Something a little different this week. A photo of painters on the Brooklyn Bridge circa 1914. We can only imagine the myocardial infarctions that would be generated among insurance actuaries responsible for Workman’s Comp policies were such a scene enacted today.
Some of these guys are in three-piece suits and regular street shoes too, for crissakes. This is from the archival website of the New York City Department of Records, where they have put an enormous amount of material online. Unhappily there are no high-resolution versions that I could find, so we don’t get to see a full-size version. That’s a shame—this looks like a 4×5 negative—I’d love to study the facial expressions here.
(h/t kottke.org)
It’d be interesting to know how many of those guys survived to retire with grandchildren. . .Superb photo, though.
A couple of years ago, when Thames Water was replacing all the old Victorian water pipes around here, they put blow-ups of photographs of the blokes who’d originally put them in on the barriers that stopped us locals from falling into the trench.
Fascinating: suits and bowler hats, too.
Some jobs give great satisfaction along with wonderful bragging rights – no matter how hard, dirty or dangerous. I bet these guys, well into their old age were telling anyone who would listen that they built the Brooklyn Bridge.
I’ll tell anyone who will listen about the hard and dangerous work of running the planetarium show at the National Air and Space Museum. You haven’t experienced hard and dangerous unless you’ve worked with horde upon horde of unruly rude tourists, while at the same time listening to Burgess Meredith for ten hours a day.
I was a polite one. Honest!