September 2

 

The curtain rises on another work month:

 

Look at all the work that has to be done before they can even think about pouring a cement floor:

 

This is State Street – the western edge of the property. It’s a one-way street, going south (to the right). Every one of these cement mixers is parked in the wrong direction:

 

Ticketable offense? Nope!

 

What you don’t see is the cement pumper vehicle – which is parked further south – and is waiting to be serviced by each of the mixer trucks. The pumper’s cement receptacle is on its back end while the mixers dispense from THEIR back ends. All the mixers have to do is simply back up a bit when the lead mixer empties.

 

 

And here IS that lead mixer dumping into the pumper:

 

And here is the other end of the pumper, doing its job – all the way from State Street:

 

Meanwhile, the elevator shaft continues its upward climb……..

 

……..while the handy bucket hoists up cinder blocks and brings used items down:

 

 

I borrowed a video from the next day to illustrate the point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02JTRhS7vKA

 

 

September 3

 

Installing the next floor’s wood planks from which to work on the elevator shaft:

 

I never did find out precisely what the unit on top was for, but it was apparently important enough to be covered before rain rolled in:

 

Meanwhile, back on the ground…………

 

 

I can’t identify this gentleman, but I think I heard him say, “Thank you – good night!” (assuming all that light is stage lighting and not the morning sun):

 

September 4

 

Yellow Lumber Day:

 

Yellow Lumber Day (Christian version):

 

Time to start covering up all that yellow lumber:

 

Where yellow lumber comes from (Passaic St – where else?):

 

Click to enlarge this State St PANO (minus all the cement pumpers and backward cement mixers):

(You might need to click it 3 times on these PANOs for full enlargement – I have no idea why).

 

 

September 5

 

Down on the floor and up the elevator shaft:

 

 

 

September 6

 

Hand-me-downs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1U9T8Xnrsg

 

Related, but not from the video:

 

A couple more from up top:

 

Two more shafts shots (stairwell is much taller than elevator):

 

Strain before the rain:

 

The rain (a very difficult shot to get from 2 blocks away):

 

After the rain (by the mortar mixer):

 

 

September 8

 

Continuing the mortar mixer theme…….this time with steam.

 

Removing wood forms from concrete columns/surfaces (not an easy thing to do – more on that later in the month):

 

Lunch!

 

This was somewhat messy. A large garbage truck that was servicing a residential building right next to the star of this show, accidentally dumped a load of….something….on State St as it was leaving.

It was right near where some concrete product was being off-loaded (by blue vehicle on the left) from a truck. The load needed to go somewhere in the vicinity of the garbage that I think contained food, because a few dozen crows swarmed down to inspect it. Lots of passing cars and buses dispersed them.

Someone must have contacted people in charge at that building because someone came out and shoveled it away.

 

The delivery continued unaffected (except for this poor tenant of that building who was now blocked from exiting his parking lot………..I guess he thought that putting on his headlights would help his cause):

That was Part 1. Part 2 (above) consisted of the same vehicle loading wood construction pieces into a side area on State St, after a piece of fencing was moved away. Another container of that concrete product was placed on top of the wood containers. The fencing was then moved back.

 

 

September 9

 

9/9 seemed kind of slow. How slow? The big observation of the day was that the elevator shaft’s height was starting to gain on the stairwell (yawn!):

 

 

September 10

 

Ditto 9/10…………..Oh, wait – here’s some guys carrying rebar! (Double-yawn!):

 

 

September 11

 

This project gave me a September 11 moment and it’s all in my 9/11 blog post:

https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=24252

 

September 12

From a distance, I thought this was another shot of guys having lunch, but it’s just a shot of their backpacks having lunch:

 

Here are the guys………..dining atop the elevator shaft?

 

A nice, wide Passaic St PANO (between Main St and State St) for you to click on:

 

And – at the risk of repeating myself from yesterday – the Main and Passaic elevator shaft flag shot:

 

……and maybe one more flag shot you haven’t seen yet:

 

 

September 13

 

The scaffolding between the elevator and stairwell shafts being removed. You’ll see the result of that on the15th:

 

There was a MASSIVE amount of concrete flooring on the section nearest me that needed to be poured and they spent this entire Saturday doing it. They even doubled up on the cement pumpers, bringing out patriotically-colored ones (there’s white where they cross in the below pic:

 

What’s the rush? The framers were coming on Monday afternoon. What are framers?

 

From Google AI: In construction, a framer is a skilled tradesperson who builds the structural framework (the “frame”) of a building, such as the walls, floors, and roofs, using materials like wood, steel, or engineered wood products. They work from blueprints and architectural plans to create the skeleton of a structure, ensuring its stability and integrity before other finishing trades begin their work.

 

So this concrete had two days (or less) to solidify enough for the framers to do their work. It HAD to get done today!

All this pumped concrete HAD to lead to decent hose-exiting pix from a block-and-a-half away, right?

Well, you be the judge:

 

And, of course, THAT led to an army of concrete zambonis and other smooth(out) operators who didn’t leave until every square inch was perfect:

 

 

September 15

 

Way back on August 29, I received an email from site project manager Chris Polizois, asking me if I was free around lunch time on September 15.

 

Me: “Probably. Is something happening that day?”

CP: “Please contact me on the 15th to confirm.”

 

Mucho mysterioso so far in advance!

 

So I called on the 15th and was asked if I could meet him there at around 11:30am.

“Sure”.

 

On the way there, I took a picture of a crane on Passaic St:

(BTW – most of the horizontal shots should be clicked to enlarge.)

 

Two minutes later, I saw him and he said he’d have to go back to his office to get me a hard hat.

Once I had the hard hat sitting somewhat unfashionably on my black cap, we walked up one flight to a wide-open room that had multiple possibilities for entertaining the building’s tenants.

I HAD to take a panoramic shot of the entire thing (in case you forgot, click to enlarge)………..a “before” shot, if you will (an “after” shot or 3 might be quite interesting):

 

We continued up the stairs to the current “roof” – a sight I had only ever seen from the opposite direction.

The first thing I saw was that crane I had just photographed on Passaic St. It was already active:

 

 

Next, I turned around to see the empty elevator shaft (l.) and the stairwell shaft (r.) that we had just come out of and thought this might make an interesting PANO shot from close range:

I took it just before the sun would have blinded me and got the shafts to frame an interesting building at the corner of Main and Passaic.

 

I backed up a bit to get the shafts and the scaffolding that had been around the elevator one, when I noticed a worker doing some metal cutting:

 

 

At first, I wasn’t sure if the sparks were coming from the saw/metal contact or from the guy himself (THAT would have been interesting!).

 

As we walked near the area closest to where I live, Chris mentioned that it was the most-recently concreted surface.

“Oh, I know. They worked all day on it 2 days ago.”

He then mentioned that I could be like Neil Armstrong and be the first man to set foot on the new concrete surface.

I gave him my phone (I shot this whole visit on my phone).

CLICK!

 

How close DO I live to this new building?

My watermark is under my two bedroom windows and my living room picture window (the one I shoot from):

 

We took a walk around the perimeter. He made very sure that I got no closer than 10 feet from the edge.

The Hackensack YMCA building is directly across Main St. It was sold and is supposedly going to be torn down (I’m not sure about that).

It’s slightly sentimental to me – Mom took me there when I was a little kid to learn how to swim (I still can’t swim), so I wanted to get a close shot that may be my last from this vantage point. I took two………..here’s the first:

 

I also took a PANO shot:

You can see how close I seem to be to the edge, but it’s just an optical illusion, courtesy of the phone’s panoramic setting.

 

Turning around, I had to take a nice shot of Hackensack’s new twin towers and new flag. I’m not sure why the elevator shaft looks tilted, but it probably has to do with the phone’s optics (it better be!):

Walking over to the Passaic St side, I immediately came across that same crane making a delivery:

 

 

I zoomed in for a second shot to make it look even closer:

 

 

 

Continuing up along Passaic St, I took this PANO shot that shows (from upper left): a new residential building (behind the flag) that’s only been open for less than a year, the Parisian Beauty Academy and its 50-space parking lot with 12,000 cars in it (how does someone in the middle get out?), (crossing State St) the Hackensack Middle School with its nice green soccer pitch/athletic field and the Hackensack high-rise skyline:

 

Moving up to State St and making a right, I took this PANO, which shows some of the Middle School, a nice-looking apartment building, the back of my building (and municipal parking lot), the Second Reformed Church, Holy Trinity Church (under my watermark) and some more residential buildings:

 

For the last PANO, we moved slightly more to the right to where we could see the next-door neighbor’s driveway that’s also been used by this company to build the structure I’m standing on.

I’m holding the phone above the fence while panning left to right and inadvertently got a picture of our shadows.

Two handsome guys, huh?

 

Chris had about 25 minutes to give me. I got pretty much what I wanted and time was running short, so we walked downstairs, where I took ONE ground-floor shot:

I’ll bet the rent’s pretty cheap in THAT unit!

 

 

Once I returned home, I continued shooting the site that suddenly had wood everywhere:

 

Before I knew it, they had built a fence around the perimeter where I had just been taking pictures!

 

I immediately sent an email to Chris titled “A First and a Last”:

 

“Besides me being the first to set foot on that section of the roof, WE were the last daredevils to walk near the Main St edge of the roof before a wooden fence was built this afternoon.”

 

I included the above fence pic.

 

 

September 16

 

Lunchtime:

 

Lunchtime gets interrupted by cinder block and mortar-mix muscle time:

 

We’ll see more of the measure-men later on:

 

 

September 17

 

Very busy day!

 

Let’s start off with 4 rebar shots:

 

Flying wood:

 

Vertical wood:

 

 

Scaffolding:

 

Cinder block build:

 

Mortar mix components:

 

Hoist and pour:

 

 

September 18

 

“I’m gonna need a ton of mortar for this second stairwell shaft I’m building, so it’s time to get that mixer going”.

 

In this wider shot, you can see the new stairwell. Nearby, the mixer is already steaming:

 

I hope you like multiples……….here are 7 of them:

 

It’s so busy, this guy almost forgot to eat lunch:

 

Dunno what they’re shoveling, but it’s almost time to go home:

 

I can’t tell from this pic if it’s a cold day or a hot one and the fact that I took these pictures 85 seconds apart doesn’t help, but these guys are done for the day:

 

The sun sets on a very busy day:

 

 

September 19

 

Heads up, guys!

3Pix

 

Indecision (Do I go in the Port-O-John or the crazy crate?):

 

 

More crazy multiples:

 

(fourth pic) “I saw Elon Musk do this, so it must be OK.”

 

(third pic) Man is parallel to the crate:

 

Another flying wood heads-up:

 

No offense to anyone else, but – to me – this man appears to be the hardest-working man on the site. (It seems as if he built that semi-symmetrical structure – shown next to…and above…him – by himself):

 

The afore-mentioned measure-men:

 

Shouldering the load cross-site:

 

Late afternoon and sunset:

 

Can you stand one more multiple? Dragging and delivering scaffolding and going back for more:

Extras……….

 

Given what they’re carrying, is this why these guys are called “framers”?

 

If this crate had been carrying a pinball machine, the game’s screen would be screaming, “TILT!”

 

 

September 20

 

Slim pickins today. A walkaround only produced two semi-interesting images:

Tall stuff:

 

The State Farm luxury stairwell shaft:

 

From home only produced two more:

Two guys living in an empty stairwell dump the garbage:

 

A Port-O-John stands next to a crazy crate as two guys use a yellow tape to measure the distance between them (there’s GOTTA be a great caption for all this that incorporates everything you see here, but I’m forked if I know what it is. If you’ve got one, send it along and maybe I’ll post it here).

Full credit will be given if it’s not well-received.

 

September 21

 

Interesting Shapes Day

 

This photo HAS to get the prize for the widest variety of interesting shapes in one small place:

 

Of course, my favorite of this group is the mortar mixer, which produced everything that holds this building together. AND it has a steering wheel!

 

A close second is this pulley and wood combo:

 

The wood by itself looks great, but the pulley closeup with some of the wood takes second place (you know how guys like round things………..and the resultant wood).

Say what?

 

 

All these vertical wood shapes! AND the horizontal blue scaffolding! Solid third place!

 

 

 

 

September 22

 

No one outstanding thing to talk about here – just a lot of hot mortar, cool wood and heavy cinder block shots to run by you in the order I took them:

Lost in the woods?

 

 

Blowing his nose?

 

 

Framers moving a frame.

 

Rinsing out a mortar mixer.

 

 

 

September 23

 

A load of ? (click to enlarge)

 

Shapes and colors:

 

 

Just a guess……..is the “3A” written on the crate an apartment number? They ARE all standing on the 3rd floor:

 

Adding walls to wood:

 

I hope that’s mortar………

 

Blocking off a crane parking space:

 

Lookin’ in the wrong direction, buddy:

 

 

Connecting one piece of street fencing back together……….

 

………… and then removing another:

 

 

September 24

 

Honestly, I don’t recall if he was adding water to mortar mix to create a new batch or rinsing out what’s left of the previous one:

 

 

So begins the tough task of removing wood forms from concrete columns…….

 

 

Speaking of tough tasks………this guy really has to pee. You can see where the toilet is. You can also see the extremely dense maze of wood between them:

My money’s on the soon-to-be-wet maze……….

 

Stacking the scaffolding:

 

Collecting and schlepping scaffolding:

 

 

No schlepping at lunchtime (or phonetime):

 

A nice concrete and wood mix that looks like two different projects:

 

 

Time to remove those wood forms (an arduous task):

 

 

Ignoring the bottom left glop, the concrete walls look really nice without the forms that made them:

 

 

September 25

 

Blows his nose in his shirt AND wears red drawers!

(Sorry, Bud – couldn’t resist)

 

Moving rainfall with a spade? Somebody get this man a giant squeegee!

 

Hey – guy on the left! Lose the purple broom handle and help out your partner with TWO hands pushing!

 

LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THE JETPACK THIS GUY’S WEARING!

All I could think of when I saw that was how compact were the ones the Jetsons wore over 60 years ago. Technology is supposed to progress greatly over a time period that long – not regress.

 

(For anyone unfamiliar with the Jetsons, the show premiered in 1962. The setting was 100 years in the future – 2062. We’re only 37 years away from then and look at what we’re wearing on our backs for propulsion! Shameful!)

 

 

September 26

 

Clean sweep:

 

Just think………..a few days ago, there was NO wood on this floor:

Now I understand why Chris invited me up when he did: he knew the framers were arriving that afternoon and – after that – there’d be no room to move around and take the pictures I took. And he knew that a half-month in advance when he invited me. Thanks again, Chris!

 

Look at all these hollowed-out sugar cubes!

 

 

Gotta get that other dolly underneath………

 

………so you can PUSH!!

 

 

Oh, look……..it’s them crazy measurin’ guys again!

It looks like they’re measuring absolutely nothing, but my guess is that they’re determining exactly where every little thing goes (“bathroom door here, closet here, etc., etc.”):

 

 

Another heads-up moment:

.

 

 

Almost there…………….and DONE!

 

“Time to roll on outta here!”

 

Damn! Caught on a street light!” (almost)

 

A little less-than-clean sweep:

 

“DON’T DO IT!!”

 

Sunset in the woods:

 

 

Sunset from Hackensack to Manhattan:

 

…….and GOOD NIGHT!

 

 

 

September 27

 

iPhone walkaround shoot (State St (8), Passaic St (8), Main St (2):

 

 

 

September 28

 

I have no idea what the tubing is about:

 

Nice catch!

 

“WHO THREW THAT DART?”

 

 

 

September 29

 

New unit on the 3^rd-floor corner appears to have all its interior wood on the floor…….ready for room construction, while long truck pulls up with a load of wood and has its own little red forklift attached to the truck’s rear end:

 

Site worker (I think) commandeers the lift, grabs some wood and brings it into the shared driveway………sideways!

Click this and the next one to enlarge:

 

Meanwhile, the truck backs up and parks across the street from that driveway and the red lift picks up some more wood for another sideways delivery ……….

 

 

 

September 30

 

WOOD EVERYWHERE!!

 

EVEN WOOD FORMS FROM CONCRETE COLUMNS!

 

 

Crane reaches toward Bogota:

 

Grainy closeup:

Catholic crane attempts to visit St. Joseph’s Church across the Hackensack River in Bogota. Probably needs to go to confession after hanging around Main St in Hackensack for weeks.

Interesting(?) fact: That high-rise building behind the church sits atop the Palisades in the Fort Lee/Cliffside Park/Hudson River area a few towns away. There’s actually a valley between the two structures.

 

September was a monster month that took me half of October to put together. I’m glad it’s over.

 

But it’s not…………..a few stragglers have just shown up.

 

Gentleman appears to be smiling and posing for me and then seems to have stepped in something nasty. 

 

Another gentleman appears to have speared a fish in one of the apartments:

 

And we close out the month of September with a first-floor night shot on the State St side:

You’ll see a lot of changes there in October.