First Place
Damon Winter
The New York Times
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
"WHERE STEEL MEETS SKY"
Over the course of five days in July we were given a rare glimpse into the lives of the men on the leading edge of a monumental and historic undertaking: the construction the new World Trade Center Tower One. Ten years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, many of the men who sifted through the rubble in the days and weeks following the destruction of the original World Trade Center towers, men whose experience in ironwork goes back three, four even five generations, were laying down the framework, column by column, beam by beam for its ambitious replacement. These connectors, bolters, plumb gangs, welders, and cutters set the foundation on which all other construction on the job will be based. Their work is the heart and soul of this building. They are the best of the best. Over the course of this week the ironworkers completed the early stages of floors seventy three and seventy four, the beginning of a two-week cycle, run with military-like precision, that is repeated over and over again, from the gargantuan square base, twisting ever so slightly floor by floor, tapering down octagonally to the final floor over seventeen hundred feet above lower manhattan.
*** Jim Brady, one of the most talented connectors on the job, grabs hold of a beam as it is lowered down from a crane in a process called "setting steel": the essence of iron work. |
