h at the foot of Fifth
Avenue began materializing; turning solid. From imponderability they
grew tangible; demanded free empty space of their own. Wedged and
pushed with solidifying molecules and atoms, each demanding its
little space and finding none. Encountering other solidity.

Outraged nature! No two material bodies can occupy the same space at
the same time!

The Washington Arch very queerly seemed to burst apart by a
strangely silent explosion. The upper portion toppled and fell with
a clatter of masonry littering the avenue and park.

Then a house nearby went down; then another. Everything seemed to be
crumbling, falling. That was the beginning. Within a minute the
chaos spread, running over the city like fire on strewn gasoline.
Buildings everywhere came crashing down. The street heaved up,
cracking apart in long jagged lines of opening rifts as though an
earthquake were splitting them. The subways and tubes and tunnels
yawned like black fantastic chasms crossed and littered by broken
girders.

The river waters heaved with waves lashed white as the great bridges
fell into them; and sucked down and closed again with tumultuous
whirlpools where the water had rushed into the cracked tunnels of
the river bed.

* * * * *

Of the towering skyscrapers the Woolworth was the first to crumble;
it split into sections as it fell across the wreckage which already
littered City Hall. Then the Bank of Manhattan Building, crumbling,
partly falling sidewise, partly slumping upon the ruins of itself.
Simultaneously the Chrysler Building toppled. For a second or two it
seemed perilously to sway. Breathless, awesome seconds. It swayed
over, lurched back like a great tree in a wind. Then very slowly it
swayed again and did not come back. Falling to the east, its whole
giant length came down in a great arc. The descent grew faster,
until, in one great swoop it crashed upon the wreckage of the Grand
Central Station. The roar of it surged over the city. The crash of
masonry; the clatter of its myriad windows, the din of its rending,
breaking girders.

The giant buildings were everywhere tumbling like falling giants;
like Titans stricken by invisible tumors implanted in their vitals.
It lasted ten minutes. What infinitude of horror came to proud and
lordly Manhattan Island in those momentous ten minutes!

Ten thousand patrolling soldiers and police, bands of lurking
criminals, and men, women a