‘Ster Crazy 1

Social distancing  . . . we hope it’s playing a role in defeating the spread of infection, so it’s not really true that we’re going stir crazy; instead, we do good by limiting travel and seeing this time as a godsend, an opportunity to face long-postponed tasks.  So for the near future, we’ll be posting from the archives and soliciting –ster posts.  Got any?

These and this text from Phil Little, who has a most ideal porch view, right across from the Manhattan Passenger Terminal.  Phil’s sentiments are inside quotation marks.

“Cranester?  I took a series of shots from the balcony here in June 2016 of a tower crane boom extension being installed at 899 Avenue in Port Imperial NJ. Not exactly 6th Boro, but if they dropped it, that’s where it would be!   The pics are pretty much self explanatory. Those guys obviously don’t have acrophobia.”  If you want to know all about a tower crane, getting to the cab and operating the crane, click here.

1. “Picking up the assembled section.”  Notice the triangular Via 57, which some call a pyramid on the Hudson, others call a hyperbolic paraboloid. It’s 57 because it’s on 57th Street.

2. “Here she comes! Get ready!”

3. “Pin A goes in Tab B….I think!”

4. “Ok! Got her hung!”

5.  “Everybody always gets together after the job for a beer or two!”   Uh, Phil, I don’t think that’s beer.

Many thanks to Phil Little for these photos.

Hats off for the folks doing essential work.  Stay healthy.

Related:  tugster posts focusing on cranes can be found here.  Also, if you’re not familiar with NYC and its ferries, NY Waterways, whose boats you see in some of these photos,  IS an interesting story, a ferry company created by a trucking magnate… a 20th-century version of Vanderbilt, who was a ferry magnate who created a railroad network.

And here’s a virtual tour you can sign up for and take from anywhere in the world:  Wartime Production in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  I plan to take it.   Here are more.