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Found out a 3 man crew laid 1,800 brick a day on the Empire State Building and now I feel slow
I was reading a book about old NYC building jobs and it said a crew of 3 guys averaged around 1,800 brick a day on the Empire State Building back in 1930. Now I know those were bigger bricks and they had guys humping them up on scaffolds all day, but still, that number sat with me. My best day on a straight run with a good tender was maybe 900 face brick and I felt like a machine that day. So here is the argument I keep having with myself. One side says the old timers were just built different and we got soft with lifts and mud mixers doing half the work. Other side says the math is rigged, different brick, different wall, and the foreman counted every brick that touched mortar, good or ugly. I looked it up in a book called about the building of the tower, not some random video. So which is it, were those guys really that fast or are we comparing apples to oranges?
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the_max28d ago
My grandpa would've called me a babysitter with a trowel, but honestly comparing 1930 Empire State brick to what we lay now feels like comparing a model T to a pickup. Those old common bricks were way bigger and softer, you could hit one with a hammer and cut it, plus they weren't doing the same finishes or ties we deal with. And 1,800 a day across 3 guys is 600 each, not 1,800 each like people always repeat, so the number gets twisted into something crazier than it was. Add in that nobody was cutting brick on a wet saw or stopping for inspections and it makes way more sense. My best day was around 900 too and I felt like I deserved a parade, so don't beat yourself up over a number that came with different tools and a whole different wall. Maybe those guys were tough, but the math on that story is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
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