A decade after the doubledecker freeway was torn down in the Hayes Valley, residential buildings are finally being erected as infill. Last Saturday an army of concrete trucks took over Franklin Street between McAllister and Golden Gate Avenue where they hooked up with a trio of concrete pourers that looked like a cross between the aliens in Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" and the monster spiders in Verhoeven's "Starship Troopers."
The day-long foundational concrete pouring wreaked havoc with traffic on the one-way Franklin Street, but it was fun to watch, rather like a concrete truck version of the Fred Levine classic for two-year-old boys, "Road Construction Ahead."
We've got a bunch of construction projects in my neighborhood as well. Looking up at the big cranes can cause all kinds of fun optical illusions and vertigo.
ReplyDeletePlease Mike, not "cement" but actually "concrete." More here. Also, where'd they get that model? You've run into one of my pet peeves from my days as a construction worker. The stuff that we hope will hold buildings down when the earth shakes is "concrete." It's a fascinating material to work in -- the product of chemical reactions.
ReplyDeleteThe spider arms are "booms." Very cool pics.
Dear Jan the Former Construction Worker: (Almost) all pet peeves are treated seriously at Civic Center. I'll change the copy for accuracy's sake.
ReplyDelete