The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1890-05-11
THEIR HEADS DO NOT SWIM.
TWO MEN IN SINGS CLEANING 4 WITH
AVENUE STEEPLE.

First n Globe $50 Feet from the Ground TO
he RepIIded-NOw they Are LOWERING
Themselves Along the LOFTY SPIre.
A bit of high climbing was done on the
spire OF the Brick Presbyterian Church, Thir-
ty-seventh street and Fifth avenue, last week.
The spire Is octagonal and of brown stone. 1t
is covered with q thick carved cap about 25O
feet above the ground. A cylindrical stone.
three feet high rests on the cap and supports
gilded metal ball six feet in diameter. The
bail is surmounted by weather vane on six
foot staff. The brown stone OF the spire had
grown dirty and tho ball and wvathervane
had lost much OF the original gliding, so an
uptown firm OF stone cutters wasAenRaged 10
clean and repair all three.
Charles Olson and a fellow employee OF the
firm began tho work last Thursday. They
showed out from the little east windows some
200 feet from the pavement two stout beams
and made them fast to tho rafters within. On
the beams they laid q platform from which to
work. Three ladders. each twenty-five feet
long, were hoisted within the steeple to the
little windows from which protruded the sup
ports OF the scafTolding. Olson and his fellow
workman drew one OF the ladders out and
showed it UP the almost perpendicular face OF
the spire. They made the bottom Of it fast to
the scafroldng about three feet from the brown
stone. They enclrcled the spre and ladder at tho
platform with rope with slip knot AS they
ascended the ladder they slipped up and tight
ened this rope 80 that the ladder might not
move from It's place. They arranged at the top
OF the first ladder a tackle with which they
drew up the second one. They attached the
second ladder to the first with a four-foot
splice. With another rope moose. tackle. and
splice the last ladder was similarly fixed to tho
spire. The top OF the third ladder rested
against the heavy protrudng cap OF the spre.
and the ladder was consequently almost per-
fectly perpendicular.
The spices and rungs Of the ladder we're in
visible to persons OF ordinary eyesight in the
street. All three looked like two Ions, parallel
wires depending from the cap and anchored IN
the platform at the windows. Olson and hi!
fellow workman did the most dangerous part
Of their work first. They began at once to
paint the ball and weather yano from the mar
row ledge around the three-foot stone pillar on
the cap. The ledge Is but four inches wide;
the ends OF thirteen foot poles. The brushes
made the poles top heavy. and they swung
about in the air over the big ball in an uncer-
tain fashion, which made the heads OF specta-
After the painting Of the ball and vane. Olson
and his companion grdled the spire az the top
with thick rope. From each Of two big steel
rim gs on this band depended rope sling and
ion have been raising, lowering, and swinging
themselves around the spire since Friday
morning. while they cleaned and pointed the
brow stone. Each looks like IL little bundle OF
dark clothes dangling from the end OF a thin
or four weeks longer before beginning the less
perilolus lob OF pointing and retitting the brown
stone and brick in the body OF the church.