New York City’s Woolworth Building, at 792 ft, was the world’s tallest tower in 1929, but two skyscrapers under construction across town were in a dead heat to take the crown.
In the summer of 1969, protesters shut down over a dozen projects in Chicago, resulting in the Builders Association of Chicago and the unions holding a closed, five-hour negotiating session.
This 1935 cover image shows a tower under construction for New York City’s Triborough Bridge (now known as the RFK Bridge), a suspension bridge with a main span of 1,380 ft, connecting Queens County with Wards Island.
This 1920 cover image depicts a four-man team doing high-speed block-laying as part of a channel improvement project on the Miami River in Dayton, Ohio.
The structure of the U.S. construction industry in 1960 could be compared to a stone-walled bastion. Union locals had ironclad control over their recruitment process, which was steeped in nepotism and cronyism.
The monoliths in this 1940 cover image are the Tainter gates of the Austin Dam in Texas, a troubled structure which was undergoing a comprehensive rebuild at the time.
