began to be published. Its immediate aim then was, its constant purpose ever since has been, and its determination now is, to provide the Brooklyn public with a good newspaper; above all, a good local newspaper, one estimating before everything else the interests of its constituents, comprehensive, impartial and fearless in gathering and making known the news, and all the news, independent in its views, representing and enforcing the opinions, not of factions or parties or individuals, but of the great public of whatever class. This is what the managers did when the first number went to press. This is what they are doing to-day. Great changes have occurred in the affairs of society, and the conditions of the journalistic business have expanded and become more exacting and difficult. But while greatly increased sums of money have been expended, vastly more workmen have been employed, and a marvelous advance has been made in mechanical instrumentalities, the movement has been steadfastly along the lines just indicated-lines which never have been modified from the beginning.