When was the last time you looked in awe at something manmade: stared at the Golden Gate in the setting sun, stepped into the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York and heard the sound of hushed voices echoing back to you off of the high vaulted ceilings, or stood atop the Empire State Building and felt it swaying gently back and forth beneath you?  They seem larger than life, don't they?  It hardly seems possible that they were built by the hand of man.

Once I built a tower, up to the sun,
brick and rivet and lime.
Once I built a tower, now it's done —
Brother, can you spare a dime?

How about a little story, for Labor Day evening?  This one isn't about the construction workers, who are at least occasionally remembered, if only by fatality count.  (The Golden Gate cost 11 lives, the Empire State Building 14.)  No, these people are even less remembered than the nameless construction workers, but without them the architecture, the monuments, the very face of the East would be very different today.