Clarendon Construction - St. Pattie's 2010

Last week I was working in our conference rooms and looked out at the mid-block building when I noticed some unusual activity - they were raising the scaffolding for the masonry elevators.  I happened to be able to catch these two photos while I listened in on a conference call last week.

Look carefully at the scaffolding nearest me in these pictures and you will see a worker on the tower assembling it.  It may not be evident in this picture, but every worker visible working near the edges of the floor plates, and especially the guy on the elevator shaft, are hooked in with safety harness to protect them from fatal falls. 

It's likely a fall would still injure them, mainly from crashing into something after the cabling arrests the fall, but they would not fall all the way to the ground.

With this activity happening, they may be close to removing the crane on this building - the two on the other one have long been dismantled.  I'll keep an eye on that!

Bonus points if you look closely and see the tip of the Washington Monument near where the red brick building extends about the roof line of the new construction.