by Meredith Abrams

To celebrate the placement of the last steel beam in the framework of the new high school, there will be a topping off ceremony next week, said mayoral spokesman Jeremy Solomon ’88.

Construction workers, students, and city and school officials will take part in it, Solomon said.

“It’s a tradition among the ironworkers,” Solomon said. “When the final beam is put in place, the workers paint it white and sign all of their names on it.

“It’s a chance for the community to celebrate the completion of a very important phase in the project.”

Mayor David Cohen will attend the ceremony, and the city “would like to invite students in some capacity,” Solomon said.

“Obviously we know that we can’t get all 1,900 students out onto the grounds for this ceremony,” Solomon said. “However, we’d like to have at least a representative sampling of the student body present.”

Meanwhile this fall, seniors walking down Elm Road have received encouragement from an unexpected source—a series of messages written on a second-story iron beam on the side of the new building.

The messages, which appeared late September in orange spray paint, say:
“GO TIGERS! NNHS CLASS OF 2009! union! LOCAL 7! NNHS RULES.”

Mark Lally, an ironworker, said he wrote the message because he thought it would be “just a little excitement for the school.”

Lally is the recording secretary of the Ironworkers’ Local Union No. 7.

He said that as he was writing the original union message, he saw some Newton North football players and decided to include message in support of the school and the Class of 2009.

In writing the message, Lally said, he wanted to “make a statement that the union’s behind the building and behind the students.”

Lally said that he and the other ironworkers he works with frequently write messages on building projects.

“When we’re beside a hospital, we write the names of the sick kids on the beams,” he said.
One of Lally’s coworkers, Shawn Cleary, said he will participate in the ceremony, which he said dates back to the Vikings.

As part of the ceremony, Cleary said, a plank will be raised on the building with a Christmas tree on one end and an American flag on the other.

The Christmas tree is both seasonally appropriate and will honor the trees that were used to build the new high school, he said. The flag is a way for union groups to demonstrate their patriotism, Cleary said.

Ben Plotkin contributed to this story

This post is tagged Meredith Abrams