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"Topping out" is the term used by ironworkers to indicate that the final piece of steel is being hoisted into place on a building, bridge, or other large structure.1 The project is not completed, but it has reached its maximum height. To commemorate this first milestone the final piece of iron is usually hoisted into place with a small evergreen tree (called a Christmas tree in the trade) and an American flag attached.2 The piece is usually painted white and signed by the ironworkers and visiting dignitaries (figure 1). If the project is important enough (and the largesse of the contractor great enough) the ceremony may culminate in a celebration known as a "topping out party" in which the construction crews are treated to food and drink.
Ironworkers belong to the union called The International Association of Bridge, Structural, and Ornamental Ironworkers, which was established in 1896. Local #1 is in Chicago, the putative birthplace of the skyscraper. The work encompasses a wide variety of construction activities from the placement of reinforcing steel (called "re-bar") in concrete structures, to welding, to heavy rigging, to the more visible and extreme activities like the erection of skyscrapers and bridges. The oldest continuous aspect of the trade is practiced by ornamental ironworkers who install metal stairways, ladders, catwalks and a wide array of decorative metal structures. Ornamental ironwork predates the union and the use of structural steel by many hundreds of years. Even though steel long ago supplanted iron as a building material the men in the trade are called ironworkers-not steel workers-and they usually refer to the columns and beams as iron.
One reason the ironworkers observe the topping out custom is the simple fact that they are the first workers to reach the top of the structure. I guess the impulse to commemorate the achievement is similar to that of mountain climbers-or astronauts landing on the moon for that matter.3 Topping out the structure means the end is in sight for the "raising-gang"-the men who actually set the iron in place. There is more work to be done, and ironworkers will be involved in some aspects of it, but the heavy work is done and the raising gang is almost out of a job. While no...