Men at Work, page 16
EIGHT
“THE NEW WHO’S WHO”
The commemorative plaque mounted in the Empire State Building’s lobby was always intended to be an artifact. As Al Smith emphasized each time he spoke of it, future generations were the plaque’s true audience, the winners’ “children and their children’s children and on down through the ages.” With this bronze tablet, the New York World assured its readers, the workmen “will be immortalized.” Yet, as with most artifacts, although the object has survived, only a fraction of its meaning has come down to us. While the plaque remains in place, its history fell away. Now it hangs on the wall, unremarked and devoid of context. The names are preserved, and perhaps descendants retain personal recollections of their relatives. In every other sense, however, the men it honors have been forgotten.
Even in 1930, the significance of the Craftsmanship Awards was ambiguous. The New York Sun praised the award, extolling the New York Building Congress for its “graceful and appropriate” recognition of the workmen. “Not in the heyday of fine craftsmanship, when gothic cathedrals were springing up in medieval Europe, were workmen so signally honored.” Simultaneously, however, by the time Al Smith made his proclamations addressed to future generations, Craftsmanship Award ceremonies were common enough that journalists could deride them as formulaic. Fortune magazine included this laconic description of a Craftsmanship Award ceremony in its series on skyscrapers, published in March 1930: “When a great skyscraper is near completion the New York Building Congress gives out its awards for the best work done in each of the various trades. The laborers nominated by their foremen gather in the lobby of the building with its unfinished bronze and marble and its painters’ scaffolds and its dangling lights. The owner comes in. Some dignitary from the builder’s office makes a suitable speech. There is a round of suitable applause. And the buttons are handed out.”
Construction of the world’s tallest skyscraper was a historic project, and the presence of the honorable Alfred E. Smith as president of Empire State Inc. lent everything connected with it a degree of public notoriety. But Smith’s stature only highlights the ambiguity inherent in the Craftsmanship Awards themselves. Were they important because of the important men who gave them? Or were they important as recognition of the ordinary men who received them? Looking back in the archives, this fault line runs through the newspaper coverage. “Smith to Honor Workers,” announced The New York Times on October 8, 1930, marking the first Craftsmanship Award ceremony, honoring men from the “structural” trades. Four months later, announcing the second ceremony, held on February 11, 1931, and recognizing the “finishing” trades, the paper again emphasized the prominent man presenting the honor, rather than men who were to receive it, “Smith to Make Awards.”
By contrast, the New York World and the New York Herald Tribune framed the events around the men. “Building Craftsmen Rewarded for Skill,” said one; “Empire State Mechanics Rewarded for Good Work,” said the other. The difference in perspective, perhaps reflecting the expected readership of these different papers, affected the content of the articles. When the news was about former Governor Smith, the articles were several paragraphs long and included relevant quotations from his speech and those of his fellow dignitaries. The men were not mentioned at all, although one article noted that, in addition to the award winners, “about 500 workmen, clad in their overalls and munching their lunches, were present.” When the focus was on the award winners, on the other hand, the only thing newsworthy was the fact of the award itself. These articles consisted simply of one or two sentences explaining the purpose of the award and a list of the men’s names, often misspelled or garbled.
As William Orr Ludlow understood, giving the awards was symbolic. Receiving the award, by contrast, was specific and individual and carried no further public significance. I think this is reflected in Al Smith’s comments about the meaning of the plaque. Its presence in the building’s lobby commemorates the ceremonial granting of the award. This aspect of its meaning belongs to the story of the monumental structure and its symbolic significance as an American achievement. The men’s identities, the names themselves, however, were of no symbolic importance. They were the private concern of the men and their families, and Smith expected only they would remember them down through the ages.
Once the plaque becomes an artifact, however, persisting beyond the circumstances of its original placement, its meaning undergoes a peculiar reversal.
As a symbolic event, Craftsmanship Award ceremonies provided owners, builders, and architects an occasion for publicity. They made speeches of self-congratulation, often quite unsuitable, while the men sat silently listening. Walter Chrysler provided an extreme example of this in the address he gave to the winners of Certificates of Superior Craftsmanship for his building on January 20, 1930. “If it weren’t for craftsmanship, the construction of great buildings like this one would be an impossible feat. It is an honor paid to me when I see that you have enthusiasm for what you have done.” Even when the speeches did not entirely overlook the men they were intended to honor, frequently enough, they schooled the men in the abstract virtues expected of them, “integrity, thoroughness, intelligence, reliability, loyalty and cooperation.”
Often, more programmatically, the remarks asserted a larger, national virtue. Addressing award winners for the building at 40 Wall Street in December 1929, Colonel William A. Starrett insisted, “The awarding of craftsmanship shows the democracy of the life in which we live.” Walter Chrysler, too, gestured toward democracy in his speech to the workmen receiving awards for his building. “You built it as a monument to yourselves and to me. We are all made from the same putty, from the same mould,” he declared. And in a speech on May 27, 1930, announcing his intention to install the bronze plaque in the lobby of the Empire State Building, Al Smith similarly claimed that the Craftsmanship Awards were a sign that, in America, workers and owners were united in democracy. The award, he said, “builds up a better standing, a better feeling and a much better society so to speak, as between the men that are supposed to be at the top and the man that is supposed to be at the bottom, whereas, as a matter of fact, they are all equal and they are all even. We have no class distinction in this country.”
Nevertheless, class distinctions define the history of the award. Seen as an honor received by ordinary working men, the Craftsmanship Awards exposed the emptiness of the symbol and the patronizing language used in granting it. In the week after the first award ceremony, cartoonist Will B. Johnstone poked fun at the award and, implicitly, at the men, in a drawing syndicated in papers around the country. Johnstone may be best known today for inventing the character of the victimized taxpayer, stripped of both his earnings and his clothing until he is left destitute, wearing only a barrel and suspenders. In subsequent years, he collaborated with S. J. Perelman on scripts for the Marx Brothers, including two of their most famous films, Monkey Business, released in 1931, four months after the Empire State Building’s grand opening, and Horse Feathers, which premiered the following year. But in October 1930, Johnstone penned a wry commentary on the idea of honoring “ordinary” workmen. Entitled “The New Who’s Who,” in a nod to lists of high society members, his cartoon features caricatures of four men from the first group of Craftsmanship Award winners: Vladimir Kozloff (called “Valmir Kozleff”); Gus Comedeca or Camodeca (called “Gus Comedech”); Michael (called “Mike”) Tierney; and Giuseppe Rusciani. “That’s Valmir Kozleff, the champion wrecker!” exclaims an onlooker. “Nice form!” responds his companion. Comparing the workers’ activity to a sports competition—rock driller Michael Tierney is depicted as a golfer—Johnstone implies that naming a “superior” wrecker or excavator is ridiculous. The mark of distinction between riveters, in this view, would be who’s loudest.
“The New Who’s Who,” by Will B. Johnstone (Oct. 18, 1930).
A handwritten annotation on the copy held in the archives of Empire State Inc. affirms, “the names correct,” which is not entirely true. On the scale of the ordinary individual, details like this tend to grow fuzzy. As we have seen, the commemorative plaque itself may have misspelled some award winners’ names.
A second cartoon, published around the same time, mocked the idea of granting awards to building trades in the first place, expressing a view similar to that of Maurice Heaton in his article denying bricklayer Charles E. Sexton the title of “craftsman.” Drawn by artist Harry Haenigsen, the cartoon implies that once awards are given to construction workers they might as well go to bootblacks, telephone operators, and the milk wagon horse.
Perhaps I am misinterpreting Haenigsen’s cartoon as ironic. Perhaps in his opinion the bootblack and milk wagon horse, like construction workers, were truly unacknowledged heroes who did their job well every day and so deserved to be recognized, though they never would be, unless in a cartoon. The ambiguity only underscores the paradox of recognizing ordinary people as extraordinary, a paradox inherent in the Craftsmanship Awards themselves. Why create a lasting commemoration to someone simply doing their job, and a job so common and fleeting?
“After All These Years,” by Harry Haenigsen, honoring the bootblack, telephone operator, and milk wagon horse (Nov. 6, 1930).
Al Smith himself unwittingly confronted this division at the heart of the Craftsmanship Awards during the second ceremony at the Empire State Building. As an important man and the corporate president, Smith was fluent in the symbolic language of grand events, as his many encomiums to the building and the awards demonstrate. But Smith was also a master politician, more sensitive to the concerns of individual workers than many of his peers. Born in New York’s Lower East Side tenements, Smith had famously gone to “school” at the Fulton Fish Market and had worked himself “up from the city streets” to high office. (A joke circulating at the time noted that, despite his failed run for US president, as the head of Empire State Inc. Al Smith still occupied the highest office in the land.) At the first award ceremony, on Wednesday, October 8, 1930, Smith spoke quite movingly, holding to a middle register between worker and employer, without the patronizing tone that invariably characterized Colonel William A. Starrett’s or William Orr Ludlow’s speeches. On that occasion, Smith expressed what sounds like genuine awe and appreciation for the work the men had accomplished.
“In less than seven months there has arisen upon this lot the greatest monument in the world due to the ingenuity, ability and craftsmanship of every man taking a part in the construction of the Empire State Building,” he began, including all the workers, not just the award winners. “It may occur to those who look upon it that there is some great debt of gratitude coming to the large army of men who during the long hot days of June put everything they had into it. And the New York Building Congress, mindful of that fact, desired to make some award, some recognition to the master craftsmen in the different trades as a testimonial to them and as something to be cherished because they have made a substantial contribution to their city, their state and their country.”
Here, Smith speaks to the men, presenting the award as a testimonial to their significant, individual contributions. It is a respectful tribute to the workers assembled to hear him.
But Smith was just as susceptible to the grand, symbolic gesture, in which the workmen all but disappeared. At the second ceremony, on February 11, 1931, rather than speaking to the men, he demonstrated the characteristic ease with which journalists, architects, builders, and owners felt they could speak for the men. On this occasion, one of the habitual orators, John J. Collins, the secretary-treasurer of the Tunnel and Subway Constructors’ International Union, arrived late and missed his appointed time slot. Former Governor Smith, who held honorary membership in several unions, dating to his time as governor, rose in Collins’s place. “As a bona fide member of the Bricklayers’ Union, the Teamsters’ Union, and the Shovel Hoisters’ Union, or whatever the name is, I’ll speak for labor,” the former governor volunteered, displaying how quickly precise names cease to matter when symbolism is the goal. Responding on behalf of the workers, as a worker, Smith ventriloquized. “We are glad we have displayed our energy and ingenuity and are proud of our work here.” Smith seemed to enjoy his role, which received enthusiastic reviews from the newsmen. “Smith as a Laborer Helps Honor Workers; Adopts Role to Speak in Place of Union Leader at Building Exercises,” reported The New York Times. But Smith’s playacting—as a young man, he had aspired to be an actor—went a little farther than he meant. Perhaps intending to continue his speech with a recitation of the lofty ideals the award represented, he then said, “These certificates should mean more to us than just a frame and a paper.” But what should the Certificate of Superior Craftsmanship mean, from the workers’ perspective? In this moment, Smith’s role had reversed, and instead of granting the award, he stood for a moment trying to imagine what it meant to receive it. This new role broke the symbolic sheen that surrounded the awards for the men of the New York Building Congress, and so Smith confronted the central ambiguity of the Craftsmanship Awards from the workers’ perspective. In the symbolic view, the award represented the splendid ideals of energy, ingenuity, and pride. But from the individual worker’s point of view, what significance did they hold? Almost as if his brief impersonation had awoken in him for the first time an awareness of the men beyond the scope of the Building Congress, Smith departed from the formulaic talking points. In this moment, unique in all the award ceremonies of the era, Smith improvised a new, sadly unrealistic note in his speech. Remaining in character, Smith expressed a wish rather than an ideal, one that honestly acknowledged the practical challenges workers faced in February 1931. “Builders and architects should give some consideration to those who are out of work who have received this recognition, and give them jobs whether they need more men or not.”
From the recommendation letter Al Smith wrote on behalf of Peter Madden in 1932, we know that his expression of sympathy for workers was not feigned. Yet expressions of sympathy and earnest wishes could not resolve the conflict within the Craftsmanship Awards. Rarely in good times, and so much less so in February 1931, would employers contemplate hiring a worker because he had won an award, regardless of “whether they need more men or not.” As an exercise in publicity, or even as a sincere exhortation to aspirational ideals, the award ceremonies exhausted their significance in the act of presenting the award. Beyond that, the award became the private concern of the winners, no longer of interest to Empire State Inc. or the New York Building Congress. The plaque proudly placed in the lobby by the owners would commemorate the award and the symbolic act of publicly awarding it. The men themselves, as private individuals, would have to determine what receiving the award meant and whether it held any practical value for their prospects of future employment. Ultimately, their descendants would be responsible for preserving this private meaning, pondering for themselves what lasting significance the award carried by connecting the individual lives of their ancestors to the names inscribed on the list.
It is ironic, therefore, that the commemorative plaque has survived. The symbolic bubble of the Craftsmanship Awards burst almost as soon as the award ceremony was over. The event was reported in the newspapers, and the articles were clipped and collected in Empire State Inc.’s scrapbooks, destined to yellow in the archives. But the plaque, which records the men as individuals, has survived in public view. As an artifact, isolated on the wall, what it communicates is fragmented, nearly illegible. Nevertheless, by virtue of having survived, the plaque, rather than the speeches or grand ideals, now carries the significance of the event into the present. To us, today, its meaning has been inverted from what those who placed it understood. No one remembers the public presentation of the Craftsmanship Awards or the speeches held to ennoble it. But now, almost by accident, the list of individual names has attained symbolic importance. Against the backdrop of so many anonymous workers, what had been the private concern of a few men and their families now constitutes the plaque’s public significance. Regardless of why the Building Congress granted the award, the names on the list have become the sole portal through which to recover pieces of this otherwise forgotten history.
Steelwork on the Empire State’s peak, its celebrated mooring mast, “the highest point yet reached on a man-made structure,” required only seventeen days and was completed on November 21, 1930, six weeks after the first Craftsmanship Award ceremony. Lewis Hine was on hand to document the momentous achievement, as ironworkers hoisted the final beams and drove the last rivets. Despite the legend, repeated in many corporate histories, that Al Smith “shot” a golden rivet to complete the structure, there’s no evidence to support it. Smith was afraid of heights.
Meanwhile, economic conditions for the men whose jobs on the Empire State Building were now done continued to worsen. Just two days after completion of the mooring mast, on November 23, 1930, Al Smith announced that six truckloads of leftover wood from the building’s construction would be donated daily to a free woodpile on West Thirtieth Street to help heat the homes of the city’s unemployed. That same day, an abandoned pier at the foot of East Twenty-Fifth Street, near where steel for the Empire State had arrived by ferry, was transformed into a cafeteria and barracks for the jobless. Two thousand men waited in line for mutton stew, four slices of bread, and coffee.
When steelwork on the building came to an end, and the ironworkers were out of a job, the men of the finishing trades were still working far below—the tile setters, electricians, plasterers, and painters. The last of these workers did not complete their contributions to the building until months later, in April 1931. Yet the four months that separated the first and second award ceremonies for the Empire State’s superior craftsmen saw a marked change in the public mood, dramatically reflected in how the two groups were treated.
