High Steel: The Daring Men Who Built the World's Greatest Skyline

by Jim Rasenberger

Book Overview

With the birth of the steel-frame skyscraper in the late nineteenth century came a new breed of man, as bold and untamed as any this country had ever known. These "cowboys of the skies," as one journalist called them, were the structural ironworkers who walked steel beams -- no wider, often, than the face of a hardcover book -- hundreds of feet above ground, to raise the soaring towers and vaulting bridges that so abruptly transformed America in...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060004347
• ISBN13: 9780060004347
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Ironworker History and Life

Must read for anyone in the Ironworker family!! You will learn a lot about what it means to live the life plus you'll learn the roots and sufferings of the early sky-walkers.

Good book on Local 40 Ironworkers

A good book for reading about the history and stories of the Local 40 Structural Ironworkers of NYC.

Great Story for Iron Workers

Rasenberger brings awareness to the little known and aknowledged trade of Iron Workers. This is an excellent book for those who are in the trade and those who want a close to real life view of who Ironworkers are and what their life was and is like. The book gives a pretty accurate history of the trade going back to the early Bridgeman to the current International Associates of Bridge, Structrual, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers. Being a 3rd generation Iron Worker I found this a very pleasureable read and recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about what it is that we do as we build America on Beam at a time.

A great story

This story of iron workers is both extremely interesting and a really fun read. It provides beautifully crafted vignettes drawn both from the history of iron workers and from contemporary tales of today's iron workers at work in New York. A strong narrative thread connects these stories as the reader learns about the lives of a small group of iron workers today at the same time as Rasenberger deftly introduces the history of this trade and its daring tradesmen that brings this story to life and sets it in context. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in iron workers, in the history of our tall buildings and impressive bridges and to anyone looking for an accessible and fun read about real workers engaged in daring and dangerous work. It's beautifully written, a sympathetic portrait, yet one that is not afraid to highlight the faults and foibles of the people it describes, making the story one that resonates as accurate and, most of all, real.

A Book About the Working Society of Ironworkers

Being an Ironworker for the last 42 years myself, I found this book right on the mark about the lives of working Ironworkers. Mr. Rasenberger has identified the uniqueness of Ironworkers in his book and ties it all together with some very interesting historical events that occurred to the Ironworkers Union. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about real life people, their work and the dangers of that work.