+ all of the above

A little while ago I was on the bus going past the construction sites in the city and I took the pics below. The tree at the top of this building site made me laugh uncontrollably. If I was in charge of a crane I’d be doing stuff like this all the time but apparently this isn’t a stunt, it’s a tradition called topping off.

But the tree is the key symbol and it is not, as many might suppose, a holiday touch. In the high-steel trade, it announces that the construction has reached the sky without loss of life or serious injury. And it is meant to auger well for the future inhabitants of the building.

from Peter Wood

You learn something new everyday. And today it’s that builders are superstitous (in addition to being good at whistling and building).