We got all the feeder cable hung by block and fall in the cavernous downstairs area. That took a day.  Then we went upstairs to the main floor.  We set up two scaffolds, each being two sections high, and they were on wheels.  

While some workers were wheeling in and pulling out unending rolls of copper wire and making bundles, three people were on top of the first scaffold pulling the long snake of cable up to the top of the scaff.  The second scaff had another three people.  Their task is that two of them pick up the bundle of cables, put it on their shoulders and lift it to the rafter bar where the third guy tied it to the rafter bars.  For the three workers standing up on the rolling scaff the chicago bars were about 5 feet high. 

The ‘ceiling’ was actually about 1/4 the way down from the actual ceiling of the building. The hid the HVAC and lighting and power  in that ‘attic’ space.  The way they made the false ceiling is by hanging rows and rows of plaster boards 8 inches high, 2.5 inches wide and about 25 feet long.  These were held by rods to the actual ceiling.

At the lower end of the rods were black stamped metal runners 25 feet long and attached parallel in 60 feet long and 25 feet wide and the plaster boards were dangling from the black runners.  Those are called ‘Chicago Bars’ and they are still used.  The chicago bars and rods were designed to carry the weight of the plaster boards baffles that we called the ‘rafters’.  These are what we used to tie a couple of extension cords to for the pipe-n-drape shows.  At most we added 10 pounds along one run of c-bar.

Now six men on two scaffolds were adding 20 individual strands of 4/0 power cable,  each one at a pound per foot.  We were adding 500 pounds for a 20 length run of feeder cable.  By the time I took my turn up there I saw this foot thick bundle of cables as thick as my thumb tied to this thin little chicago bar hanging by slender rods.

I went to our supervisor and asked if anyone checked the weight ratings on the ceiling materials and he said, [gravelly voice, NYC accent], ‘eh, don’t worry about it.’  A little while later, I saw the company’s owner, the man whose name was on the check come in and I went to him asking the same question and expressing concern about the weight loads on the rafters.  He also said, ‘Don’t worry about it’.

That took two days to get all that feeders hung.  And then we has to do the back half of the space from the rear power room!

It was a whole week of running power cables.