Performance Story

Andrew Noerr

Feature Writing

27 January 2014

                                                    Building A Better Balboa Street

            Calm and composed, a Hispanic man wearing a yellow safety vest watches a batch of oozing cement spread into a long crevice in the ground. This occurs during a foggy afternoon on Balboa Street between 34^th and 35^th Avenues. With a focused demeanor, the construction worker speaks swiftly in Spanish to his co-workers and then goes to work. He starts by shoveling blackened dirt over the now unmoving cement until the gap is completely covered. Once this task concludes, the man stops to help direct a 31 Balboa Muni bus weave its way around the construction site. He then decides to broom some loose gravel into the crevice, and he does this in the inadequate space that he has been given to complete his task. Dust and loud noises are seemingly ubiquitous. Tractors, traffic cones, and other workers cram the Hispanic man into a small space to work, and yet he fulfills his duties.

            Later, the construction worker notices that the cement and dirt are hardening, so he takes a broom and pats down the soon-to-be concrete meticulously until every little spot is covered. His hard work for the day looks to be ending until he notices a sewer hole elevated above the crevice at the end of the block. After he gathers information from a seemingly higher authority on the site, the Hispanic man brooms more blackened dirt around the sewer hole until it is totally surrounded. He shares a chuckle with his co-workers and calls it a day.