Construction Men: what is, in your opinion, the coolest place you’ve ever worked?

11 comments

1. I once directed a summer camp for kids with special needs 😎

2. Ij worked as a freelance theater tech back the late 80’s

   Coolest jobs that come to mind

   Setting up shows in the cathedral of St John the devine

   Setting up a wedding in the metropolitan museum of art

   Setting up a fashion show in the armoury

   Setting up and taking down the festival for the reopening of the statue of liberty

   Those were fun years.

3. When I was a kid I spent a summer doing what amounts to manual labor helping install network cable in a factory that was being remodeled for new owners. The factory was about 150 years old and had just crazy old stuff in it and it was like visiting a Victorian-era industrial museum except they were paying me to do it. Such a cool old building.

4. Casino Rama kitchen installation. Boy,did I gain weight after that one. Also one of really posh Toronto hotel kitchen installation and renovation. Not only we ate like kings but I got some really nice dates there. Good times.

5. Couple wild confined space welding stories I could tell. “Yeah sure boss, I took the training class, nobody else wants to climb in the dirty hole, I’ll climb in the dirty hole.”

   Coolest thing was probably welding brackets on a radio tower for a new antenna, 400 feet in the air, dangling from my safety harness. Had to climb out of the work basket out into the air to get the last 2 welds. Nothing but air between me and the ground. Amazing view, there was some fun ground fog going on that morning Had to stop after I’d finished and just kind of take in the view.

   I met a guy once whose job it was to inspect and repair the leading edges of wind turbine blades. I’m not normally bothered by heights but that kind of job isn’t really my scene. Don’t think my wife would appreciate that either.

6. First job was delivering tiles to new constructions in Vancouver. A house on a cliff on the ocean. It had three huge levels with 180 degree beautiful ocean views. Bottom floor was a indoor pool. With perfect view of ocean and city.

7. Roofing the CCC barracks at Red Rocks in Colorado

8. Iceland, its fucking cold here

9. Coolest project I ever did was a big mansion in NYC for a finance guy. He and his wife wanted to restore it to 1920s appearance, with all the modern trappings like smart home controls, AC, etc, hidden in architectural features.

   Just some really cool little details, like a translucent type of stone that was used for some windows in lieu of frosted glass. Or how we artificially aged the replica brass grates in the main foyer to match the original ones. Or a Prohibition-Era bootlegger tunnel in the basement we converted to a hidden wine cellar.

   It was a lot of fun watching what “budget? What budget?” money got, and how passionate the owners were. They had such a clear vision for what they wanted and I got to bring that to life. Also worked with such a great cast of characters, like a 12th-generation stone master from Italy, and a church-organ-builder who did all our wood carvings.

10. I helped build an ammo depot for a military base in the US. Imagine an underground Costco wall-to-wall of double stacked pallets of green metal boxes. Couldn’t see the far end.

11. I worked on a crew temporarily for an indoor skydiving building on the Mexico Border. Totally awesome to see it come together.