BUILDING "SKYSCRAPERS."

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXV, Issue 38, 21 May 1909, Page 7

BUILDING "SKYSCRAPERS."

A graphic account of .skyscraper building appears in the last 'Life': — Da a little platform jutting out from tie thirty-fourth floor of a New York Jkyseraper in couree of erection stood a mall fiery forge. A lean American workman plunged into the coals a long Sender pair of tongs and drew out a white-hot rivet. He glanced up, began to swing the tongs, then whirled them trice round and opened the jaws. IJp itot the burning missile straight to a Van poised on a beam thirty feet above, fie inclined an iron keg ever so slightly, aught the rivet and held the bucket it arm's length to a third man who iru standing on a narrow scaffold suspended by ropes—nice clean, quick work -bat the point of it is that the operaSons are taking place away up in the lies. If the man with the tongs steps nek a foot to swing, if the man with jkekeg tries to dodge the burning misfie or the man with the hammer loses to head for a second he will whizz" jbragh 500 feet of air on to the paveta» below. "All we do is to put 'em topper," said a workman. "Look, wt's one of the girders just going ¥ j looking under the edge I could see ti# girder leave the street, a twentytffl beam that looked like a straw—ibily, moment by moment, its size iniffeased. In five minutes the beam r<ise othe floor on which we stood. A in.'in leade me gave a sharp jerk to the bell wpe. In his closet thirty-five storeys Wow the engineer stops his engine. 8e had to do all the moving. Up here W were as powerless as monkeys and pes hung on his promptness. Another gtk on the bell rone, an instant [ iuse, pa the boom swung in and the birder toe towards us. Another sharp jirk ™it stopped in mid-air. A m?n «ned forward, took a grip of the cable to stepped out on to the tilting mats »swung out over the street (500 ieet Still another jerk and it startup with its puny rider. He >tood his feet planted firmly in the wuu, his body swinging in easy poise. •® e J 1 ® glanced at his feet and the 1 below, then gave me a humorous I into the universe. ™ the floor two tiers above us the Wight columns had already r,<cn peed, pointing straight up silhouetted JiWißt the blue vault above. Mere ®? re slowly the beam rose jnid f®jed into position, till at last it nung jrf between the two columns. The j J re pt out to one end. He might )een a flv for all the effect his iJv i , 011 balance. With his i; hand clinging tightly to the stee', ste adily straight aluad, enly with his right hand he reachJ? seized the column and as the fr ®hpped into the seat he snatched long tapered "speed wrench" from Hvot i i i amme d it through two uf«i ? —the twenty-ton mass was .anchored. ii jnforrnjuit tells how a girder rider , ade and adds:—"lt's rarely you'll t fl . ]; a ( m l an " n the steel who is not glufd tifin +v, work. It's a kind of pasi. v .\, 6 , more see and hear (if cur J the better you like 'em. Th-sre s thm J° n ? m Broadway to the rmo'i W wouldn't jump at. The nigftar it liu ® YJ n^ler • the more ticklish, the ton m' , on 'y trouble is they Lal'e !°S®any chances." ®gh pioneers are these men of linn !>■?? B , ea °h year their f ronU-jr c ar< ? s .^ e clouds. Wanderers e ' r jobs, alone, reckless, oji K -? 8 ' c °ol-headed, brave, ffcaken ji i" 11 ' grim power of Fate, living BnW vj ß as t and free—ihese riders—these cowboys of the