Impossible Builds

(gentle music) -

Narrator

By November, 2016, construction of the skinny skyscraper is up to the 13th floor of Steinway Hall. Already, the site's 230-foot tall tower crane has reached its upper limits. So, this morning its big brother is on its way. The all-new tower crane will attach to the side of the building, and rise with construction to the very top. Masterminding its complex assembly is Project Manager Pat Feehan. -

Pat

Right up in front of that car, you should be sending cars into this lane. -

Narrator

At any other time in the year, installing a new crane wouldn't be a problem, but Thanksgiving is looming so, Pat has just 24 hours to get the crane in position. This weekend is the beginning of the holiday embargo. So, the city is going to shut down for all crane operations, like erecting mobile cranes for two months. So, we'd be in a bad spot. -

Narrator

Today, Pat's operation needs to run like clockwork. Any delay, and construction will be postponed for weeks, and the long-term consequences could be financially crippling. -

Pat

The only thing that comes through here is an ambulance or a bus. -

Man

Yeah. -

Narrator

At 6

00 AM, the first section of the new crane arrives. On any other construction, it would be assembled on site, but here that's impossible. With buildings on all sides of the plot, there's only one option to construct it from the street. The assembly crane needed to build the tower crane can lift over 300 tons. It's crucial it's parked in exactly the right spot. If not, it's massive weight could sink into the road, damaging the base of the skinny skyscraper. There is a lot of coordination about exactly where these legs lay out. It looks kind of haphazard, but there's a ton of calculations and everything that to go into land these legs exactly where they need to be. So, the legs are actually sitting on the foundation of our vault for our building that we poured. And that's part of the whole, you know, calculations and where this thing had to land. -

Narrator

By 8

00 AM, the giant mobile crane is safely in position, but to assemble its 230-foot boom, the team needs yet another crane. We have the cherry picker that's going to help build that up. And once this is assembled, then we can start getting ready to put sections on for the tower frame. It's extremely dangerous. If something goes wrong, I mean, it's catastrophic.