The most recent in the New York Times’ video series commemorating the tenth anniversary of 9/11 ascends the top stories of the under-construction World Trade Center Tower 1 (née Freedom Tower), where steel workers nimbly navigate the ferro-skeletal terrain to construct the . Set to a collage of workers’ voices commenting on the difficult, but rewarding aspects of their work, the stunning photographs document the relatively unchanged-working methods of the ironworkers, who still, just as they did a century ago, brave the vast openness to help guide and set in place raised and lowered beams.

The images do, in fact, retain the turn-of-the-century romanticism which framed the pioneering engineering and construction methods that begat the modern age of the skyscraper. Looking at the images and listening to the flood of pride emanate from the workers themselves, the building of towers still proves unfailing alluring. With clean, assertive geometries born of the strongest materials, they rise upwards, charting new, unstable territory where only the most capable and stalwart of workers venture. “So what’s the best thing about ironworking?” “The view.”

All Photos: Damon Winter/The New York Times

by Samuel Medina

posted in Uncategorized Video news

tagged 9/11, ironworkers, manhattan, nytimes, skyscraper, video, wtc, WTC 1

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