LABOR: Too Good

Few men can knock a wall down the way Big Jim Allit can. Big Jim, a fat-cheeked Irishman, has been a demolition craneman for 27 years. His specialty is battering buildings apart with a 2,800-lb. steel ball. The ball swings from a cable at the end of a 100-ft. boom, and Big Jim, by deftly whirling his crane cab and boom, can send the ball crashing into a target with bull's-eye accuracy. Many a major Eastern wrecking project has had an Allit touch.

In September, the Manhattan demolition firm of Lipsett, Inc. sent Big Jim to Pittsburgh to help clear...

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