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Images on View. In 2012 and 2013, New York City–based photographer Melissa Cacciola created tintype portraits of Mohawk members of Local 40, a New York branch of an international ironworkers’ union. A medium dating to the American Civil War era, tintypes are developed directly onto metal plates, producing a unique image.
Sep 11, 2012 · For more than a century, Mohawk ironworkers have helped shape New York City's iconic skyline, guiding ribbons of metal into the steel skeletons that form the backbone of the city.
- Vaughn Wallace
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- Origins of The Mohawk Skywalkers
- Quebec Bridge Disaster
- Little Caughnawaga: Brooklyn’s Mohawk Community
- Riveting Gangs
- Heyday of Skyscraper Building
- Skywalkers at The World Trade Center
The Mohawk Skywalker tradition began in 1886 when some daring Mohawk men from Kahnawake took jobs helping build the Victoria Bridge across the St. Lawrence River, which borders their reserve near Montreal. Just as early European settlers had observed Mohawks walking fearlessly across rivers on narrow logs, early ironworkers showed an unusual aptitu...
The Skywalker tradition nearly came to an end in 1907 when 33 Mohawk men from Kahnawake died during a collapse of the Quebec Bridge near Quebec City. More than two-thirds of these men were married, leaving behind dozens of children and 24 widows. The resilient Skywalkers rebounded, but only after Mohawk women demanded that they not work together in...
By 1960 Atlantic Avenue and the Boerum Hill area of Brooklyn was home to about 800 Mohawk ironworkers and their relatives. Many frequented the Wigwam Bar and attended a church run by Rev. David Munroe Cory, who even learned the Mohawk language to give sermons in their native tongue. Storekeepers supplied ingredients for favorite Mohawk recipes like...
Skyscrapers of the ’20s and ’30s were framed with steel columns, beams and girders fitted together by four-man riveting gangs. One man called a “heater” fired the rivets in a portable forge until they were red-hot, tossing them to the “sticker-in” who caught it in a metal can or glove. The “bucker-up” braced the rivet with a dolly bar while the “ri...
Advances in metallurgy during the early 1900s had made it possible for architects to design much taller buildings using a skeleton of hardened steel, fastened by riveting gangs. During the 1920s, this led to a “race to the sky” as some of the most notable skyscrapers in Gotham began to take shape. Mohawks worked on the 1,046-foot Chrysler Building,...
Hundreds of Mohawk ironworkers went to work on the World Trade Centertowers in the late 1960s. Beauvais watched the towers rise from her mother’s kitchen window in Brooklyn. Her grandmother said not to visit the job site to see what the men do. “‘It’ll make you nervous,’ she said—and it does. I went to lower Manhattan later to see my brother Kyle B...
They typically drive the 360 miles from the Kahnawake reserve on the St. Lawrence River in Quebec to work the week in lower Manhattan and then return on the weekend to be with their families. A selection of portraits of these Mohawk ironworkers were featured in an online photo essay for Time Magazine in September 2012. Contemporary issues
Jul 25, 2018 · Mohawk Ironworkers on the World Trade Center, early 1970s. Photo courtesy of Peter “Doc” Alfred/ The Sonic Memorial Project . But, Mohawk ironworkers still put their stamp on the...
Dec 30, 2018 · In 2012 and 2013, Cacciola made portraits of the ironworkers using the tintype process, a laborious medium that dates back to the 1850s and made popular during the Civil War as mementos to send to loved ones. The contrast and subtle tonality of the artist’s pictures evoke early photographic portraiture.
Mohawk Ironworkers is a new 13-part half hour documentary series that celebrates the steely determination of the Mohawk ironworkers of Kahnawake, Akwesasne and Six Nations said to be “the best ironworkers on the planet.”. Using a mixture of dramatic HD “high steel” footage, on the job and home-life reality shooting and archival material ...
