OK. My coworker was just mentioning that there is a tradition of putting a tree on top of a tall building when the steel work for the top floor is completed. He noted that it was the case when he was growing up in Ohio but apparently does not happen down here in Florida. I vaguely remember something about a christmas tree on top of a building but thinking that it was due to it being christmas time rather than because of an old steel workers’ tradition.
So what is the deal? I have some ignorance here that needs fighting.
Eric Sloane is quoted briefly in the article that danceswith cats provided:
Quoted from page 11 of
Sloane, Eric. 1965. A Reverence For Wood. New York: Wilfred Funk.
John Robinson may be correct that Sloane did not know at one point, although Sloane is often sufficiently cryptic (and rarely cites sources) that such a judgement may be incorrect. Elsewhere, Sloane has written:
I do not have a good explanation why Sloane’s 1954 book provides a more authoritative description than the book written eleven years later, although the later book might have been based on an even earlier recollection of an event from his youth (or he may have only been unfamiliar with the “bush wetting” celebration while recognizing the tradition of topping the house with a tree as the point of the 1965 anecdote).
