This Man Is Catching Red-Hot Steel ????????️ - Video

New York, 1930: the steel frame of the Empire State Building is going up, and every joint in it is riveted hot, by gangs of four. One man heats the rivets in a small forge until they glow, picks one out with tongs and throws it across the open steel. The catcher takes it out of the air in a cone-shaped metal can, lifts it out with his own tongs and pushes it into the hole.
A third man holds a steel bar against its head while the fourth hammers the other end flat with an air hammer. As the rivet cools it shrinks, and that pulls the steel plates tight together. Then the next one is already in the air.
Thirty-five to forty gangs worked on the building at once. At its fastest the frame rose four and a half stories a week, and the steel topped out in September 1930, 23 weeks after it started.

Sources: New York Public Library, photographs of the Empire State Building's construction (1930–31) and "Empire State Building: Facts"; John Tauranac, The Empire State Building: The Making of a Landmark; Engineering News-Record on the building's construction; D. Friedman, Old Structures Engineering, "Half Of The Operation" (2025).
3D models: "Chrysler Building" by NanoRay and "Flat Cap" by Fridge (youssefdarwish01), both CC BY 4.0 via Sketchfab, restyled.

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