Under Construction

 The lot behind my apartment building is putting up a new apartment building.  Its loud and crazy, but seriously fascinating to watch!  I'm really enjoying it.   They cleared all the trees (sad!) by hand.  I mean big big trees- all cut down with chain saws.  Then they dug out the root systems by hand- and dug out the entire sub level- BY HAND (we are talking guys with shovels). 

Since this is all going down in my backyard, and these guys wake me up on my day off with all the hammering, I've been taking some pictures to document this whole process.   These guys are still building this all by hand.  There is literally one machine onsite- a cement mixer.  The rest is all manual labor.

 So this is the lot after they laid the foundation and then covered it with rock, preparing for the next level (we think this is going to be a parking level but that's just speculation.)


It's crazy to watch.  They are on the 2nd level now, so they are just below my windows (good thing only my kitchen overlooks the project because they are building this building RIGHT up to the wall that separates the lots.  I mean RIGHT up to the wall (in one section, they had to take down the security wall because the building would hit it- they are replacing that security wall...) so when I look out my window, there are guys right there. 

This was when they were laying cement on the second level.  They built the whole thing up, laid the re-bar, laid some pipes and then covered it with cement.  This was INSANE to watch.  I mean they had the assembly line thing down.  They were mixing cement on the ground, sending it up in a bucket where these guys would put it in wheelbarrows.  Then they would cart the cement to the area of the building they were covering. 

Check out this guys shoes- most of them were protecting their shoes and feet from the cement so they were all wrapped up in newspapers,etc.  Makes sense to me!  

Now that the cement has dried, they are getting ready to put up level #3.  This is actually one of my favorite pictures because so much is going on!   There are the guys in the back left who are pouring cement down in the form around the re-bar for support (this picture doesn't show the cement carrying relay going on).  Then there is the guy in the mid-ground who is building the next cement form, hanging off the 2x4, then there is the guy in the foreground who is building the next frame, and of course the guy looking off the edge of the building. 

So we'll see how this whole things goes!!