Construction

My first day on the site was March 30 1964, and this was what I saw and tried to figure out:

I knew nothing about the materials and processes in view, nothing about the site work in the months and weeks before I arrived, nothing about the specialties of the various contractors' personnel—pretty much the situation of an anthropologist dropped into a field site and expected to begin research. There was obvious structure and order and minute-to-minute choreography. I watched as the American Bridge crane brought in a huge hollow column (lower right image, above) and placed it very carefully in the lowest of several stepped levels. Around the edges of the excavation were piles of lumber, carefully arranged arrays of upside down metal basins (upper right image, above), and groups of men working with obvious focus and plan.

There was a sturdy ramp allowing truck access to the lowest level, and around the edges of the excavation crews were backfilling and compacting against poured concrete walls

Bases for columns formed a regular grid across the lowest level:

and the rules of the game for the site were pretty clear: