By Deon Roberts, Online Editor
In this week’s issue of CityBusiness, staff writer Richard A. Webster talked to local construction companies about former New Orleans recovery director Ed Blakely’s infamous 2007 promise that there would be “cranes in the sky” by September of that year.
It’s been more than two years since that promise, and contractors say that just because the New Orleans skyline isn’t filled with cranes, that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been progress.
In Rich’s story, Robert Boh, president of New Orleans-based Boh Bros. Construction, said he understands “people being frustrated with that statement. The image of cranes in the sky is most often associated with high-rise building construction, and there are very few of them around town. But there is other work going on that doesn’t involve tower cranes. It was an unfortunate way to say it.”
It makes me wonder what Blakely meant. Did he believe there would be lots of high-rise building construction? Or did he, as Boh seems to be suggesting, misuse the word cranes?•
1 response so far ↓
James // Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 12:35 am |
Blakely was clearly misunderstood by the media. In saying that there were “cranes in the sky” — he was mistakenly referring to the many long-necked birds he spotted around town. “They’re there!” (he once exclaimed in a TV interview). Ed should have known those “cranes” were actually pelicans, the state bird of Louisiana. What an idiot! (LOL)