Photo Credit: Roving Rube. Viewpoint: Broadway between 44th and 45th, looking north; 3/14/02 12:41 PM.

Notes (Roving Rube): "... I work all day and I sleep all night," as the Monty Python song puts it.

If the Rube had this job, he would be constantly worried that he wouldn't hook the cable up right or choose the wrong balance point.

Detail is a close-up of one of the crane cabs and an operator (the other guy is in the cab). These guys seem to let themselves go to seed a bit, in spite of the fact that they have to climb up and down the gantry every day, until at the end of the project they are climbing higher than the top of the skyscraper. Maybe they got strong legs.

Alternate View is of one of the girders -- the Rube has learned that these are sprayed with a rust and fire-inhibiting foam at a later point in the process, so he no longer worries about that. The girder is pre-drilled with as many holes as a cheese grater, and doing the drilling is another job which the Rube would find worrisome -- each of them must be positioned with extreme accuracy so they will line up EXACTLY with the girders they connect to.

We also see a smiley face on painted on the pulley -- like the Rube, many construction workers are frustrated artists.

These guys are building the Times Square Tower, more details and pictures of which can be found at WiredNewYork.com, included rendering on how it will look when finished - happily similar in style (lots of glass and light) to the three other new towers that now dominate the south end of Times Square.