Back at the Sahara

On another morning, I took my place in the office of our superintendent and waited for an assignment. A normal, but time wasting routine. And that morning I was sent back downtown to the Sahara hotel once more. There I met Phil and we went to the roof to find ‘Trini’, the project foreman.

Phil and I were foremen, but without current assignments and so Trini, also a foreman, would try to find us a project that would fit our somewhat elevated pay schedule. Even if we volunteered to do the simple work, the mindless work…it wasn’t going to happen. We would be given a 'challenge'.

This morning he led us across the roof to a small steel structure that rose about 20’ above the roof. We climbed the stairs and found ourselves on a concrete pad that measured about 10’x8’. What a great view! There were no other buildings in the way and we could see all over town. And it was windy! There were also 2 large electric motors and other gear on the deck. This was going to be the elevator machine room for the two elevators that serviced the restaurant just below us. The only things missing here were the walls and the roof. And it was our job to measure for them, weld in some brackets and go to the panel plant and frame them. It was going to be a rush job, so as soon as we had the walls framed and boarded, the plasterers would install the EIFS finish on them.

So it was about 3 days later and we were up on our elevated perch with welding leads in hand and lots of clamps. The wall sections were soon flying up to us and we guided them into place. Now we had to become creative. There were no structural plans for this room and we had planned it so that the roof panel would tie all of the components together. But, in the meantime, we had hold the walls in place, temporarily. But how?

We had a full lift of 1-1/2’ black iron sitting on the roof and I began cutting it up into 6’ and 4’ pieces. We would weld those to the elevator motor brackets and then to the walls while the crane held them in place.

The first panel was the scariest. About 4’ wide and 10’ tall, and that meant that I had to use a stepladder to reach the top of it and release the crane. If I thought it was a great view from the floor, it was an even more spectacular view from the top of a stepladder placed against a narrow metal panel that was quivering in the wind. Or was I shaking?

The panels blocked the wind, so gradually it became easier and more comfortable for us as more panels were put into place. But, we were creating a spider web of black iron welded to black iron within the confines of the small room. When the last panel was flown into position, we could barely move through the maze of iron we had created.

Finally, it was time to place the roof panel. It was going to be flown up in a horizontal position, ready to drop onto the walls. Fine, except someone would have to climb up on that roof panel to release the chokers. Oh no!

With the roof in position and welded in place, we could safely remove all of the black iron. As I remember it, it took us most of a day to remove the iron and grind off our welds. We had already taken some verbal abuse from the elevator installers and so we had to leave the room looking a little better than how we had found it when we began.