The Katy Building was a modernization job in Downtown LA run by a very colorful old timer we called "Huck". Huck had been around for years and years and was a great wrench. There was a big difference working construction with guys like Bud and John to working an inside job with Huck. We had long coffee and lunch breaks and the job just seemed to drag on. We just seemed to work around the edges of the work, rather than in the center. It was a little here, a little there. The jobs he ran always seemed like they would never end and run way over. When the job was finished, the adjusters were in and out and the service guy got a job with few if any headaches.
Due to his age, the company tried to give Huck inside jobs. There was a minor rub; he couldn�t keep his mouth shut in front of the customer. More than a few times he was on the carpet in front of the service manager. A note here� in those days the service department ran the modernization jobs. Construction got them if the rails were replaced.
The Katy building had four gearless elevators installed by Llewellyn in the 20�s. Otis later came along and modernized it again in the 50�s. Our job was to install new controllers, replace the air doors with new door equipment. That meant the female elevator operators would soon be out of a job. It was touch and go for a while but we all became friends. So friendly in fact, that when passenger traffic was slow this good looking operator with great legs, would take her break and stand in the elevator opening while straddling the gap between the car and hall.
For some reasons we could always find something to do directly beneath her in the walk-in pit.
I was there to help distribute the new door equipment and hoist the new controllers into the machine room. Huck and his helper also needed a hand with some other work. We needed to replace the existing hitch plates on top of the cars with a Haughton hitch plate that contained load-weighing contacts. Before we started, the car top and hoistway had to be cleaned up.
The hoistway and car was covered with years and years of oily fuzz. Huck decided to use a Cadillac blower in lieu of a vacuum. These old Cadillac blowers put out such a blast of air, NASA could have used them to test the aerodynamics of the space shuttle. We started at the top of the hoistway working our way down blowing off the fuzz and hoping we would sweep it up in the pit when finished.
This plan had one very serious flaw. The older cabs had very large exhaust fans mounted on top of the elevator. Boy, those things really put out a bunch of air or did they? Elevator fans are supposed to blow, but these guys sucked and I mean really sucked. It was just before lunch and a hot summer day. The elevators were packed with executives heading out for their two-martini lunch. We were unaware that the car-top fans changed the scene in the lobby to that of a change of shift at a West Virginia coal mine. Believe it or not, this day wasn�t over yet. We just kept working as usual, after cleaning the hoistway, it was time to clean the pit but there wasn't the amount of fuzz we expected. Why�? The �fuzz� left the building with the white-shirted office workers right onto 5th street. That�s right�they were covered with soot. It would take awhile for the office to get wind of this fiasco.
We hung the car, secured the hoist ropes and started removing the old hitch plate. Problem was, we couldn't break a bolt loose so a trip to the shack to retrieve the cutting torch was necessary. It was right after lunch and the part-time coal miners were returning to work. The cars in the adjacent hoistways were zipping by us non-stop. While cutting off the bolt, a piece of red hot slag ignited the oily fuzzy stuff on the side of a running car in the next hoistway. Damn, we had this blazing box of people rushing by us up and down at 500 feet per minute. Not a problem! Huck was always very safety conscious, so conscious he kept the fire extinguisher locked up in the shack so no one would steal it. I headed for the shack, Huck and his helper swatted, blew, threw coffee, spit and would have probably pissed on the traveling fireball if they could. We got the fire out and later that day Huck assumed his usual position on the carpet in the Service Manager�s office.
