Today I sat down at the computer prior to 5 am and started writing on my book on estimating for histo presto and did not stop until I had carved out 8,000 words, that was by 11 am. The title of the section is "Robert Moses and the Pygmy African Frogs." In the process of writing it I read it aloud twice through. The section is about my youth experience as the clerk-of-the-works and assistant project manager on a $20M project to rehabilitate 3 bus depots in Harlem in the 80's.

"A story told in the company was that Tom, the father was rushing in his car with his wife to get to a bid opening when he was pulled over for speeding. He was in such a hurry that he handed over his driver’s license, his insurance card and his wife and drove off to get to the bid opening. He came back later after the bid opening was completed to pick her up."

The book started out with an outline specific to the art of estimating and with the help of my friend, who is now sitting in Barcelona having flown over there yesterday from Kentucky, it is quickly jumping into a format of stories about adventures in histo presto with an underlying thread of the art of estimating. Chapter listings, and entire sections of text are coming out with titles such as,

I. Wrong Paint
    a. briefly: when we painted the cast iron facade in Soho the wrong color
    b. lessons: things can go wrong and get out of hand in a hurry

II. Naked Warrior Heroes on 57th Street
    a. briefly: foreman found out on penthouse terrace naked at 1 am
    b. lessons: you cannot always predict or control what people will do

IV. Location is a State of Mind
    a. briefly: a focus on the importance of geography, sense of place and location on the cost of work
    b. lesson: not only do you need to know where you came from you need to know where you are going to

WW2 Memorial
At Jay Street, a project for the president of the TA, to move the granite wall that was a memorial to TA worker’s who had lost their lives in WW2 from an obscure hallway out to where it could be seen by the public. Subsequent many years later post-9/11being asked to move it once again to Manhattan to the MTA headquarters near to Ground Zero, but that never happened as far as I know.

Paul Manship Medallions
Removal of the 4 large aluminum artworks from the face of the NY Coliseum before the building was to be transferred in ownership and torn down. Property sold to AOL-Time Warner. The corner stone and time capsule inside of it that was placed there by Robert Moses. Nobody was really sure it would be there, or not. Not being able to fit the medallion artwork under the abutment to the Verrazano Narrows Bridge where there was also the salt storage… nobody thinking of this until it was time to sign the contract at the contract signing meeting. The artwork sitting out in the open in a field in Western CT for 2 years waiting on a location to be installed. Installation of them on the face of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel ventilation building on the Manhattan side. Holding up filming of Men in Black II while working out the details of the installation. Three on the face of the building, one crated on the interior. How the installer had messed up something terrible on their estimate… and old man not paying attention. Fun and games with structural engineers in and out of the MTA system. Bridges & Tunnels and how the archivist became the archivist (a neat story in and of itself).

Then I got from the TA-MTA to thinking about Art projects:

The Keith Haring Legacy
Kitchen structure at Dobbs Ferry orphanage that was going to be destroyed to make way for a new building and our unsuccessful attempts to get salvage rights and remove the walls intact. Our being told that the orphanage would get tracings installed in their new facility. Keith Herring Foundation more interested in control of the property than in survival of the authentic artifact. Recently read a news article about folks that did something similar with other Keith Haring wall art and then they auctioned the artwork for $4M.

Deconstruction Art Happenings
The guy that threw the gold paint onto the front of Tony Shefrazzi’s art gallery and our being called in to remove the paint. The whole time the disgruntled artist was filming the removal process. He wore leopard skin leotards and rode around in a leopard skin painted convertible Cadi. The tenants in the building throwing flower pots at our workers from the floors above.

And that was the first half of the day. The other half was spent on Poland.

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