"Men show their character in what they think laughable" 

--Göethe

anamorphica

 

As a young LIFE freelancer, you pretty much did what you were assigned and didn't ask too 
many questions.

"They're cleaning the gargoyles on the Chrysler Building," said the picture editor. "Go and get 
us a picture of it."

 I was met in the lobby by a young public relations person who took me to the top floor and 
escorted me onto the roof. "There they are," he said, pointing to the famous gargoyles, and 
also to a workman heartstoppingly suspended in a window-washer's harness in mid-air above 
the towers and rooftops of Manhattan.

"Where do I stand?" I asked.

"On another gargoyle, I guess," he said laconically, lighting a cigarette.

And that's what I did. But LIFE couldn't have paid me enough money to get me to change 
places with the fellow who was washing them.

By Lee Lockwood




Lee Lockwood/Life Magazine, copyright Time Inc.

 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

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