A Barn in Midtown Manhattan
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
"In my day," the old man said, "we did things right! We joined beams, and we climbed up ladders to reach the second level. We didn’t use cherry pickers!" The gent with the frosted hair and craggy face leaned against the metal barrier separating us from the construction site. His battered old Fedora hat threatened to fly off towards the Hudson River in the stiff breeze.
And he was right, I knew that he was. Construction workers are currently assembling a barn in the southwestern corner of Bryant Park in New York City. The idea is a pre-holiday promotion for The White Barn Candle Company of Ohio. The promotional banners hung around the park (located behind the New York Public Library’s Center for the Humanities (http://www.nypl.org) at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue) say that this will be the first barn built on the island in one hundred years, and certainly the last one to be built before the millennium draws to its close. Before the industrial era turned midtown Manhattan into the center of business that it is today, it was populated by gentlemen farmers with large estates.
The advertisements also inferred that the barn would be built by real farmers in an old-fashioned style barn raising. Hot cider and hoe-downs were nowhere to be found. The men building the barn seemed more like unionized construction workers. I didn’t get close enough to the site to determine if my observation was correct. I didn’t hear the usual whistles and calls of "Hey, baby!" shouted from the beams.
The wooden structure should stand about two stories tall and look very odd in its elegant park setting. Security detail is surrounding the construction site. Groups of bored-looking schoolchildren are invited to watch the barn grow, and the building should be completed by November 11, 1999. The barn will be open to the public through November 13.
And he was right, I knew that he was. Construction workers are currently assembling a barn in the southwestern corner of Bryant Park in New York City. The idea is a pre-holiday promotion for The White Barn Candle Company of Ohio. The promotional banners hung around the park (located behind the New York Public Library’s Center for the Humanities (http://www.nypl.org) at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue) say that this will be the first barn built on the island in one hundred years, and certainly the last one to be built before the millennium draws to its close. Before the industrial era turned midtown Manhattan into the center of business that it is today, it was populated by gentlemen farmers with large estates.
The advertisements also inferred that the barn would be built by real farmers in an old-fashioned style barn raising. Hot cider and hoe-downs were nowhere to be found. The men building the barn seemed more like unionized construction workers. I didn’t get close enough to the site to determine if my observation was correct. I didn’t hear the usual whistles and calls of "Hey, baby!" shouted from the beams.
The wooden structure should stand about two stories tall and look very odd in its elegant park setting. Security detail is surrounding the construction site. Groups of bored-looking schoolchildren are invited to watch the barn grow, and the building should be completed by November 11, 1999. The barn will be open to the public through November 13.
