Men at work, p.9
Men at Work, page 9
Vladimir Kozloff, wrecker.
In addition to the last names Kozloff and Koziol, Vladimir Kozloff apparently used a variety of first names. Under these appellations, it’s possible to gain further insight into his life, as well as to obtain the rare chance to hear a worker speak for himself, though again through the gauze of a journalist’s cultural prejudices.
A 1937 article in The American Magazine describes a visit to the headquarters of House Wreckers’ Union, Local 95, the only union in New York City representing workers in this specialized trade. There, the journalist William Seabrook conducts a brief chat with “F.” Kozloff, “the secretary of the amazing all-Russian Local.” Seabrook reports: “I asked him why so many Russians had gone into that queer trade. He said, ‘There are a lot of jokes about us, of course, that Russians are no good except as destroyers, but the truth is, the White Russian peasant is strong as an ox and loves danger. Also, he is fatalistic, like the Oriental, and his humor is tinged with gloom. Hardly a week passes,’ he added, with a cheerful smile, ‘that somebody doesn’t break his leg—or his neck. They love it. It keeps the work from being dull.’”
Is this an accurate representation of Kozloff’s words? It’s impossible to say, although the urgency given, once again, to ethnic stereotypes argues for caution. Indeed, conforming to the general pattern for journalists, publicists, and photographers of the era, Seabrook uses Kozloff and the scene at the union’s headquarters at 15 East Third Street to paint a thoroughly clichéd ethnographic portrait. “It was more delightful and more completely Russian than any evening you could spend in the big restaurants where they serve borsch, blintzes, or pancakes, with caviar and sour cream, have countesses for hat-check girls, generals for head waiters, and balalaika orchestras in blouses playing the Volga Boat Song.” Like many journalists of the time, Seabrook was more interested in depicting what he felt were the exotic characters and locale than in analyzing the conditions of the union members’ lives: “Nine tenths of the house wreckers you see leaping out from under crashing tons of stone and steel in New York are White Russian peasants having the time of their fatalistic lives. This Local holds all its meetings in Russian, and they sound and look like a lot of Red anarchist plotters. As a matter of fact, they are not even radical. They are too busy fighting the laws of gravitation and sudden death to bother about fighting any man-made laws or governments.”
In fact, Vladimir Kozloff and the members of the House Wreckers’ Union were deeply involved in struggles against man-made laws and business practices. Eleven years earlier, on April 4, 1926, at the conclusion of a brief strike by members of the union, Kozloff is quoted in the newspaper, describing the reasons for the labor action. “We have been trying for some time to limit the work of our men to eight hours a day,” he says. “Our experience is that most of the accidents in our business, which is very hazardous, occur after the eighth hour. The men are tired and should not expose themselves to danger beyond the eighth hour.” According to Kozloff, there were seventeen deaths and two hundred injuries among the 2,700 men in the union in 1925, a very high percentage. In addition to limiting overtime, therefore, the union was demanding that only union foremen be assigned to direct the workers. “The union men have great interest, as you can well understand, in seeing that those under them have the best possible protection,” Kozloff said, in what seems a more authentic representation of his voice.
Kozloff’s employment on the Empire State coincided with the greatest challenge to organized labor in the interwar period. Tons of stone and steel were not the only things that came crashing down that fall. Demolition of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, which occupied the future site of the Empire State Building, began on September 24, 1929, just three weeks after the stock market reached its Roaring Twenties peak on September 3, with the average of twenty-five industrial stocks reaching 452.14. By March 5, 1930, the old hotel—it was thirty-six years old—had disappeared “down to the very last stone buried below the old machinery foundations,” as architectural historian Carol Willis writes. On that day, the average for the twenty-five tracked industrial stocks closed at 318.43, a decline of 29.57 percent in six months. The market had lost more than $26 billion in value. By the end of 1930, when steelwork on the new skyscraper was complete, the loss would amount to $40,648,308,395—a sum that would have bought 739 Empire State Buildings, as one journalist calculated, “and leave $3,398,395 for incidental expenses.”
Employment in the building trades, including demolition, therefore, was highly competitive, which put intense pressure on wages as well as on building practices, what the contractors called “efficiency.”
At the peak of demolition, on November 22, 1929, 719 wreckers worked on the site of the future Empire State. Their work was not simply jumping gleefully from under falling debris, as implied by William Seabrook. A few lines from the Starrett’s Empire State notebook hint at the violence of the process. “The brick and sandstone masonry of the exterior walls were drilled with 7/8 inch hollow drill steel in Ingersoll-Rand Pneumatic Rotary Jackhammers, the holes afterwards plugged and feathered, and pieces of masonry wedged out and dropped in small sections to the floor inside the buildings. The floor arches, which were of terra cotta construction, were broken down using Ingersoll-Rand Concrete Breakers, which were equipped with a special shoe shaped steel to break the terra cotta floor arch down to the floor below. All of the massive inside walls and machinery foundations had to be drilled and blasted with dynamite.”
In all, a total of 24,321 loads of debris were removed. Another contemporary account of the demolition, full of nostalgia not only for the Gilded Age that gave birth to the grand hotel but also for the prosperous, jazzy decade that had sealed its fate, also incidentally paints a vivid picture of the hazardous work performed by Vladimir Kozloff and his fellow wreckers. “Few realize the extent of the devastation that wreckers have already wrought within. The hotel is a ruin,” the author begins. “One comes away with many pictures in mind. One is of men standing upon a movable scaffold 33 feet high in the grand ballroom, intent upon peeling from the majestic ceiling a great mural painting. Another is of strong, large-mouth chutes, eleven of them, through which debris tumbles to the ground. The thud of the pounding material reverberating like the rising sounds of a mighty bowling game.” Throughout the demolition site, the author, Gustav Zismer notes, one feels the “throbbing 225-horse-power air compressors which pump 2,500 cubic feet of air a minute so that seventy-five hammers and drills may continue their steady destruction of floors and walls.” Exiting this scene of devastation, Zismer seeks to conclude his tour on a hopeful note, though not one relating to the workers. He observes “a cat and four kittens, snugly housed in one of the street floor show windows. Mascots are this mother and her babies. The rumble and the roar of operations reaches throughout the empty spaces. The cats peer bright-eyed, play, drowse.” It’s unclear whether these are the same cats that Al Smith later adopted.
Another article from this same moment, February 1930, also features statements by Vladimir Kozloff, though this time his first name is Americanized as “Walter.” “A strike for ‘safe conditions’ and embodying no demands for higher wages or shorter hours was authorized yesterday by the House Wreckers’ Union against the Albert A. Volk company,” the article begins. “The union alleged that the ‘break through’ method employed by that company was extra hazardous and that twenty deaths had occurred last year where the method prevailed.” The Volk company denied the charges, claiming the method, which involved breaking holes in the floor and dumping debris through to the basement, was “scientific, saving one-half to one-third the time in demolishing buildings.” Walter Kozloff, identified as the business agent for the union, countered that workers were more likely to fall using this method, compared with demolishing one floor at a time. He noted that “there are no city or State laws controlling demolition work or prescribing safeguards.” Therefore, it was incumbent upon the union to protect its workers. The Albert A. Volk company was one of the leading demolition experts in New York City at the time. Another was the Jacob Volk Company, founded by Albert’s brother. The Jacob Volk Company, Kozloff stated, had recently signed a pledge to refrain from using the “break through” method, bringing the total number of employers who had agreed up to seventy. Starrett Bros. and Eken also adhered to the pledge, performing demolition of the Waldorf-Astoria one floor at a time.
Five months after he was awarded a Certificate of Superior Craftsmanship by the New York Building Congress for his work on the Empire State Building, Vladimir Kozloff is once more mentioned in the context of a labor conflict, this time over the issue of “open shop,” the use of both union and nonunion workers on a job. On March 30, 1931, Kozloff and the president of the union, Leo Ross, charged that “a group of small contractors have employed racketeers to intimidate union men” and that the leaders of Local 95 had been compelled to hire private detectives for protection. The union’s contract with employers was set to expire on March 31, 1931, and the union was engaged in contentious negotiations to raise wages for helpers and for “bar men,” who performed the most dangerous work. The strike was settled with a compromise on April 9, 1931, by mediators in the State Labor Department. Instead of hourly wages of $1.20, as demanded, the bar men would receive $1.17½, and instead of $1.10, helpers received $1.05.
One week later, on April 16, 1931—coincidentally, the same day the owners and architects of Empire State held a gala dinner for the contractors and subcontractors to celebrate completion of construction—Kozloff’s name again appears in a New York Times article, “Labor Men Indicted in Racketeer Case.” “Vladimir Kozloff, 37 years old, of 535 East Thirteenth Street, business agent of Local 95 of the House Wreckers’ Union, and Browak Pohorodny, 48, of 142 Suffolk Street, surrendered at District Attorney Crain’s office yesterday on felonious assault indictments returned against them by the grand jury Tuesday on the complaint of Frank Silverman of 15 Sunswick Street, Long Island City, a non-union worker.”
According to the complaint, Silverman, foreman of a demolition gang razing two houses at 423 West Twenty-Fifth Street, was attacked by six men, including Kozloff, “with bricks and fists.” Kozloff is alleged to have previously “urged” Silverman to hire only union workers. Silverman refused, claiming his employers could not afford union wages. Kozloff is then alleged to have responded, “You’ll get yours.”
Kozloff’s bail was set high, at $2,500, because according to the prosecutor, he had been charged in another, similar incident on March 20, 1930. Both men pleaded not guilty. There is no record of a trial, which means the charges were probably dismissed.
Although two laborers were killed while tearing down the Waldorf-Astoria, Starrett Bros. and Eken appear to have observed demolition practices approved by the House Wreckers’ Union. Nevertheless, labor disputes surrounded the construction of the Empire State Building, which was also an open-shop job. Despite a promise by Al Smith to employ only union workers, the contractors, Starrett Bros. and Eken, accepted bids from nonunion subcontractors to keep construction costs down. The most significant case of nonunion labor concerned steel erection, which was subcontracted to the firm of Post & McCord, then celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in business. As Paul Starrett explained, “The steel mills, led by United States Steel and Bethlehem Corporation, had organized the Iron League, a group of subcontractors to whom they sold steel at prices much lower than nonmembers could obtain. In this way, the union men had generally been defeated. Post & McCord, who belonged to the Iron League, could purchase and erect the steel for a quarter of a million dollars less than we could, ourselves. In the interests of our clients, we were forced to accept their bid.” The New York–based Structural Steel Board of Trade, representing eighteen of New York City’s largest steel contractors, including Post & McCord, had refused to recognize the Iron Workers Union since 1905, making New York an open-shop state. The International Association of Bridge, Structural, and Ornamental Iron Workers therefore retaliated by calling strikes against Starrett Bros. and Eken on other projects in Cincinnati and Newark, in an effort to force the builders to abrogate the contract with Post & McCord. At the same time, rumors of a strike by other union workers on the Empire State Building circulated. Negotiations between the Structural Steel Board of Trade and the Iron Workers Union continued throughout the spring of 1930, as steelwork on the Empire State Building proceeded at its record-setting pace. Former Governor Al Smith offered to serve as mediator, seeking to avert a strike on the Empire State and to end the twenty-five-year standoff in New York over open-shop hiring in the steel trade. His offer was ultimately rejected by the Board of Trade, which walked out of negotiations just when an agreement seemed within reach, citing the strikes as proof of the union’s bad faith. In May, following a tentative compromise, which divided steelwork in New York between open- and closed-shop jobs according to specified percentages, the union ordered the striking ironworkers back to work on the Starrett’s out-of-town projects. This agreement fell apart in March 1931, and the open shop for steelwork in New York prevailed.
“Now a group of workmen is silhouetted against the dim sky,” intoned T. S. Eliot in his 1934 poem, “Choruses from The Rock.” “From farther away, they are answered by voices of the unemployed.” For the construction trade workers at the Empire State Building, the issue of union labor was vitally significant. As unemployment across the country worsened, thousands of laborers arrived in New York City seeking jobs, often willing to accept wages considerably below those negotiated by the trade unions. According to one report, nonunion skilled laborers could be hired for six and seven dollars a day, instead of the union scale of between $13.20 and $15.40. Sidestepping the central issue of union pay, the administration of New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt passed a law, effective July 1, 1930, requiring all state, county or municipal building operations to employ only New York State residents. Private builders were urged to follow suit voluntarily. Thus, on August 15, 1930, at the height of construction work, The New York Times reported that “the 3,000 workers on the new Empire State Building, of which former Gov. Smith is the head, were recently checked over at Mr. Smith’s request and 165 artisans from out of town were replaced by local heads of families.” While assisting New York residents, at the expense of out-of-towners, this solution did little to address the severe pressure on wages caused by widespread unemployment. According to The Daily Worker, which was critical of both the national union leaders and building trade employers, “the union scale is paid, nominally, on union jobs but actually workers have take [sic] a discount in many cases and always are outrageously speeded. No pretense at paying a union scale is made on non-union jobs.”
Starrett Bros. and Eken were not accused of evading union wages for union workers. Nevertheless, the stock market crash had significantly altered the projected costs for construction. In an article published in the Building Congress News in May 1930, Andrew J. Eken, vice-president of Starrett Bros., noted that material costs had declined significantly since work on the Empire State Building began. “Brick is now selling at the lowest price in ten years, steel shapes are likewise lower, the base price having dropped $1.00 a ton. Lumber supplies, influenced by intense competition, are also at low levels.” Eken continued that he did not expect labor costs to decline. Still, from the builder’s perspective, he acknowledged the effect of the worsening Depression on wages. “Some savings may develop in sub-contracting as recent contracts show a willingness to take work at lower figures.”
In September 1929, the cost estimate for construction of the Empire State Building had been $43 million. The final figure was $24.7 million, representing both decreased materials costs and “savings” on labor. This difference is often celebrated, rightly from a corporate perspective, as a sign of Starrett Bros. and Eken’s efficiency. At the same time, it should also be seen in the social context of the Depression. The 42.5 percent savings reflects a corresponding decline in employment prospects for construction workers, who were vulnerable on a daily basis to the ruthless economic forces that Vladimir Kozloff spent his life fighting.
Visually, the identification of Thomas F. Walsh, hoisting engineer, is simple. He is named in Empire Statements as well as in a widely published image from the October 8, 1930, Craftsmanship Award ceremony. In that photo, he is seen shaking the hand of New York’s Lieutenant Governor Herbert H. Lehman. In the Starrett Corporation’s in-house photo album, which includes a variant of this image, he is the only worker identified, there as “Tom Walsh.” But several other award winners, whom it is now possible to reunite with their names, can also be seen in the photo, including Gus Comedeca, Giuseppe Rusciani, Samuel Laginsky, Vladimir Kozloff, James Kerr, and Charles E. Sexton, standing between Lieutenant Governor Lehman and Al Smith.
Recognizing Thomas F. Walsh visually, however, does not help to disentangle his biography. Indeed, not only are there numerous Thomas Walshes in the public record, but two Thomas Walshes were awarded Empire State Craftsmanship Awards. One was the hoisting engineer seen in these photos. The other was a “derrickman” or a “bellman,” according to inscriptions that Hine made on the back of photographs. This means that derrickman Thomas Walsh stood at the base of the derrick situated on an upper story and, using two cords, actuated bells located above the hoisting engine, which sat on a floor far below, out of sight of the derrick. The bells indicated how the derrick’s boom and fall line were to move, up or down. Hoisting engineer Thomas F. Walsh received these signals and tended the engine that wound or unwound the cable, which ran through holes left in the concrete slabs of the intervening floors. The difficulty of discerning the correct Thomas F. Walsh in the mass of men with the same name is therefore compounded by the necessity of distinguishing Thomas F. Walsh, hoisting engineer, from Thomas Walsh, bellman.
