Walking from one end of the American Tobacco Historic District to the other, from Pettigrew Street on the North to the Durham Freeway on the South, the sounds of heavy equipment command one's attention.

The rumble of diesel engines is punctuated with the beeping horns that project warning sounds when machinery is in motion. This is especially so to warn those nearby when the equipment is in reverse, vibrating for the bones of the inner ears for anyone near the construction site.

It is easy for one to be overcome with simply the power of machinery.

But behind all that machinery, large and small, lies the touch of the human hand.

While heavy cranes and excavating equipment are gingerly guided by nimble fingers with a delicate touch, there is so much else that is also accomplished throughout all the construction processes by the human hand.

I was struck by this phenomena when I witnessed scaffolding being assembled alongside the Washington Building on the west side of the campus. Workers formed a human chain passing pieces of the scaffolding along the sidewalk adjacent to the building, then stage by stage, up to the roof line of the structure, creating staging areas for workers to stand while they did their reconstructive efforts.

Every single piece that made up such a massive stairway to the roof of the building was handled by so many different workers, by so many different hands. And when that work is complete, the same number of workers, the same number of hands will be required to disassemble the staging.

When future occupants live, work and play in this re-constructed historic complex of buildings, it is my hope that they will be able to understand and appreciate how many human hands made all this possible. Visiting this site on a weekly basis, trekking through all the buildings every week, I am overwhelmed by witnessing the human effort that is making all of this possible.

From the hands that nimbly guide a two hundred ton crane lifting material, to the hands that operate backhoes, bulldozers and excavators, to the hands that use wires and pliers to join pieces of rebar to re-enforce concrete in the walls of the parking deck, from the hands that fit together timbers to rebuild roofs and floors, to the hands that delicately wire electrical panel boxes and air conditioning equipment, to the hands that push pens and pencils across blueprints that are designs for all this work, it is the human hand, not the rumble of diesel engines that is creating the new American Tobacco Historic District.

This project, when completed, will not simply be a massive array of buildings serving different purposes. It will be a space for human activity, created by human hands.