Day 189, 5 May 2013 - Morning Edition

It's difficult to get a good view of the activity at the south end of the worksite, where the steel casings are being installed today; but since i covered that process yesterday, there's no real need to show it again. Instead, here are a few pictures showing the building materials being transported to the new staging area and the process of inserting the large screws into the steel casings. 

I've developed a great respect for the people who operate this heavy equipment. They move these massively heavy materials around with such delicacy and precision! Last evening, my neighbor and i stood on the porch for about fifteen minutes, watching a bulldozer work its way through a huge pile of gravel: filling the bucket, then smoothing the remaining mound so it would stay in a neat pile. My neighbor commented that the way it moved reminded him of a cat. 

Moving an I-beam at about 8:o'clock this morning

 The remaining pictures in this series show the process of preparing and moving one piece of steel casing and are posted in chronological order.

*** POSTSCRIPT: The dire warnings of "extremely loud noise" non-stop over this weekend proved unnecessary. The work has been loud, as construction work is wont to be, but nothing compared to January's ear-splitting, bone-rattling level of noise. Even better, it turned out that the crew did not have to work through the night, so the only noise in Rogers Park last night (aside from the usual Saturday night mayhem of police sirens and whatnot) was the sound of peaceful snoring. This crew has had to slog through some wicked bad weather in the past few months, so maybe when they finally got a few days of sunshine and warm temperatures, they were able to sail through the job in less time than expected. Whatever the reason, i for one am extremely grateful and well-rested today.