Day 15

Today was our longest day, it begins with more cleaning



There are tons of new people around the school setting up for the students, we found a bunch of biology models, pretty interesting stuff!




We're doing a new thing today, sealing, which seals the cement. So this is what happens after, installing, peeling the tiles, fixing the tiles and cleaning the tiles.




It was a long day! It's crazy how much the skyline changes from day to day, here's a blurry pic from the drive home. New York sure is pretty.

Day 13 (off!) and 14

DAY 13

Today we went to Long Beach and hung out outside and swam in the ocean, it RULED. We are on planet Earth folks and it's beautiful.





DAY 14

Back to work and it's a real SCORCHER! Pretty sure part of my brain melted. Today we had a very special visit from Sarah Morris the artist of the mosaic design. We caught her on her few hours off between Massachusetts and South Korea and we're really happy she came to see what we've been up to. Apparently she reads this here blog, hi Sarah!

Today, the cement has set in front of our container, making it a breeze to cart our tiles and equipment to and fro, thank you Citnalta.



Boris replanted a tree on site that he noticed had been uprooted.



There's Sarah Morris with Saskia with Sarah's assistant in the foreground



We check out our work with Sarah, which is a pretty cool feeling!



We also started removing the stickers identifying each panel



And lo and behold, the mosaic looks great!



Lots of progress for today, looking forward to more tomorrow. See ya'll then!

Day 12

It's Day 12 and Friday! That means hangs with the A-Team, but more on that later.

Today begins with a fresh shipment of shims! We manually sand the edges to make sure the fit is exact



Work, work and more work



Hawkeye, keeping watch over us



Boris has developed a taste for the mortar



Day is done, so we head over for Friday Beers. I've mentioned the A-Team before, they built the school, they work hard and play hard....and eat hard too apparently.



From left to right: Mario, Dennis, Johnny, Julio and Jose



This is the boss of the A-Team, Frank, he built this city and likes to play it by beer



Have we mentioned how much fun it is to hang with these guys?!



BFFs Jose and Sook



Pulling out the last shims of the day, photo credit goes to Hugo



Dennis left his hat at the site...we'll see if he likes our art on Monday



Time to go home, this building and giant obelisk thing is right next door to the school, nice pic Mike



Day 13 is a day off, so we'll be back in a few days

Day Off (8), 9, 10 and 11

DAY 8 (OFF!)

Here's what we did on our day off.




DAY 9

What's up New York? It was freezing and rainy and windy in August! Weird. We've made tons of headway and a rep for Sarah Morris stopped by to visit



We encountered a tough patch today



So we rewarded ourselves with pizza



Today was cold and a slight bummer, so on to the next day!



DAY 10

Again with the rain! No problem for us though, we've started working in 2 installation teams and it's going really well



Boris's trowel by fire (good one Saskia!)



Getting there...



More visitors today, this time from the schoolboard, they like it!



We ate cookies and watched what was up on Goethals, it's getting busy now with the opening of the school looming near



We put up these 2 excellent panels today:

B52 and A55




Look how close we are getting to the end of the wall



Remember, it's this big



On to the next one (jay-z reference)!

DAY 11

It's our second day of 2 team installing and we know we're going to kill it



The A-Team



The B-Team



Look at this full piece of wall



We're thrilled!!



OK, see you tomorrow!

Days 6 & 7

DAY 6

First thing we do on Day 6 is start on the top half, these are exciting times.



First piece of full wall!



Valentina cleans the wall to prep for grouting



While Boris scrapes...and scrapes



Party at the garbage bag!



Progress



See ya later Goethals/161st St.



DAY 7

It's Sunday and it's raining



I can't remember what they're doing, but Emily is wearing a sweatband!



The doughnut makes an appearance



It's really pouring and we've passed the half-way mark on the bottom part of the mosaic



More progress on the full wall and Valentina wisely performs some calisthenics



Sometimes laying tiles is boring



And sometimes it's wicked awesome!



Helping hands



More progress, the full wall looks really cool.



Tomorrow is our day off, so we'll be back with more on Tuesday. Later!