As this was written, on Aug. 20, Hedge Hall was something to watch as a crane swung long steel beams across the blue sky toward the building.

There’s plenty of new steel in Hedge already, says project manager Paul Farnsworth, but the creation of the building’s framework will become more of a spectator sport as it increasingly happens outside the building’s shell. That will include the skeleton for the building’s addition, adjacent to Alumni Walk — and the foundation for that addition was completed this week.

Then comes the roof structure. But before the roof work can be done, how about a place for the workers to stand?

Hedge as we know it comprises an original 19th-century portion and a 20th-century addition (the part currently lacking a roof). The older part never had a finished third floor. So to work on the roof on that end, a floor is in order. The underlying structure has “all been beefed up and now they have to put the subfloor over it,” Farnsworth says. “Once that’s in, they can shore up the roof that’s there, and then put in the steel for all of the roof at the same time.”

The original plan for the roof was to strip it all off and rebuild it completely. But general contractor Wright-Ryan Construction decided that time could be saved by retaining the remaining roof a while longer while the structure is built underneath.

In an interesting angle to the steel discussion, Farnsworth notes that after the beams are set in place, the bolts fastening them still must be tightened to an appropriate, er, tightness. Or, in the words of people like Farnsworth, who actually know what they’re talking about, torqued.

You can use a torque wrench, which shows you how tightly a bolt is turned. But later, when it’s time to inspect the steelwork, going around with a torque wrench to check the tension on every bolt would drive you nuts.

So instead the bolts are manufactured with cleverly engineered little extensions on the end. When the bolt is tightened up to spec, Farnsworth says, “the end breaks off, by design. Then, when they’re inspecting it, they don’t have to go around with a torque wrench.” The inspectors just look for the broken-off ends.

Roger Williams Hall is next in line for interior steel. You can see the smallish square holes in the roof into which columns will be lowered. A little steelwork has been done at the Bill already — perhaps you have seen the beam, set into the east wall, that will support a lintel over a passage between the new and old parts of the building.

So, much more steel is on the way. But you don’t need Campus Construction Update to tell you — although we will anyway — that with this sort of work you always have to do something else before you can do what you set out to do.

In this case, if you are going to hang a lot of steel, you need space to store it. And the Hedge-Roger Bill worksite currently doesn’t have much space because there’s so much excavation going on — digging for utilities and for foundation access.

However, says Farnsworth, “we are wrapping up site excavation, which is good because it frees up a lot of real estate when all the other trades” — i.e., workers for the next phases of construction — “and their materials start showing up. We need a place to stockpile stuff.”

He adds that no additional excavations outside the fence are expected.

The steam line installation between Hedge and Ladd Library, which required a big long trench that closed off the service road behind Ladd, is nearly done. The trench around the foundation of Roger Bill will be filled in soon, covering up the attractive Orangesicle-colored damproofing.

And what’s left for the underground work — a little more steam work near the Bill, and chilled water lines between the Bill and Hedge — will be started next week.

“Chilled water” lines? Farnsworth explains that a big water chiller in Chase Hall feeds the air conditioning in Chase, Ladd and Carnegie Science. Installing new, more-efficient air handlers into Ladd last year gave the system extra capacity. So during the Hedge-Ladd steam pipe replacement, chilled water service was extended to Hedge, whence it will connect to Roger Bill.

“It’s an efficient way to do it because it’s one central plant,” says Farnsworth. “The new projects don’t have to pick up their own cooling equipment. And you don’t have to find a place outside each building for the heat rejection portion” — that is, A/C exhaust.

Finally, Farnsworth shares a revelation that he and some colleagues had the other day while standing in a future classroom on the first floor of Hedge, at the end next to Dana Chem. They realized that this classroom will be “unique on campus because it has windows on both sides,” he says. “We have corner classrooms, but we don’t have one that has opposite windows.”

Look one way and there’s the Historic Quad; look the other, and there’s Pettengill. “It’s going to be a cool and unique place.”

Read about a new student residence and the renovation of Garcelon Field. And here are the plans for the renovations of Hedge and Roger Williams halls.

There will be less craning and straining in the name of patriotism when the Bobcats play on the renovated Garcelon Field. At the old grandstand, the flagpoles were atop the press box behind the spectators. So anybody who wanted to gaze at Old Glory during the national anthem had to twist right around to see it. The renovated facility, says project manager Mike Gustin, will feature three flagpoles behind the scoreboard, at the north end of the field by the Residential Village. “Now you’ll just be able to look across the field,” Gustin says. Read more of the news from the Garcelon Field renovation.

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Thunderstorms on July 21 that unleashed torrents of rain and spawned three tornadoes in southern Maine also made their mark, happily minor, on the Hedge/Roger Williams construction site.

Winds, which gusted up to 90 mph in some parts of the state, knocked over 40 feet of the fence around the site. “We called the contractor,” Portland-based Wright-Ryan, “and the superintendent was nearby, and he just came over and put it back,” says project manager Paul Farnsworth.

In non-cataclysmic construction news, the first phase of creating a steel framework within Hedge Hall is all but complete. Steelworkers have a few more pieces of steel to put in, and then it’s just a matter of squaring things up and tightening the bolts, says Farnsworth.

This steel is supporting the structure up to the roof. The next batch of steel for Hedge will support the roof itself, but that won’t happen for a while. In fact, the next steel shipment, due during the second week of August, is bound for Roger Williams Hall.

Also at Hedge, work continues on the foundation for the addition that will face Alumni Walk. Inside the building, workers will drill the hole for the hydraulic piston that will lift and lower the elevator. This requires dangling a chain down inside the new elevator shaft to bear the weight of a big hydraulic drill that will bore the 14-inch-diameter, 39-foot-deep hole.

Over at Roger Williams, masons are reaching the end of the brick work — cleaning and repointing — that has brightened up the building’s facade. (Staring at the spiffed-up walls one morning, Campus Construction Update was pleased to notice, for the first time, decorative courses of Greek key and rope masonry that hadn’t previously been so apparent.) The north and final wall will likely be done by the end of next week.

Speaking of bricks, if you pass the Bill on the east side, by New Commons and Alumni Gym, look closely at the wall. Toward the left, near where the windows have been filled in, look for two slits that have been cut from ground level to the roof.

Once the interior has been shored up, Farnsworth says, that section of wall will be taken right out. Similar to what happened at Hedge, the opening will provide access to an addition.

Farnsworth adds that the folks who build with concrete blocks on this project are all but done. Their last bit of work is on the elevator shaft, which needs just a few more courses of blocks under the roof.

Progress is progressing on the old foundation of Roger Williams. On the inside, the last of the “one-sided walls” — actually a new layer of concrete applied to reinforce an existing wall — was poured this week. Outside, the next couple of weeks will see the end of the dampproofing, drainage work and concrete spraying that will prepare the foundation for the next 50 or 100 years.

Notes from Underground: At Roger Bill, watch for the removal in early August of asphalt pavers on the New Commons plaza near the 1910 Gate. Workers will be excavating for a drainage line that will link to a vault in front of Alumni Gym.

Just behind the fence next to Alumni Walk, a long stretch of new steam line is being welded up. It replaces a line that was in the way of the Hedge addition. The pipe links to a new steam vault at the east end of Hedge.

Also in the world of campus steam, installation of the replacement line between Hedge and Ladd Library should start next week. The pit across the service road will be large, Farnsworth says, to accommodate water and telecom conduits too. The road is closed to vehicle and pedestrian traffic until Aug. 20. Take Alumni Walk or the stairs under Ladd if you need to cross campus east or west, Farnsworth advises.

Two old abandoned steam lines at Roger Williams, in the meantime, are coming out, a process necessitating asbestos abatement. And the campus’ very oldest steam line, in case you were wondering, has also been consigned to fond memory. Scheduled for September completion, workers are replacing this pipe that connects Lane and Pettigrew halls — hence the recent commotion near Lake Andrews.

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Read this week’s news about the Garcelon Field renovation.

John Hinshaw, a visiting instructor in the history department at Bates, is also a visiting scholar with the Institute for Studies in International Education at the University of Pittsburgh for 1995-96.

A consultant for “Struggles in Steel: The History of African-American Steelworkers,” a documentary film to be released later this year, Hinshaw is the author and editor of numerous publications concerned with race, ethnicity and labor history, including the forthcoming book he co-edited with Paul LeBlanc, “U.S. Labor in the Twentieth Century: Studies in Fragmentation and Insurgency” (Humanities Press, 1997).

Hinshaw received master’s and doctor’s degrees from Carnegie Mellon University. His bachelor’s degree is from Macalaster College.