What Did The Electrician Say After Fixing A Light Bulb At The Empire State Building

Summertime, officially. Right here in NYC. This fourth dimension of yr comes circular, and I love going to Manhattan once more, enjoying the late light, and the kinda clear skies of May. It'due south still cool enough, and the heat of August hasn't risen up and shrink wrapped the city in a dirty brown, clinging smog.

It was nearly this time of year I shot this…..

105 stories up on the Empire State Building, the true thousand dame of all buildings. Not the biggest, just the most storied. I have e'er loved climbing effectually up there. I've got this little niche…hell, it'southward not fifty-fifty a niche, it's more similar an on again, off again hobby, kind of like a vacation blazon scuba diver who only goes in when the water is articulate and warm. That morning time, on consignment for the book America 24/seven, I worked over again with my friend Tom Silliman, an engineer and fearless builder and climber of antennas. One SB80 by the mode. My assistant at the time, a terrific shooter named  Alicia Hansen, had to bury the flash in her, well, under her, uh, chest, and shield it from all the other transmissions up there, crusade they were driving the wink basics.

I had met Tom shooting this….

This was one of those jobs. Had the bright idea of putting a different twist on changing a light bulb for a story called "The Power of Calorie-free" for the National Geographic. I thought to myself, okay, we can do this. I'll take a picture of them irresolute the seedling at the top of the Empire Land.  What could get incorrect? Well, lots, every bit information technology turned out. Start climb, I was competing with Ripley'southward Believe It or Not tv set program, believe it or not. They had a chopper floating effectually out there, and had the notion of wanting to see the lite come on and off while Tom was only budgeted it on the antenna. Things went haywire with their communications, and, later slogging my way up the antenna to about where I was oh, 15 anxiety shy of it, the lite shut off. I mean I'yard hanging there in my harness, and the bulb's dead. Had to settle for this, and ingather the top of the antenna out of the frame. Wasn't what I came for.

Crazy. Bulb's dead, and at that place I am, wearing the only light in the joint, my headlamp. Shot from a chopper by a really expert photog, Jim Anness, and so of the Bergen Tape.

Sheesh. I was not in shape for that climb. The antenna at that point is like a telephone pole at 1500 feet. It moves effectually a lot, and has climbing pegs on either side of information technology. As I came down the pegs, my hand cramped on ane of them. Had to reach around the pole and pry my fingers off of it. Otherwise, I might withal be up there, kind of french fried, hanging off the side of one of the biggest microwave transmitters in the globe. I think they accept a power setting on the antenna called "london bake."

I got my chances upwards there because of a truly dandy New Yorker, Alex Smirnoff.

Alex was in charge of what they telephone call the mast operations at the building. He was ever approachable, and he instinctively knew that the Empire State wasn't just a building. Information technology'due south the centerpiece of NY, an of import piece of the history of the metropolis crafted in limestone and granite, and information technology was congenital to be photographed. He had a chore where the easiest matter, ever, would exist to say no. But being a gentleman who appreciated the beauty of the building, he said yes. I remember breathlessly trying to give him a rationale for a particular climb, and I heard him chuckling at the other end of the line. "Don't requite me that crap, Joe, y'all just like to climb stuff," he said, in his kindly fashion. A great man, who sadly, has passed on.

All this silliness began many moons ago, about the time I came to NY. I was a copyboy at the NY Daily News, a real rube in terms of NY press photography, but I was adamant to print my boss, Eddie Peters, and I requested a loaner of the Nikkor 15mm wide angle, the just one in the department. I was gonna climb the Queensboro Span with it, cause they were repainting it. Things were looser back and then. I walked onto the bridge, talked the workers, told 'em I was from the News, and started climbing.

This was besides a good lesson in what I was worth every bit a photog. Eddie loaned me the 15mm, a very expensive lens, with considerable dubiousness in his eyes. This green, untested kid was taking one of the most valuable pieces of glass the paper endemic. He looked at me, and asked if I would do him a favor. "Sure," I said. He said, "If you fall, could you find a mode to leave the lens backside?"

Got this…

I was off to the races with this climbing thing. Next up, the north belfry of the Globe Trade Center.

At that time, no harnesses, no zorbers, none of the sophisticated rubber stuff we have now. I had a belt and a rope, and, well, not much in the way of brains.

That climb upwards the tower was a one off, but I did return to the Empire Land a number of times. Put Donna Weinbrecht, America's freestyle skiing champion upwardly in that location….

And of course, a long time agone, in the centre lxxx's, on assignment for Geo magazine to shoot a story on gargoyles, I went upward the Chrysler. Footling did I know at the time this gargoyle would become like one of those "picture spots," y'all know, similar they have at Disney, markers telling you if you lot point your camera this style, a good picture results. This has become, over time, a very popular gargoyle, specially with photogs. Me being me, of course, I am hunched over with a flash meter taped to a monopod, getting the read from the strobes I have on a portico several stories beneath.

There's that damn "safety" chugalug again. I tell ya, glad we got harnesses now. If I had fallen with that affair, it would have saved my neck only broken my back.

Got this, available low-cal…

And this, later, with wink.

I know, I know, the available low-cal is nicer…..oh well. Shows me what practiced it did to drag Speedotrons up there

Had some funny, stupid stuff up loftier as well….King Kong on the Empire Land…

And this one upwards the old Coke sign at the north terminate of Times Square. That's all some sort of lcd, led, figurer driven brandish now. Makes sense. Musta been a bowwow changing all these bulbs.

The weather breaks like this in New York, and I discover myself looking up nonetheless…..more than tk

What Did The Electrician Say After Fixing A Light Bulb At The Empire State Building,

Source: https://joemcnally.com/2009/05/26/getting-high/

Posted by: leewhapin.blogspot.com

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