The contractors began excavation for the new building in January 1930, even before the demolition of the site's previous occupant, the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, was complete. The Starrett Brothers had pioneered the simultaneous work of demolition and foundation-laying just a year earlier when building 40 Wall Street, an earlier competitor in the race to erect the world's highest building. Two shifts of 300 men worked day and night, digging through the hard rock and creating the foundation.
The base of the Hoover Dam, as with any dam, was the most important part of the structure. If the base wasn't built correctly, to there could be numerous potential problems with the rest of the structure. Construction workers had to use power shovels to dig through more than half-million cubic yards of river bottom mud to reach the bedrock 40 feet below, making the total excavation 125 feet, with grouting as deep as 150 feet. Simultaneously, high scalers blasted the canyon walls with jackhammers to make a smooth surface for the dam's construction. These scalers earned $5.60 a day and were some of the highest paid workers on the job.
The new Airbus A380 aircraft, a marvel of aviation engineering, has a wingspan of 262 feet, a length of 239 feet and a cargo payload of 150 tons. The first commercial freighter designed with three full cargo decks, this long-range superjumbo aircraft is designed to revolutionize large-scale international and domestic shipping when it enters into commercial service in 2006.