Pair-of-Pants Update: Inseam Finished, Construction of Zipper Begins

The "Pair-of-Pants" is a new building under construction just across the street and down the block from us.  It's been mentioned several times in past postings.  When we first arrived, it was no more that a couple of stubs up to the ankles.  Construction had stopped (and had been stopped for a long while) due to some funding issues.  It restarted again May of 2011, or thereabouts.

Last Summer and Autumn, they hit the construction really hard.  The building rose two or three stories higher each week. It appeared that the work was 24 x 7, and late at night you could see the flickers of the welding torches from up in the girders.  Well before dawn of each day, the trucks would bring in the steel to keep the cranes occupied.

Some time early this year, the two towers finally came together and were joined by a single strip of steel.  Then progress suddenly stopped.  Amongst the English speakers, a rumor spread that someone with a Chinese girlfriend had seen on the local news a report that the Northern tower was suffering from an unstable foundation.  Heavy rains in combination with landscaping changes in the neighboring field, the story goes, had caused the tower to shift out of alignment.   Furthermore, the engineers had decided to tie the buildings together early so that the South Tower would keep the North Tower from moving anymore. 

I have trouble believing that story.  If there are really foundation problems, then a few steel beams seem like no match for the force of gravity.  There may be some nuggets of truth, though.  Building two towers and having them meet with precision so high above the ground has got to be tricky business.  The wind must make the structures sway.  Or maybe somebody screwed up and got things misaligned.  But it could just as easily be caused by more funding problems.  Or it could be that all the construction workers left for Chinese New Year and didn't come back for six weeks.

Regardless, the structures are now joined.  The inseam measures in the hundreds of feet.  The crotch has been stitched.  From now on, it's all zipper and pockets to go.  Construction has resumed again, though slowly.  Expect more updates when they get to the belt loops and waistband.

For the investors, the end must be in sight because they are advertising like crazy to sell floorspace.  The photo above shows the big sign that is high up on the North face of the North tower.  The Chinese characters spell the name of the building; "DongFangZhiMen" - the Gateway to the East.  The soft white glow from this advertisement floods through our apartment windows like the light of a full moon.  Every night.  All night.  Theresa's friends now refer to it as "Theresa's Nightlight", because she has complained commented so much about it.

Above you see a billboard posted outside the construction site.  More advertising.  It illustrates what the complex is supposed to look like when finished.  In it, you can see the Pair-of-Pants dwarfed by two yet-to-be-built towers.  I don't expect to be around here when the steel of those two buildings reaches full height