Yesterday while doing errands, I decided to go through downtown and take the Hawthorne Bridge over the Willamette. I wanted to see that big hole on I've been photographing, on a weekend day. Lo and behold, folks were at work putting up a yellow construction crane. I made a couple of blocks, parked the Buick beside Chapman Square a block and a half from the hole, and set off with my camera around my neck. Unseasonably cold weather wouldn't stop me from hopefully getting some interesting photos.
Here are five of the workers I noticed after I'd snapped a few photos. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, or hearing for that matter. I swear, I could hear something that sounded like a hammer striking metal. Skilled, capable, careful workers for sure.
Situated on SW First was the black crane that picked up the pieces of the yellow crane and took them up into the air. And two more workers are in this photo.
If you look closely, you can see the cables from the black crane to the piece of the yellow crane. You can even see one heading down from the left end of that yellow piece, going out of the photo in the lower left corner.
There's a lot going on in this photo. There's the empty steel plate where the bulldozer sat in my earlier posts about this great big hole. Notice the poster that depicts the finished 15-story First and Main building. And there's another piece of the yellow crane still on the truck, plus a piece on the ground to the right of that flatbed.
In this photo that I took from a raised patio of a high rise building on the opposite corner, you can see both cranes pretty well. In no time, the leaves will be out on those trees, obstructing the view. Maybe I can get a photo from up on the sidewalk of the Hawthorne Bridge which is the opposite direction from where I'm standing now.
Zooming in, you can see the steel wall with the yellow crane behind it which lets you know that the base of the crane is down in the great big hole. Why has that section of the steel wall been left so high above the rest of the wall that surrounds the great big hole? This photo shows something else unique at this intersection at this particular moment. This street is usually one way east. However, the silver car beside the brown steel wall is heading west in the lane made for traffic during the crane installation. The reason this traffic flow reconfiguration took place is all of that equipment on SW First, beyond the great big hole, had to have somewhere to park. Considering how busy this intersection--the eastbound entrance to the Hawthorne Bridge and the westbound exit off the Hawthorne Bridge--is in the morning and evening workday rush hours, installing the crane on Saturday makes all sorts of good sense.
