Photo: Seventh & Washington - Prior to Sand & Brick Application
Photo: Fresh Cement Applied Around Street Lamp Base 10.21.05
Photo: Same Location Four Days Later After Brick Work 10.25.05
Photo: High Pressure Water Blows Out Stray Sand Prior To Wiring
This post is another in the series of postings detailing the installation of new Victorian style street lamps in downtown Springfield, Illinois. This photo series was captured during the final weeks of October 2005 on Washington, and Seventh Streets. This area is just one block south of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, and Museum Complex.
Photo Chronology
After the lamp base is sanded smooth a cement collar is smoothed around the base. After the cement drys the depression is filled with sand, and bricks are tightly fitted together. A jet of water is applied to clear out the underground electrical conduit piping to clear out any stray sand. Electrical wiring is then pushed through the conduit piping, and threaded up into the lamp base.
3 comments:
OK, so who thinks you are crazier: us, your loyal readers, or the guys putting up the street lamps?
At first they didn't quite know what I was up to, but now they do.
I was even handed a cell phone, and walked one spouse through the process of looking up this blogsite.
I was told that the SJ-R will send a photographer around from time to time to get material for a story, and then they won't even use the photographs in their newspaper.
I was informed that after the "big storm" back in June (see my very first blogpost) the SJ-R ran a story which referred to CWLP Journeymen working multiple shifts to bring the lights back on in the city - yet the photograph which SJ-R ran with the CWLP story was that of an Insight Cable installer.
These guys are due their fifteen minutes of fame - and may your electricty never go out buster.
The brothers and sisters at IBEW Local #193 think this series is great!!
It feels nice to have somebody notice. Most of the time, the general public ignores us, or sees our work as a hassle (because we have to block streets or parking places, etc.). To get credit is a rare treat.
I worked on some of those "old-fashioned" looking streetlights years ago as an apprentice. Little old men walking downtown would stand around and marvel that there was a *woman* out there with a shovel! I had a crowd of little old men gathered around by the lights in front of Maldaners, hee hee. That was back when I worked for Volle Electric, who had one of the contracts to put those up (the "gaslight" type streetlights; the large pole lights are CWLP's jurisdiction). One Saturday, we went out in the morning to put a whole bunch of them up; I was pushing fishtapes and pulling rope in while one of the groundmen was taking the poles off the trailer and setting them on sawhorses (so we could put the heads on and wire them up). A businesswoman who shall go unnamed (she no longer operates a business downtown) came out there, pissed off. She was angry that the poles were painted aluminum, not cast-iron (the specs for the project said that either was acceptable). The groundman (a big guy) tried to convince her that they were cast-iron, but she told him "you wouldn't be able to pick these up if they were cast iron". He replied, "I'm pretty strong, ma'am." while flexing. She called some bigwigs, who called the contractor, and they held a big pow-wow up the street and out of our earshot. Then we were sent home---the contractor fuming because he was paying overtime for us to stand around while the hem-hawing took place.
It was eventually decided that the aluminum was fine.
Both the journeyman on that Saturday morning (James "Red" Brown), and the contractor (Dale Schafer) have gone on to that Big Jobsite in the Sky. Rest in Peace, Brothers.
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