Empire State Building

I saw an interesting clip of a documentary yesterday in my DNY class about the construction of the Empire State Building. It showed workers walking on steel beams with incredible balance and skill. The majority of the workers were Mohawk Indian. I was shocked when I found out that these workers were not wearing any type of safety equipment and there was no net to catch them if they fell. The workers worked together in small groups on different parts of the building. They trusted each other tremendously and in fact if one of the workers got sick one day and couldn't make it to work, then the entire group would not show up to work that day. I was also surprised that out of the hundreds of workers, there were only 5 fatalities. The entire building took about 14 months to build which is shocking considering that some ancient buildings like the Great Pyramids of Egypt took perhaps a century. I admire those workers because they had no fear of working up there even though they knew the dangers of their job. I guess that if you are really determined to accomplish a goal like constructing the world's tallest building, then any fear or doubt you might of had leaves you. Too me this is a valuable lesson about confronting your fears and I hope I remeber this. One of the workers that is still alive today said that not one person didn't want to work on the Empire State Building. They considered it a privilege and honor to take part in constructing this exquiste building. I believe that we have come a long way in terms of human technological development and we are improving everyday.