Logistics

Lewis Hine in 1931: “Unloading steel from a truck”:

It’s not clear how high the frame of the Empire State Building was when Hine took this picture. You can see the top of the frame on the upper right, but that’s simply the setback at the 5th floor. The crane dangling the hook that is the focus of the picture is higher up.

It’s interesting that way that different parts of the picture have aged. The men are not wearing any safety equipment, an omission which jumps out at you today. The crane hook itself is old-fashioned, but unless one is a connoisseur of lifting equipment, that may not be obvious. The trucks look old but less so than cars of that era do because of the general lack of styling on the trucks. If it were not for the operable windshields and the front fenders, those could almost be modern truck cabs; the flatbed trailer with pickets at the side is a form still used today.

The steel frame, at this relatively low resolution where the rivets are not visible, could be modern. Interestingly, the rivets can be seen in the column sections in the nearer truck.

Finally, “U.S. Trucking Corp.” sure feels like the 1930s version of “Trucking.com.’