SKYLINE

    If there was a feature that defined the architectural structure of cosmopolitan cities like New York is its skyline.

    Despite having a fixed idiosyncrasy culturally speaking, in this case we are rather talking about a space question. While the population increased in Manhattan Island, the physical space there decreased and so architects had to design a plan which allowed these people have a place where to live in. The solution for such an issue was the vertical construction of buildings, which resulted in the famous skyline that we pretty know nowadays.

Workers on the top of NYC

    This construction entailed some difficulty: the height of these buildings was a true challenge but… who was willing to take on the challenge? For sure taking a look at the following image gives you some hints to find it out. It became one of the most widely known icons of the “city that never sleeps” and has been emulated several times.

   Indeed, we are talking about the NY workers that walked along the steel rafters of the skyscrapers under construction. These workers were of European origin while others were Mohawk Native Americans desperate for finding a job after the Crack of 1929.        
    Apparently they had worked as sailors before having lunch atop the skyscrapers, which meant they were used to heights. This desperation explains the huge risk they took when working with no job security at all: no helmets, no harnesses neither security ties. They spent more than 8 hours on the steel rafters, having lunch when they had the chance and with no possibility to go to the toilet. The only positive side of the job is they earned 4 dollars a day, which doubled the daily salary of any worker; the negative and dramatic side of this is two workers out of five died while working up in the air.