Midtown

I work at the Mid-Manhattan Library at 40th Street and 5th Ave. In the evening when I leave from work, I walk down 40th Street to the subway station at 6th Ave. This spring I noticed something different, something I never noticed before. The weather was beginning to warm, the days were growing longer and there was an explosion of green coming from Bryant Park. I happen to look up as I walked west on 40th Street. At that moment, I was met with a striking, yet subtle view. I stood there a few moments to take it all in, as people hurriedly passed me by. As the world rushed around me, I felt completely alone as I stood there looking out. Along the western edge of the park, buildings covered in skins of green, blue and gray glass thrust upward with enormous energy and vigor. The area is tight with tall buildings and the emphasis on height is even greater juxtaposed with the low lush green park. I looked out upon the buildings, high in the sky and what I saw was a vertical reflecting pool, like a placid pool of water that gently lifts the surrounding landscape to your eyes. But my Midtown reflecting pool is upright and it is the skin of glass that jettisons the images outward. The view is every bit as beautiful as that which is given to us by a quiet body of water in a natural landscape. However this hard surfaced pool, streaming vertically into the sky, is a man made beauty.

In bits and pieces of metal and muck a different type of life rained down upon the street below and I could not stop thinking about what goes on high above our heads. This as a result of the recent spate of tragedies of men and debris falling to the street from above, far above. Before Christmas two window washers crashed to the street below along with their scaffolding from 47 floors above. Miraculously one man lived. Just last week a construction worker fell from roughly the same height along with part of the floor and thousands of pounds of wet cement.
At any given time, many, many floors above our heads there is a whole world taking place. We see it only in spats, most of us carry on oblivious to what is happening above us. Things are being hauled up and down, unbelievably heavy things, things that would cause great damage if they were to fall, things that would splatter the flesh in an instant. For the most part nothing comes down upon us unexpectedly. From time to time things drop from the sky as though giant invisible hands with nimble fingers have plucked people and metal and tossed them down. Sometimes massive objects do topple over upon us. Will the scrim of scaffolding really protect us? Despite our ability to reign in nature, from time to time, she says “tsk, tsk, tsk little darlins that is not physics, you can’t fool mother nature…KABOOM!” And so it was with the most recent tragedies. Horrifying, terrifying and exhilarating incidents that make the heart race when you stop to think about it. Surprisingly, for the most part, the innocent below are untouched. Even more disturbing is that these incidents occur on the bustling streets of New York City.
Midtown construction work is constantly going on, often high above our heads. In the warms months of spring and summer I was a regular audience at many of the sites. It was fascinating and exciting I returned again and again for the thrill. I was riding a virtual roller coaster and the price of admission was free. How could I resist?
Once I was on a side street between 5th Ave and Madison when I noticed almost in the clouds a crane slowly turning with a load attached to a long cable. Enormous weights were in motion to counter balance. It was a ballet of metal and muscle and I had to press my back against the wall of a building as I looked up. Vertigo took my breath away. I could not believe what I was witnessing juxtaposed against the lunch time crowds rushing to and fro. I was mesmerized, enthralled. I vowed to come back everyday and I did. After a while one of workers noticed me and he was willing to answer my myriad of questions. I tried to imagine what it was like to be way up there, the man driving the crane whose only contact with the world is via walkie-talkie. I visited this site often. I was even lucky enough to watch them bring the crane down. I have watched huge cooling systems being hoisted to the tops of tall buildings. I have watched heavy loads of I-beams go up with the wave of a hand above 42nd Street as crowds and traffic go about their business below. I even saw a load of construction material ready to go up suddenly spring loose from the thick metal cables that bound it. The look on the workmens’ faces revealed how truly lucky we all were.
I look forward to the warm months when I can watch the events of the building on the corner of 6th Ave and 42nd St unfold and discover new sites where I can watch this mechanical matinee. The canopy layer of our concrete forest is as rich with life as any tropical forest.