Rising Ground, a nonprofit with roots in the early 19th century, now houses statues of its founders that used to be on a campus in Yonkers, N.Y.
Rising Ground, a nonprofit with roots in the early 19th century, now houses statues of its founders that used to be on a campus in Yonkers, N.Y.
Rising Ground, a nonprofit with roots in the early 19th century, now houses statues of its founders that used to be on a campus in Yonkers, N.Y.
Good morning. It’s Friday. Today we’ll find out what a crane, two statues and a street closing had to do with one another. We’ll also get details on Mayor Eric Adams’s first public appearance since his spokesman said on social media that the mayor had not been “feeling his best lately.”
“Somebody asked if something bad happened, because they have the street blocked off,” Jennifer Scott said, standing outside the office building on Broadway where she works for a nonprofit called Rising Ground.
The block, between West 35th Street and West 36th Street, was indeed closed to traffic. The Empire State Building gleamed high in the distance, but the street was dark as Wednesday gave way to Thursday. People walked around in reflective vests, and vehicles were double-parked where, most of the time, only emergency vehicles would dare double-park.
But they weren’t emergency vehicles. Nothing bad had happened. What was going on was just one of those things that happen from time to time in the middle of the night in New York. Something large and heavy was about to be moved into an office building — specifically, two 1,800-pound statues that belong to Rising Ground.
They were too heavy for the elevator, so they had to go up on a crane — actually, a boom truck parked on the street. Riggers and workers from a company that specializes in gravestones for cemeteries would slide them through a window and into Rising Ground’s office on the eighth floor. The street had been closed as a precaution.