The Hundred-Ton Door
1923 · Circular Bank Vault Door · Work 733 of 1,871
The open circular door of a reserve bank vault of 1923 in a basement in Cleveland, a round slab of brushed silver-grey steel about three metres across and one and a half metres thick, swung open to the right of its round doorway, its inner face a ring of polished radial bolt bars around a bright central hub, carried by a curved hinge arm on an upright steel pivot column taller than a man, the wall clad in riveted steel panels, through the opening a passage of upright steel bars, in front a polished tubular handrail, a guard in a dark suit seen from behind, cool light from opal glass ceiling lamps.
- What it was used for
- The round steel door closed the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Cleveland Historical gives it as 100 tons and about 5 feet (some 1.5 m) thick; Cleveland Magazine adds a diameter of 10 feet (some 3 m). The vault runs through 2 of the building's 13 storeys, its concrete walls 6.5 feet (some 2 m) thick and laced with metal. Construction began in 1921, the building opened on 23 August 1923 and cost 8.25 million dollars. According to Cleveland Magazine the old vault was in use from 1923 until 1996.
- What was new
- Here the novelty is scale, not mechanism. Cleveland Historical calls the door "the largest of its kind in the world" and its hinge "possibly the largest hinge in the world". It was made in New York, and moving it took, per the same source, the largest flatcar in the country. The barb lies in the afterlife: in 2007 Cleveland Magazine described the interior of the old vault as "like an abandoned jail", while in the new vault driverless carts move the money containers. Since 1996 the 100 tons have guarded nothing.
What the sources leave open: The superlative “the largest of its kind in the world” rests on Cleveland Historical alone; no independent confirmation was found.