New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [376]
But here the architects had shown their genius. The outer edges of the vertical girders were given a chrome-nickel trim that rendered them a soft gray. Apart from that, the entire working facade of the mighty tower contained only these principal elements: first, pairs of rectangular, metal window frames; second, above and below each frame, a single aluminum panel, called a spandrel; third, between each pair of windows, large slabs of pale limestone. Thus the facade soared up in pure stone and metal vertical lines. Only at the very top of each high column of stonework or window was there an elegant art deco carving with a vertical direction to satisfy and uplift the eye. Essentially, therefore, the men working on the facade just moved up behind the girder riveters and, as it were, clipped the frames, spandrels and blocks of limestone into place.
And then there were the bricklayers.
“We work from inside, you see,” Salvatore explained. “Two courses of brick, eight inches thick.” The brick went in behind the limestone and the spandrels, supporting and insulating them. But the brick had another important function. “The brick protects the girders,” Salvatore pointed out. Being fired when they were made, the bricks were flame-resistant. In high heat, even steel girders are vulnerable. The brick would clothe and protect them. “The building is strong as a fortress, but it would be almost impossible to burn it down as well.”
While Salvatore and his gang went to work, Angelo sat on a pile of bricks with his sketchbook, and began to draw. High above, the deafening noise of the riveters at work would have made conversation difficult. Some days the racket went on from seven in the morning until nine at night, echoing down to the street below. The local residents just had to put up with it.
As well as sketching the bricklayers, Angelo’s attention was caught by a stack of the aluminum spandrels that had been stashed near the elevator. Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, the architects of the building, had been trained at Cornell and Columbia mainly, though Lamb had also been to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. But they really came from New York’s Carrère & Hastings stable, and were dedicated to the French art deco style.
The spandrels were a perfect example of this elegance. Repeated hundreds of times on the building’s facade, each panel carried the same simple design—stylized, art deco lightning bolts to left and right, a gap in the center between them. Like electric ice tracks on the metal they soared, vertically, into the blue.
Angelo stared at the design intently, and began to draw it.
As his brother drew, Salvatore noticed that, just for a moment, as he started, Angelo’s face took on the same dreamy look it so often had when he was a child, but that as he became engrossed in his drawing, there was an intense, purposeful concentration in his eyes that was even a little frightening.
Uncle Luigi had been right. Angelo was an artist. He belonged in the company of the men who had designed this building, not among the bricklayers.
And so they continued, Angelo sketching all kinds of things that caught his eye, Salvatore laying bricks with his gang, until the noontime whistle blew for the lunch break.
Salvatore had brought enough food for both of them. He gave bread to his brother and cut the salami. When they had eaten, Angelo said that what he’d really like would be to go up to the top of the building and look out from there.
The riveters had stopped for the time being. A strange, unwonted peace pervaded the huge terrace of open girders, where the only sound was the small hiss of the wind that rose, now and then, to a little moan in the branches of the narrow cranes.
High across the sky stretched a veil of gray and silver cloud through which, like a voice offstage, the sun sent an echo of light. Ahead, beyond the cluster of pinnacles on Manhattan’s tip, the wide waters of New York harbor wore a dull gleam.
As he looked around, however, Salvatore noticed something