A Big Day for Pencils

We arrived at 395 Broadway, well dressed against the cold weather, at about 9:15 am. The piece had already arrived and was unceremoniously dumped on the sidewalk.


There ensued great discussion about how to get the ladder to the roof but finally it was decided that the four workers who had been hired to do the installation would pull it up the side of the building from the roof. (Disclaimer: the four workers were fully licensed and insured. They were very experienced, if not exactly in installing crocheted cozies on water tanks, then in many other skills. They were completely awesome and fearless and I love them dearly).

Here is one of them doing something that made me want to throw up. Remember, the building is 15 stories high. And there were strong gusts of freezing cold wind off the river.



Together two of them hauled up the ladder. When it arrived one of them turned to me and said (in a heavy Polish accent), "Don't worry, we are 80% done now." He might have wanted to revise that statement four hours later, but I appreciated his optimism.



Here are some other pictures of the installation:



















Here are three of the wonderful crocheters who assisted with the project. Not only did they crochet a shocking amount of yardage, but they endured the frigid temperatures to see the project go up and still have smiles on their faces!



And the true unsung hero of the day! Dan Allen, aka Mr. Picky. But for Dan we would not have been able to convince the building to be the site for the project and he was indispensable at the installation. He made sure everything was done safely and kept everyone on track. Click here for a nicer picture of him.



A huge thank you to everyone who made this thing happen!