November 12, 2007

Bringing the bird’s eye
view down to earth

Jim Emerling, a member of the construction crew that is adding the Smilow Cancer Hospital to the New Haven skyline, brings his work home with him — and his family and friends are glad he does.

All in the family: the Emerlings, (l. to r.) Nick, Samantha, Gerri and Jim, are all connected with Yale-New Haven Medical Center in one way or another.

As a tower crane operator, Jim Emerling goes places and sees things the rest of us don’t, can’t or won’t.

From his vantage point inside the cab of a tower crane perched on top of buildings hundreds of feet tall, sunrises and sunsets have an unobstructed splendor; people and cars don’t dominate the landscape the way do at street level.

But Emerling doesn’t just pour concrete and hoist rebar steel when he gets to the rooftop. If a vista catches his eye, he pulls out his camera and starts taking photographs. Like a war correspondent or a nature photographer, he has a special window on the world, and it’s one he’s happy to share.

Sterling Hall of Medicine with the Boyer Center for Molecular Medicine behind it.

These days, his window looks out onto Yale University, Long Island Sound, Sleeping Giant State Park and beyond. Emerling, a member of Local 478 International Union of Operating Engineers, has been helping build the Smilow Cancer Hospital on York Street. In the early spring, when he showed up for his first day, the job site was a massive hole in the ground. Today, it’s a 220-foot-tall building.

From his rooftop perch, Emerling has captured many views, including one that shows the dome of the Sterling Hall of Medicine in the foreground and New Haven Harbor in the distance. That one is now the screen saver on his wife, Gerri Emerling’s, office computer.

Yale-New Haven Hospital
East Pavilion

Gerri Emerling, the coordinator of the office of academic and scientific affairs at the medical school, asked Jim to take some photos for her to share with her colleagues. Now, the foot traffic around her desk has gotten heavier than usual.  “It’s interesting for everyone to watch the building’s progress,” she says.

“From up there, you get good views of all of Yale,” says Jim, who has been a crane operator for 21 years. He’s taken some pictures of the Amistad Building, the Sterling Hall of Medicine and the Anlyan Center “that are really nice,” Gerri adds. “He’s always clicking away.” With one light snowfall, Jim could take care of the family’s annual Christmas card, Gerri says.

From this view, it's easy to see how Sleeping Giant State Park, in Hamden, got its name.

Emerling has never taken a photography lesson, and he doesn’t have any special equipment, although he says his hobby has gotten easier and the results more polished since the advent of digital photography. These days he uses a digital camera he borrowed from his daughter, Samantha Emerling, a nurse at Yale-New Haven Hospital. His son, Nick, is also a tower crane operator on the cancer hospital job.

Emerling has worked jobs in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and he takes pictures wherever he goes. “I’ve always brought my camera. I’ve got views of all these states,” Emerling says. “I see something that looks nice, I take a picture.”

The Knights of Columbus Building, On the left is the vacant lot where the New Haven Coliseum once stood. The white building on the right is the Doctors' Building, and in the foreground is the Laboratory for Epidemiology and Public Health.

His archives contain pictures of the World Trade Center as well as the Boston skyline and some stunning pictures of the sun rising over New Haven. One of his favorites from the cancer hospital rooftop was taken at sunset with the shadow of the crane hook on a distant wall. “It was pretty nice,” he said, “and I knew I’d never get it again because the lighting was just right.” Another time, he was in the right place at the right time as the Lifestar helicopter was coming in for a landing.

Emerling makes enlargements of his favorite pictures, and gives some prints away as gifts. “I’ll share pictures every now and then, or take pictures of the guys” in his crew, he says. “Everybody likes pictures.”

—Jennifer Kaylin

Photos by Jim Emerling and Jerry Domian

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