Cranes

One of the clearest signs of a thriving economy, progress, and all that comes with that is cranes. After the Berlin Wall fell and buildings started to fill the gaps in the bombed-out city, a skyline of cranes was the most prominent image for the place.


Image from here

Now, that distinction of "crane capital" would probably go to Dubai or China. Regarding the latter, I heard today that more than half of all cranes in the world currently reside on construction sites in China, an amazing fact (if true) though not necessarily surprising.

There seems to be some strange appeal for cranes, evidenced by the web page Crane Porn and an article in today's Chicago Tribune that focuses on a crane operator for Trump Tower. The graphic below is a handy guide to that tower crane (click it for the larger view with annotations).



Crane Links:

:: Crane Porn
:: Crane Porn Flickr Pool
:: Wikipedia page
:: FreeFoto.com