Business & Finance: Deals & Developments: Feb. 24, 1930

Stone & Webster. Many are the activities of Stone & Webster, Inc., and its subsidiaries. Power plants valued at $1,000,000, representing 10% of the installed central station capacity in the U. S., office buildings, hotels, factories, have been designed and erected by its engineers. Stone, Webster & Blodgett, 66⅔ % controlled, does one of the largest investment businesses in the U. S. Sixty utilities operate under Stone & Webster supervision, while extensive interests are held in many of them. Last week Stone & Webster made known a significant change of policy by offering to acquire all the stock of the Engineers' Public Service Corp., which it formed in 1925, retaining a 10% interest. Further deals of this sort would place Stone & Webster in actual control of the companies identified with it, making it a holding as well as operating and investing company. To Wall Street the deal came as a surprise, not only because it was a change of policy, but because frequent rumors said that since the formation of Marine Midland Corp. last fall (TIME, Sept. 30) Stone & Webster contemplated disposing of its utility holdings.

Elevators. In the new Empire State Building, being erected in Manhattan by Starrett Brothers, Inc., for Alfred Emanuel Smith and his associates, 66 elevators will be needed. Last week Otis Elevator Co. received a $2,900,000 contract for this work, the largest elevator contract ever made. Although the New York City building code will hold the speed down to 800 feet a minute (nine miles an hour), the elevators will be operated by machinery capable of going 50% faster.

A. & P. Into 15,000 Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. stores daily troop 5,000,000 customers. During a year they spend more than $1,000,000,000. Yet, despite the fact that A. & P. buys its food from all over the world, it has never truly served both the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards. Last week A. & P. announced that in Los Angeles next month it will open the first of a series of Pacific Coast stores.