This morning looking out my fifth-floor window, I watched a group of men dismantling the scaffolding on the 15-story apartment building kiddy-korner from our 13! story building (13 is designated T to avoid the obvious). Contemplating the possibility of sudden death from the corona virus, I am amazed and impressed with their grace and agility, even as they too may have thought this morning about sudden death, if not from the corona virus than a fall from the seventh floor.
Seven men all with safety vests and hard hats are dismantling the structure top-down. They are now midway. The boards that form the "floors" of each level are shuffled hand-to-hand from the back of the building to the front. As the boards move forward, two workmen dismantle the metal pole structure that keeps the whole thing stable. [Correction: On further watching I see that the boards are moved down to form the floor of the next level, while the poles are moved forward to be lowered into the truck.] These are moved forward piece by piece sometimes hand-to-hand, sometimes in a quick run over the remaining boards. The boards and the pole pieces get lowered on a pulley (block and tackle?) to a shed at the second-floor level and are lowered again onto a huge flat-bed truck parked on the street.
So who are these dare devils running back and forth? They are very like the construction workers and demolition crews that President Fat Fingers cheated out of their wages when he was a construction mogul. Watching him last night with those Fat Fingers folded against one another, misconstruing our current situation, I thought there's a man who has never done an honest day's work in his life. This morning, I see seven men, who knows from where and are paid who know what, doing an honest day's work on a precarious scaffold. Here's to them!
Update: 4 PM EDT. Job done. Flat-bed truck loaded and leaving.
Makes me think of this picture. Whatever they pay them, it isn't enough!
ReplyDeleteThat picture has always brought on an attack of acrophobia.
DeleteYou couldn't pay me enough!
DeletePleasure to read this, Peggy. Sounds like you're describing a ballet, which is what this actually is.
ReplyDeleteBallet: Almost like the NYC Sanitation workers throwing weighty bags of garbage to one another, and then into the maw of the truck.
ReplyDeleteHas that ever been done on Broadway?
DeletePerhaps a musical.
DeleteA musical: there is a musical about working men and women. It's called, appropriately enough, "Working". It's based on a bestselling book from the 1970s by Studs Terkel. He was an oral historian who would interview many people and weave their first-person accounts into books. I haven't read "Working" but I read his WWII oral history, "The Good War" - still highly readable.
DeleteThe musical adaptation had some notable talent: the team that put it together included Stephen Schwarz, who also composed the music for Godspell, Wicked, the Disney Pocahontas film, and many other shows. Also Mary Rodgers, the daughter of Richard Rodgers. Mary Rodgers had written nice music and very clever lyrics for a 1950s Broadway hit called Once Upon a Mattress, which was Carol Burnett's debut (I think) and also had Wally Cox (remember him?) in a leading role.
The original cast of "Working" included Patti LuPone, who is a Broadway A-lister, and Joe Mantegna, who went on to television stardom in one of those police-procedural franchises (one of the CSIs?) which I've never watched.
I've cribbed some of these factoids from the Working Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_(musical). That entry indicates that Working was not a hit on Broadway - ran for 24 performances in its first incarnation. But it seems to be one of those works that, despite not setting Broadway on fire, seems to have some goo points and has continued to have a life in regional theater. It also has been reworked and resurrected on Broadway; the Wikipedia entry apparently hasn't been updated in a number of years so we're not told how it fared the second time around. It also states that when Schwarz revamped it, Lin Manuel Miranda (best known for Hamilton, but in fact his earlier work In The Heights is even better) contributed a couple of songs.
I'm aware of it because a local radio show, "The Midnight Special", plays one of the show's numbers, called "See That Building", every year around labor day. "See That Building" definitely picks up on some of the themes we're discussing here. I'll try to dig up a link to it when I get a chance. For those of you who are musically inclined, it is in 5/4 time, which is pretty unusual. (And which Mary Rodgers also played with in Once Upon A Mattress; I wonder if her hand is visible in this song as well.)
Well, it won't be revived soon. Broadway is going dark due to panic over D.C. leaderlessness.
DeleteI did review a regional theater run at "Working" back in the day. It didn't seem to hold together. Remember, that was an era of really well constructed revues -- "Eubie!," "Sophisticated Ladies," "Side By Side By Sondheim," "Ain't Misbehavin'" to recall just four.
You may not remember, but in the early days of TV, "Studs' Place" emanated from Chicago, with Studs as the diner owner, Chet Robles as the jazz pianist, Win Stracke as the folk guitarist, Beverly Younger (a real actress) as the waitress and no discernible script. That was in the late 40s-early 50s. When I mentioned it while interviewing Studs in the 70s, he said he kept running into people like me with warm memories of the show. I have an autographed copy of "Working."
For evidence that theatrical geniuses can produce total messes, look up who was involved in "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."
In our devotion to our military and first responders we often forget the many occupations which are far more dangerous, e.g. farming along with construction.
ReplyDeleteMy father worked in a steel mill in the days when they did all the construction and maintenance themselves. All of the buildings had cranes that moved from one end of the building to the other. So my father frequently was up high in the air walking on the narrow infrastructure. Heights did not bother him, he said it was the same as walking on a narrow sidewalk.
When the volunteer fireman build the concrete block two story firehall they used steel beams provided by the local steel mill right down river from us. My father was there up on those concrete walls guiding the beams into place. My mother decided she could not watch. I was in school.
When we talk about the dangers of the environment, chemical etc., we fail to recognize that for many men a dangerous environment has been part of life and that they consider risk a part of earning a living. Many ended up with damaged bodies by their fifties and sixties.
My father was very grateful for unions, because you could challenge tasks as a safety violation. He was very conscious of safety around the home, and the importance of thinking before you act.
Hi Jack, I started drafting my comment when you were drafting yours so I didn't see yours till after I hit Publish. Seems we covered some of the same territory.
DeleteYou're certainly right about unions and safety. Personally, I think labor unions are due for a comeback, because I see worker rights as continuing to deteriorate, even for those who work "on carpet" in offices.
Thanks for this post. There are many men and women who routinely do dangerous jobs, literally risking their lives so that they can earn a paycheck and others may profit.
ReplyDeleteIn our Prayers of the Faithful, we often pray for those who serve in the military and those "in harm's way". The latter phrase generally is understood, at least by me, to refer to public servants like police and fire fighters. Hadn't thought till now that it can also refer to construction workers, factory workers, miners, farmers et al.
I was a factory worker dilettante during my summer breaks from college. Here is the sort of work we did:
https://victoriaforgings.co.uk/what-is-drop-forging/
The level of dimness and dirtiness is about right in that photo. The safety gear likewise, except that guy should be wearing a hard hat. The machinery that the glowing thing is inside of is a die (a mold to shape a product) on a drop hammer. The upper part of the hammer moves up and down, and is controlled with foot pedals. It comes slamming down with incredible force to beat the heated metal into the shape of whatever product is being manufactured; we made things like gear blanks, piston rods, railroad couplings - items that needed to be made from steel and durable. It's essentially the 19th-century automated version of blacksmith work.
The hammer operators like that guy in the photo literally risked their limbs every time the hammer came slamming down, a few hundred times a day. Guys lost fingers, hands, sometimes worse.
Oh! Excellent!
ReplyDeleteLet me also recommend David Weitzman's "Skywalkers: Mohawk Iron Workers Build the City." We read this as one of the Young Adult Literature selections in lit class. Lots of derring-do in high places, interesting architectural physics problems, and Native American history about working men and women.
I have often wondered if the NYState Mohawks are doing this kind of work. But these particular workers whose look-alikes recently dismantled such scaffolding from our building spoke Spanish. But I have heard what I think is Polish from similar building sites. Maybe the Mohawks only do buildings about 50 stories!
ReplyDeleteSome guys are going to be doing what sounds to me like a dangerous task on Monday when they take our old organ out of the choir loft and bring the new one in. There is no way it is going up the stairs, which are narrow and winding. It will have to go over the balcony railing. Im assuming they will have one of those scissors jack cherry picker things. 5 K of C members volunteered to help the music store guy. Hope no one gets hurt.
ReplyDeleteIf the Knights are "helping," guarantee somebody will get hurt. Leave moving to the experts guys, and find some other task to enhance your manly image.
DeleteJean, it is a rare pastor whose heels don't involuntarily click at the sound of the phrase, "I'll do it for free".
Delete