December 1

We start off the month with a good sign: Two colorful (red and green – Christmas colors!) – connections over an open space that a white dove (probably a seagull, but “dove” sounds better) has just flown over:

 

Five shots of roof work:

 

Interior room work:

This may be the only shot I have of a worker smiling!

 

I think the worker in back is sawing wooden sheets:

 

One of the sawed sheets:

 

Conversation near the connected red-green (now looking a little blue-ish), Christmas-colored line:

 

Red tubing whose purpose is not apparent to me:

 

A 5-picture wood delivery:

 

Work on either a porch shade with a light fixture or a patio for the apartment above:

 

Just think……….I may be up on that roof by the end of the month:

 

DECEMBER 2

Looks a bit more “populated” at 1:17am:

 

And a bit less so 12 hours later:

 

December 3

Seven shots of various people doing various things I know nothing about:

 

Taking out the trash (THAT I know about):

 

Back to know-nothing:

 

DECEMBER 4

Wood hanging from the southwest corner:

 

More deliveries:

 

Painting dull walls a nice color (I was later told it was waterproofing):

(click to enlarge these 3 PANOs TWICE and then twice to go back)

 

Sun reflecting off the windows next door:

 

DECEMBER 5

Looks like more “night tenants” have moved in:

 

I don’t know what that shadow is, but it looks awfully ugly on that nicely-painted………….Oops! waterproofed wall:

It did go away eventually.

 

Barriers to keep those annoying “night tenants” out?

 

 

DECEMBER 6

Multiple multiples………..

 

 

DECEMBER 9

These are bases for all the heavy HVAC equipment that will be placed on the roof:

 

Another delivery:

 

“Patio” is my guess:

 

While taking this picture, I noticed this sun-brightened section that never stuck out like this before (second pic):

 

DECEMBER 10

This is a plastic bag tied to something for some reason and blowing sideways in the wind:

 

This is a hand-me-up trio:

 

One-third of this group is not wearing a hard-hat!

 

If you really want to see what he’s doing, click TWICE to enlarge:

Hey – it beats making 16 posts!

 

 

Only one image needed here:

 

DECEMBER 11

Doesn’t look like any kind of glass to me:

 

Are these two communicating?

 

Rooftop assault in full view of midtown Manhattan:

 

The march of the rooftop HVAC bases:

 

More unidentified red tubing…………..

 

…………..and unidentified garbage:

 

Checking the growth of a toddler wall:

 

Bribing a worker with wood for a “night tenant” room:

(no wonder he covers his face)

 

Cleaning out the rooms for new night tenants:

 

DECEMBER 12

Where’s that “hand-me-up” team when you need them?

 

He was told to go stand in a corner…………….on a ladder:

 

Looking up to the guys in the buckets:

 

The picture on the left of the top floor southwest corner unit was taken from home. The picture on the right was taken later that day as I was driving down Passaic St. They show guys working in or near that top-floor corner unit.

I hadn’t been doing walkarounds lately, so this shot showed me that the easternmost third of the building had already been Typar-covered, which told me to resume the walkarounds.

 

DECEMBER 13 

This photo shows midtown Manhattan atop the midnight tenants’ partying area (which still shows that ugly shadow on the recently painted/waterproofed wall section):

 

This guy looks befuddled as to how to get this vehicle started and what it’s for, so he leaves (Note: it stayed in that spot for a long time afterward):

 

DECEMBER 14

Baby’s (building’s) first snowstorm at 10:00am and 2:50pm:

 

DECEMBER 15

Why shovel when the wind will remove the snow for you?

 

DECEMBER 16

Nothin’ like 100% compliance with the hardhat rule:

 

DECEMBER 18

Wind and rain (and that partially-visible vehicle still hasn’t budged):

 

DECEMBER 20

Nine more shots of patio installation……….at least I think that’s what it is (You might need 3 clicks to fully-enlarge this one):

 

DECEMBER 22

It looks like there might be at least one case of non-compliance with the hardhat requirement:

 

One of the “hand-me-up” guys shows up on the wrong floor:

 

 

These are exhaust fans for the parking garage:

 

Main St shot taken through the green fence covering on Passaic St:

 

PANO: The Main St side of the building – now almost completely Typar-covered (click to enlarge):

 

PANO: the Passaic St side of the building – now about half Typar-covered (click to enlarge):

 

DECEMBER 23

Taken from home while it was snowing, this shows the Typar-wrapped corners of the Main St façade from behind:

 

DECEMBER 26

Teamwork:

 

Same place: Step over or step on? (It appears to have to do with what color your hardhat is):

(Note the corner of the Main St side façade where the leftover Typar is wrapped around it…………….this time, without the snow.)

 

Three different ING mindsets: Hammering, Contemplating and Littering (It’s possible there was a plastics recycling bin below the litterer, which would change the ING from “Littering” to “Tossing”):

 

Time for a worshipping (another ING) break at the Cola Altar, where one of the worshipper’s hard hats is part of the service:

 

One of the workers is totally fed-up with all this ____ING around (use your 4-letter imagination):

 

DECEMBER 28

Look what’s STILL on the roof:

 

And look where I wanna be in two days:

 

DECEMBER 29

The next-to-last sunset of the year looks good on the building and then on midtown Manhattan:

 

I took this shot just after 1am. I’m not aware of Foschini Park field lights being on that late, but what else could it be?

 

DECEMBER 30

I’m guessing that this threesome shows a vent pipe?

 

Wind-blown Typar:

 

Painting/waterproofing pix from home…………

These two look pretty much the same, but the difference is that the one on the right was taken a couple of hours after the left one, when the sun caused two opposite-building window reflections to show up on the wall:

I know……………big deal, right?

 

Closeup:

 

Closerup (click to enlarge):

 

Remember this shot………..it’ll pop up later:

 

Time to head on over to the site. The project manager (Chris) and I worked it out for me to get up on the roof today at 1:30pm. He had about 20 minutes for me, so there was no time to waste.

First stop: that same wall up-close.

PANO (click to enlarge):

No one’s home (lunchtime).

 

Next stop: I took this sequence on my way to meet Chris (click to enlarge):

 

And then one more while crossing Passaic St by the appointed corner (click to enlarge):

We were to meet at Main and Passaic Streets and he was quite prompt. We walked up to the truck entrance on Passaic St and entered the building. Unfortunately, the elevators were not yet working, so we had to trudge up 6 flights of stairs.

Let’s be honest here: he breezed up the steps and I was the trudger. I survived 4 flights OK, but needed a break every few steps after that. When I finally got to 6 (the roof), I told him that I couldn’t remember the last time that I was THIS winded!

And I wasn’t kidding – it was brutal!

When I recovered (sort of), I got the bad news that because of ice on the roof, my explorations would be severely limited. That meant NO great views from anywhere near the roof’s edges, so I only got to take two PANOs from close to the stairwell.

Here’s the first one (click twice to fully-enlarge):

Lotta stuff, but nowhere near what I could have gotten closer to the edge. (but I can see my apartment in this one)

 

This is the best part of that PANO (click to enlarge):

 

Here’s another PANO in a different direction (click to enlarge):

 

I hope I’ll get another chance to do something better before all the HVAC equipment is loaded onto the roof. The ice wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t up to me and I understand the need for absolute safety. It should take one day above 32º to melt what was there.

 

Meanwhile, Chris came up with a good idea. If we walked down a floor, I could shoot from open window spaces in apartments, which would be somewhat similar to shooting from roof edges, but that wound up only happening in one corner of the building (albeit the best one).

 

Here’s what I got from that 5th-floor corner apartment (click to enlarge):

I like this one a lot. It’s the intersection of Main St and Passaic St:

 

This is the soon-to-not-exist former YMCA (click to enlarge):

 

This shows Passaic St with Main St on the left and untrimmed Typar (anti-draft building wrap) on the right, along with the Hackensack hi-rise buildings and Hackensack Hospital up on the hill (click to enlarge):

(BTW – the hi-rise tenants pay 3 times my rent to look at my old building while I pay 1/3 of that to look at theirs.)

 

This PANO goes from the abandoned Sears on the left to the YMCA with the Hackensack River in the background (I moved a couple of rooms to the left to get a better view of the river) Click to enlarge:

 

At this point, Chris suggested we walk over to another area for an interior perspective. Here’s what that looked like (click to enlarge):

 

The building I’m shooting from is at 359 Main. Next door to the right is 389 Main. But way in the distance between them is 430 Union, where a certain photographer lives. And he’s been kind enough to place his watermark right below his apartment, including the big picture-window where he shoots all his big pictures:

 

Now that the day’s “big” excitement is over, it’s time to head back downstairs. But before we get to the stairwell, Chris points out something he thinks is photo-worthy and I agree:

 

At the stairs, I look down and see a few floors of steps and take a picture (left half). There’s something bluish-purpley at the bottom, so I zoom in (right half) for a better shot (click to enlarge…………..slightly):

Mind you – I’m shooting everything with just my phone, which I think did a pretty decent job. I can’t shoot PANOs without it.

 

Downstairs, Chris points out an interesting, photo-worthy apparatus and I agree again:

 

We exchanged “Happy New Year”s and I headed back to that big blue wall because – I don’t know if you noticed – but in that closer shot of my building (4 pix above), this crane was visible and had them working high up on the wall, so now I can get a couple of the closeup shots I wanted at lunchtime…………like these two:

 

NOW I can go home.

 

BUT……………..remember that AM shot I told you to keep in mind (“Remember this shot………..it’ll pop up later”.)?

I thought it might show which window I shot from when I took the photo that included my building (5 pictures ago).

 

It did! (It’s X’d):

 

How do I know that’s the window?

To the right of that window, there’s an obstruction – a ladder. The window to the left shows a wooden, mid-section bar. Look at this PANO once again on the far right…………..the wooden bar! (Click blah, blah, blah)

 

Thanks if you made it all the way through and (a very late) Happy New Year to you all!