This is a quiet print celebrating the construction of the Empire State building in New York in 1931. It also celebrates the unthinkable immunity to the paralysing, brain curdling horror of having to eat your sandwiches, get stuck into a crossword, share a Krazy Kat adventure with your workmates, roll a cigarette, fumble for a match and relax a bit, but on a steel beam that's hanging, oh, about 850 feet off the ground. And pretend it's absolutely normal.
Only five workmen died in the construction of this very tall skyscraper. It came in ahead of schedule and for a long time, until the Twin Towers, the world's tallest, I think. Of the deaths, not one resulted from a fall from the merry girder-break. You'd have thought the air would have been more or lass black after lunch with a shrieking flock of sidewalk-bound builders, but no. They were all in their own quiet way, superhuman.
No comments:
Post a Comment