Sales and revenue ticked steadily higher, and insurance and bonding capacity was plentiful. It seemed that fewer bankruptcy attorneys, the industry’s morticians, had to be called to lay to rest big contractors that, having outlived the recession, failed to survive the recovery. At the jobsites, there were grimly familiar accidents and also the ghastly Mecca crane tragedy of Sept. 11, over which the Saudi government has indicted five engineers. Yet there was plenty of safe work, too. Ironworkers settled without incident long girders atop piers at the new New York bridge that will chain the banks of the Hudson River.