{"id":458,"date":"2014-07-16T02:09:58","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T02:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/?p=458"},"modified":"2015-01-09T16:15:04","modified_gmt":"2015-01-09T21:15:04","slug":"climbing-the-worlds-largest-crane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/07\/16\/climbing-the-worlds-largest-crane\/","title":{"rendered":"Climbing the \u2018world\u2019s largest crane\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"Kelly <\/a>
Kelly was happy to be back on solid ground. (Eddie Frank\/The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div>
\"Kelly <\/a>
Kelly pauses for a smoke. (Eddie Frank\/The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Kelly <\/a>
Kelly makes his way up. (Eddie Frank\/The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The 333-foot crane, called largest in the world, at work on the Point. (Pittsburgh Press photo) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

April 6, 1958:\u00a0<\/strong>Dave Kelly had been working as a reporter at the Pittsburgh Press for only a few months when he got the assignment.<\/p>\n

At the time, Pittsburgh was in the midst of a renaissance. Change was everywhere. Acres of the Lower Hill District had been razed to make way for the Civic Arena. Pieces of the Fort Pitt Bridge were being put into place. Three new stainless steel \u00a0buildings dominated the Point. And just a few blocks from the newspaper building, workers were busy digging the foundation for a Hilton Hotel. A massive, 333-foot crane had been brought in to assist with the construction.<\/p>\n

Newspapers called the crane the world\u2019s largest. It had been delivered in March of 1958, its sections arriving in eight Pennsylvania Railroad cars. Once assembled, the crane\u2019s enormous weight was supported by special tracks laid down around the hotel site.<\/p>\n

One sunny day in early April, Kelly was approached by his boss.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know that crane at the Hilton Hotel site?\u201d the boss asked. \u201cWell, you go over there and climb it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly didn\u2019t warm to the idea. In fact, he wrote that he\u2019d \u201crather play Russian roulette with a submachine gun\u201d than climb a crane. He expressed his reservations to his boss, but got no sympathy.<\/p>\n

\u201cGit,\u201d said the boss. \u201cAnd take a photographer with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The photographer in this case was Eddie Frank, who faced the awkward and harrowing task of climbing a narrow structure with cameras strung around his neck.<\/p>\n

The two walked to the Hilton and signed papers saying that if they fell to their deaths it was nobody\u2019s fault but their own. Then, up they went.<\/p>\n

The crane\u2019s steel ladder shot straight into the sky. Once Kelly and Frank reached the first platform, Kelly asked, \u201cIs this thing swaying?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d said Frank, \u201cbut your knees are, and it\u2019s spoiling my focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pictures of Kelly climbing show him at first wearing a jacket, white shirt and tie. As he neared the top, however, he apparently ditched his jacket, loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves.<\/p>\n

At 145 feet, Kelly and Frank reached the crane\u2019s control shack, which Kelly described as a \u201cpanel with four little steering wheels and a pedal of the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly stepped on a pedal and grabbed one of the wheels. \u201cThe thing moved a little and wheezed. Then it stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope I didn\u2019t break it,\u201d he said to Frank.<\/p>\n

At this point, Kelly later wrote, a Capital Airlines Viscount flew by. A lady sitting near a window in the cabin smiled and waved at him. You never know when to take Kelly seriously.<\/p>\n

Poor Frank. He needed pictures. So, cameras dangling, he leaned out from the ladder, wrapped one knee around a girder and prepared to take a shot. \u201cStop squinting,\u201d he told Kelly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the sun,\u201d Kelly responded. \u201cIt\u2019s in my eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a while Kelly had enough \u2014 he reported that the \u201cshakes overtook me.\u201d The two headed down.<\/p>\n

Halfway to the ground, a gust of wind lifted Kelly\u2019s hard hat from his head. It fell, hit a cement truck and nearly clobbered a construction foreman.<\/p>\n

The last picture made that day shows Kelly kissing the ground.<\/p>\n

Kelly toiled at the Press for only a few years, then became a news broadcaster. He worked for both KDKA and WPXI.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a pioneer of newspaper men who went into broadcasting,\u201d says Bill Moushey, himself a former reporter at WPXI and the Post-Gazette. Moushey worked with Kelly at WPXI from 1979 to 1984.<\/p>\n

Moushey remembers Kelly as a master of the Irish brogue and a supreme jokester and storyteller. He came, Moushey recalls, from a family of funeral directors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A massive, 333-foot crane had been brought in to assist with the construction of a Hilton Hotel.<\/p>\n

Look at the picturesClimbing the \u2018world\u2019s largest crane\u2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[945],"tags":[961,1029,1036,1224,1051],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/tumblr_n8rr49HXFn1rr5swxo4_1280.jpg?fit=871%2C864&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":229,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/09\/22\/window-washing-turns-perilous-in-pittsburgh\/","url_meta":{"origin":458,"position":0},"title":"Window washing turns perilous in Pittsburgh","date":"September 22, 2014","format":"gallery","excerpt":"We found in our archives two photo sequences of such rescues. 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