Just after construction had begun, a wave of strikes in the building trades brought work to a halt. By the time matters were resolved, freezing temperatures made it next to impossible to operate the stone shop. The marble contractor was forced to maintain enormous cash outlays, and McKim, Mead & White was withholding payment because work was behind schedule. Tompkins, the president of the marble contracting firm, outlined the dire situation in this letter to McKim.
In the end, these challenges and others (including unanticipated costs associated with the unorthodox stone-setting method McKim had stipulated) forced Fisher & Co. to mortgage its property for $80,000. The firm—one of the most distinguished in the trade—went bankrupt in 1911 after another wave of strikes.
Edward B. Tompkins (1850–1907), president of Robert C. Fisher & Co.
Letter to Charles Follen McKim, New York, 18 February 1904, page 1
New-York Historical Society, McKim, Mead & White Architectural Collection