Blackpool Tower had been finished. The grounds were opened before then for a short period in 1897 however. New Brighton Tower was the tallest building in England, standing tall, and above sea-level. A total of of mild or low-carbon steel was used, at a cost of £120,000, in contrast to the earlier Blackpool and Eiffel towers, both constructed using wrought iron. The building below the New Brighton Tower, which was to contain the ballroom, was constructed by Peters and Sons of Rochdale. It was a four-storey red-brick building with arched windows and hexagonal, copper-domed turrets. A series of accidents during the tower's construction resulted in the deaths of six workmen and serious injury to another. Two of the men, Jonathan Richardson and Alexander Stewart, were killed when a crane hook snapped and a girder fell and hit the scaffold platform on which they were standing, causing them to fall to the ground. A third man, John Daly, suffered serious injuries. The other four were killed in separate incidents by falling off the tower structure. A fire on the tower at in 1898 resulted in the death of a fire-fighter from the New Brighton Fire Brigade. He fell while walking along a beam wide to try and extinguish the flames. Tower building New Brighton Tower regularly advertised itself as "the highest structure and finest place of amusement in the Kingdom". A single entrance fee of one shilling (or a ticket for the summer season, costing 10s 6d) was charged for entrance into the grounds, which included the gardens, the athletic grounds, the ballroom and the theatre. An additional charge of sixpence was levied on those who wished to go to the top of the tower. There was a menagerie within the building, containing Nubian lions, Russian wolves (which had eight cubs in 1914), bears in a bear pit, monkeys, elephants, stags, leopards and other animals. There was also an aviary above the ballroom. The Tower Building also contained a shooting gallery and a billiard saloon with five tables. Tower The tower had four lifts, each capable of reaching the top in 90 seconds and conveying up to 2000 people an hour. The views from the top included the Liverpool skyline, the River Mersey estuary and the River Dee. On a clear day, visitors could see across the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man, along with views of the Lake District