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Forms to be Filled out for ,Each Ipterview
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Arnold Nanoff
ADDRESS 27 Hanilton Terrace
DATE February 1, 1939
SUBJECT Chris Thornton
1. Date and time c!' interview January 31, 1938
From 111I to 5F11
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
2. Place of interview Union hall, International Association Bridge
Structural Stool and Iron Workers
247 Nast 84th Street
New York City
3. Name and address of informant
CHRIS THORSTEN
*lives somewhere uptown with his girl friend*
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
8. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc. This union is housed in the Labor
Temple building at 84th Street. Union Hall where man sit around is a bare loft some 30 by 50
feet. Three huge windows. Stacks of wooden folding chairs in a corner. Three long plain board
tables on which men are playing cards. A few wooden benches along the wall. A small bulletin
board with a few yellowed notices near the entrance. No other written or graphic material
around the place. NO other furnishings. Thirty or thirty five men sit around, some playing cards,
others sitting alone. A few talking. There is a remarkable lack:of talk.' The men when they do
talk, speak law and their mouths hardly open. Their vOices seem to be pitched to the same note.
Even the men playing rummy and pinochle on the tables, do not talk any more than the game demands.
They are dressed *for the most part in black or da* gray work pants, same color shirt, leather
windbreaker and a cap. They have a common expression no matter what the oast or complexion of
their features. The faces are solid, hard and set in straight deep lines. All have the same
fire and taut quality about them. The postures of the men are aiso the same. They all have ab-
normally long batiks and low waist lines. The line of the body breaks at the waist and then there
is a long curve from the base of the spine to the back of the neck. The talk whatever there is of
it is mostly about current events, the Hines case for one. You get a different reaction here
(Use as many additional sheets as neceiwary, for any -of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
Description of roam, nouse, surroundings, etc. (continued)
than you usually get from a group of unemployed men. There is no sulleness, no
resenvment, no nervous tension, no moaning, easy confession talk, no plaint. There
is a quiet, hard waiting, a methodical sitting alone um with other men and looking
at the floor or the ceiling and waiting. There are no postures of defeat or help-
lessness. No one sprawls around languishing. They sit or stand with a minimum of
shifting around, movement or expression.
FORk
Personal History of Informant
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Arnold Nanoff
ADDRESS 27 Hamilton Terrace
DATE February 1, 1939
STWECT Chris Thorsten
1. Ancestry Sisandinavian
FOLKLORE
NV! YORK
2. Place and date of birth On board a fishing boat moored to a dock in New Orleans
some 51 years ago.
3. Family "My step -mother was no good. She was a bitch. My step -father was all
right. Mien 1 if et home he gave me some money and a little pack. My
father died at sea caning into New York. My brother was killed at sea
too."
4. Places lived in, with dates
5. Education, with dates No formal education.
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates Structural steel worker. Also
Cpptain of fishing boats. Contractor in sand blasting business.
7. Special skills and interests
8. Community and religious activities
9. Description of informant 200 pounds, 6 foot 2 flat, hard muscle. Back is
bent in a long curve, no hips, long thin legs, hands are twice the size of
ordinary man's hand, fingers abnormally thick and straight. A huge head
sitting squarely on a lean young neck. Face set like iron but immensely am
10. Other Points gained in interview iable. Clem* gray eyes, fine well propor-
tioned features solid and sharp. Reddish tan complexion, deep set eyes,
graying blond hair.
STATE
NANE OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
New York
Arnold Manoff
27 Hamilton Terrace
February 1, 1939
Chris Thorsten
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
I remember one job. It was the Parcel Post Building 43rd'
and Lexington Avenue, you know the one. I worked straight through
five days and four nights. We made money in those days. I was with
the hoisting gang. The oney time we got off was two hours for break-
fast 1 hour for lunch, one hour for supper and one hour at night.
Then I went into the saloon and I went to sleep. They couldn't wake
me with a sledge hammer. I felt kinda ashamed of myself that I
couldn't take it. Fallin asleep and all that. We wuz loadin 32
ton girders on that job. My friend Charlie Walker wuz workin with
me. He wuz hookin on in the raisin sang. That wuz a good job, we
made money on that job. I been in this racket 32 years. You wouldn't
believe I wuz 51 years old. Take a good look. You wouldn't believe
it would you. It's a hell of a racket.
Now take that Sixth Ave. el job. Tehy're rushin that job.
Plenty of men get killed there. The first man gets killed standin
on the railroad tracks. Friday another man gets killed. The burn-
ers don't wanna go dawn. Dawn by Canal Street the first man was
killed. They dropped a whole load of steel.
I was on a job once and my friend George Morgan got killed.
We're just sittin there jokin you see. He was tyin on a safety
railin on the scaffold and a beam rolled. The next mornin we had
to go over and work where he fell down. I had him in mind and I
got stuck between a beam and I landed in the Good Samaritan Hosp-
ital. Three verterbrae broken and the collar bone. Here you can
feel the bump where the back was broke. Go on feel it. You aint
an Iron worker unless you get killed. He Sam I'll knock wood, I
was never on a job where we lost a derrick. Yeh I know plenty of
booms fold up. Everybody knows Lehman is behind this Sixth Ave.
el job. They can't get men from the Union to go down there. Well
they're rushin it. A man don't have time to watch out for himself.
There'll be plenty of men killed before this job is over. If I had
e.
mondy I'd put it in steel. They figure these things. Take a build
A
ing like the Chrysler Building. Who gave the estimate on that?
Take the Empire State Building. Who's gonna give the estimate on
that. Take the designer. He's gotta know. What I mean is this.
When they get up to the 86th floor. There's some tonnage in that
bldg. and somebody gotta know where to put it. There was oney two
of our men killed on that job. Men hurt on all jobs. Take the Wash-
ington Bridge, the Triboro Bridge, Plenty of men hurt on those jobs.
TWO men killed on the Hotel New Yorker. I drove rivets all the way
on that job. When I got hurt I was squeezed between a crane and a
collar bone broke and all the ribs in my body and three verterbrae.
I was laid up for four years. I'll tell how I got hurted. There
wuz an airplane factory cross the may from where I was working.
The motors were runnin and you couldn't hear a thing. I had a sign
up there and I was leanin over the rail and sqush I got caught be-
tween the beam and the rail.
-3
Once dawn in Maiden Lane we wuz workin and we wuz singin
dirty songs. You know It am n gonna rain no more no more. You know,
I can't tell ya. Ya know, Mary went to the grocer to buy herself a
duck, that kind of stuff and they had to send the cops up to stop
us from singing because they could hear us. That place is like a
canyon.
Once dawn in Georgia two colored ladies wuz welkin along
the street. They see some of the boys comm n out of the saloon.
You know. Foolin around. One colored lady says to the one. Ya
see dam guys. On Friday they walk a narrow little plank away up
in the air and on Saturday, the sidewalk aint wide enough for them.
They drink like heil. There wus Three Star Hennessy. He
threw his card away and went snakin. Another place I worked there
wuz two genuine snakes-.
We aint got any stories around here. All we got is hard
luck. If they'd give the damn work back to the contractors, we'd
/17.1
all be workin. I don't get this WiPiA. set-up at all. You take
Sam here. They fired him on the MA for drinkin once or twice.
That aint no way for them to act.
I ran away from New Orleans when I wuz a kid. Yeh I'm
an old herring catcher. What can a man do if his whole family
is herring catchers?