Cranes of Damocles

Seven Swords of Damocles

This is the corner of Rivonia Road and Sandton Drive in the Sandton CBD. Gotta be one of the busiest intersections in Sandton. There are seven (7!) cranes that twirl around this one intersection all day every day constructing the huge skscrapers that are being built to replace the old shorter buildings that once inhabited this footprint. I have blogged about it before but just like the Joburg CBD, the Sandton CBD is exploding!

The cranes regularly have cement mixers, elevator-type contraptions, motorized vehicles, and other large scale pieces of equipment hanging off their spindly arms. Right over a combined span of about 25 lanes of traffic sitting and turning at the stoplights underneath or chugging along at a snail's pace during rush hour or dangling over crowds of people walking on the sidewalks or waiting for a bus or taxi on the street. It literally sends shivers down my spine every time I have to drive under these Cranes of Damocles Why? Because although it was not common, it was at the very least not unheard of for the front page headlines in New York to report on some construction crane collapse that crushed something or someone on the streets of Manhattan.

Now I do not want to cast any aspersions on the construction industry in South Africa so I will only say that I trust them even less than the highly insured, regulated and unionized New York construction industry where these accidents still occur in spite of the best work practices and assurances money can buy. And I never consciously walked or drove under a crane in New York.

The other problem - and the reason I am frequently turning at this light (Hey, the light's working!) - is that the short yellow building in this picture is Vince's building - which by the way, IBM is moving out of at the end of the month and into a brand new just constructed skyscraper on Grayston, leaving yet another building to be demolished and rebuilt on this corner. Those cranes aren't going anywhere anytime soon, Sandton.

In fact his office is on the top floor in the corner and he regularly watches several of the cranes passing overhead as he sits at his desk which naturally causes him to shudder as well.

Luckily, he is hardly ever in his office as he spends most of his time in Cape Town or out of the country - and therefore out of harm's way - altogether. This makes me feel a little better.