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NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

COVER STORY P E o Pii r:j

Building Trades Lend Hand and Heart K to WTC Site Recovery and Cleanup J H Imost as soon as the first plane struck the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, they came running—from up- ■ Wtown high-rise Kennedy Airport’s a in Staten Island. As word about the disaster lower Manhattan, construction sites all over New York City and beyond began to empty fast. Three months later, many of the building trades who raced to volunteer at the stricken site have never left They’re getting paid now, but for many, it can hard- ly compensate for an around- the-clock pace that is as risky ' HiUjituir. and emotionally draining as i'H'i . anything that even the veter- I ans have experienced. Even so, there are few complaints. Bobby Gray, master mech­ anic with Operating Engi­ i4 * \ 4 neers’ union Local 14, remem­ Ai bers seeing one of the hijacked planes flying directly over his 50-story-high tower crane at a midtown hotel site that morn­ 1 t 'M I

iSB ing. He quickly climbed down and made his way downtown, but even the 20-year veteran was shocked to see WTC ref­ ugees covered in dust and the site in “absolute chaos.” Adds [51 I? Danny Doyle, ironworkers’ Local 40 general foreman: “When I first saw all that steel on the ground, I thought we’d JOB Demolition contractor, Ironworkers will remove facades. be here a year.” For Gerard „. Geary, a 36-year-old Local 14 ing Hollywood celebrities—^Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jack S operating engineer, “the first Nicholson, Brooke Shields and Susan Sarandon. £ DREAM? Geary reflects. day was unbelievable, like a Workers say these are the little things that help them relieve | dream,” he says. “But every day the stress of long hours and victim recovery. Even among the § since, you’re still in the same dream.” Gray, Doyle, Geary and other workers scurried to assemble crews, set up equipment and “find people with drawings” so machines could avoid dangerous voids in the debris field. But demolition veterans here, few have ever dealt with such Ground Zero realities as finding dead firemen and body parts of WTC civilians. Doyle had assisted firemen trying to remove steel cov- s £ even with the mass confusion and deafening noise, all would stop when a Fire Dept, victim rescue might be imminent “You could hear a pin drop in just a few minutes,” Gray says. Bill Ripetti, another Local 14 operator, remembers visiting the site I as a child with his construction worker father. Now, the 42-year- & old is in command of the WTC centerpiece, a 1,000-ton crane needed to lift heavy debris and ferry ironworkers closer to steel for cutting. Setting it up took 36 hours. “It was an ordeal to erect,” he says. I Even as the worst of the wreckage is nearly gone, hundreds 6 of operating engineers, ironworkers, laborers, teamsters and other trades pepper the WTC site. There are 200 operators still I it:

there, although that is down from more than 300, says Gregg Nolan, Local 15 foreman. Workers display pride in union and I o £ country with an array of pins and stickers on overalls, hardhats, tools andjeeps. Flag-painted hardhats are all the rage at Ground Zero, and workers proudly display models autographed by visit- FOCUSED Operator Rlpettl positions 1,000-ton crane for lift. I DECEMBER 17,2001/ENR 31

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