Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - The CN Tower Turns 50: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1677

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

In this 1677th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Jack Mesley, an ironworker who helped build the CN Tower 50 years ago. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Silverwax, Yes We Are Open, Nick Ainis and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Toronto stands on the edge of the Great Lakes that once were an even greater sea. Slowly the layers of silt on the seabed became compressed into rock. Later the towering glaciers of the Ice Age added their weight, compressing and carving the rock till they melted northward, leaving behind them the Great Lakes. Since the glaciers retreat some 10,000 years ago, the rock has been slowly rebounding from their weight, for rock is elastic. Something to keep in mind when building a tower higher than the loftiest of those ancient glaciers. Welcome to episode 1677 of Toronto Mic'd.

Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta! Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta entrees. From Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Yes, we are open! An award-winning podcast from Monaris.

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A podcast and book from Nick Aini's sponsored by Fusion Corp construction management Inc and Ridley funeral home pillars of the community since 1921 joining me today making his Toronto Mike debut is Jack Mesley Jack welcome to Toronto Mike Mike, glad to be here. Thanks a bunch for the invite. Whereabouts do we find you today? I'm at my house. I live very close to Collingwood near Blue Mountain and have an office up this way and

still come into the city when I really need to. So Jack, do you deem Thornbury too small to mention by name that you need to say, say near Collingwood? Thornbury is known to Torontonians. OK, yeah, I know that on a Saturday morning, trust me, there's a lot of people walking around with a coffee. And he want to former Q107 radio star Jeff Woods proudly calls Thornberry home. Yes. Well, yeah, that's right. Okay, I'll start using that. Thornberry near Thornberry is my home that how's that work for you? Much better. Now, let's give some love to Nick

Ienis because Nick Ienis has a podcast called Building Toronto Skyline and he wanted to do an episode about the CN Tower and we decided we needed somebody who worked on the CN Tower 50 years ago and you were our guest on Building Toronto Skyline, so I'm literally poaching you from Nick. So thanks for doing this. Oh, glad to be here. Glad to talk. Glad to talk about the team. And it was great meeting Nick and, you know, I'm going to go out and buy a book and see what he said about our fantastic city.

Now you were an iron worker apprentice working on the CN Tower 50 years ago? That's correct. 50 years ago, I had hair. I had hair. A lot of it. Well, listen, it happens, you know, to the great ones that they lose the hair. But I had a guest I won't name his name, but a rock star guest who was here recently, who has one heck of a wig. Have you considered wearing like a wig? Not a chance. My friends have never let me do that.

Or my wife. Take me back. Actually, before I ask you the obvious question, which is how you end up working at the CN Tower, your name is Jack Mesley. Do you have any relation to former CBC journalist Wendy Mesley? And well, that's amazing. Yes. Wendy Mesley is my first cousin. So my dad and her dad were brothers. Yeah. That's a fun fact. Now, Wendy Mesley has also been on this program. So you're

both FOTMs now, friends of Tronin. She's an awesome lady. Just to watch her for all those years when she was started out as as a good news reporter in the old days. It was and look at how far she went in her career. Awesome. Just awesome. Yeah and here's a fun small world story before we get to the CN Tower which is I mentioned Jeff Woods lives in Thornberry and he was on Q107 for many many years also on Q107 for many many years, Maureen Holloway and Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley currently work together. Oh what are they doing together because Maureen's a famous name as well. Yeah well absolutely and they had a podcast called Woman of Ill Repute, but now I think it's

more of like a substack, like you subscribe to their writing. Okay. Oh, that's good. That's cool. We'll search that. I'd like to do that. Yeah. Thanks. Amazing. Now, please tell me, let's go in the time machine. Tell me how you ended up working on the CN tower 50 years ago long story short Come from a family iron workers My dad and his two brothers got involved with the iron workers in the mid to late 50s by my dad came back from the war in Korea

He was there with NATO's armed, came home and his youngest brother had started ironworking and he talked his next two brothers into ironworking as well. And where they actually started, I should know that, but it was in and around Toronto Hamilton area and then they traveled a lot extensively. They actually worked on the NORAD system, you know, in Hudson Bay, Frobishu Bay. Can you imagine going there in the 50s? Not a chance, but yeah, we're just little guys, my brother and I. So yeah, and we've got a bunch of relatives, Mike, like, I think at one time there was 12 or 15 of us with the same last name in the ironworkers.

So it's in your blood. You know, it's good to have iron in your blood, right? Apparently, not too much of it isn't healthy, but I guess the rest is good. Yeah. Yeah, it was, yeah. So, you know, I came out of high school, wanted to be, wanted to be an architect, actually, and went through high school, you know, with those courses to do that. And then I decided, you know what, that's, that's a lot of that. And then I decided, you know what, that's, that's a lot of years. That's a lot of money. I think I'll just go to work and check it out and see how it goes for a year or so. And yeah, here I am 50 years later. So specifically, it's amazing. And, you know, we'll talk about how they start construction

on the CN tower. They started in 1973. So I guess the construction crews move in February 6th, 1973. A realistic model shows this 1800 foot tower is enough to make King Kong dizzy. Almost 400 feet taller than the Empire State Building, almost 60 feet taller than the present world's title holder, the Austin Kino Tower in Moscow, and twice the height of anything now standing in Toronto. CN denies it was built that height just to be king of the castle. CN president Norman McMillan rationalizes the height by pointing out the number of communications transmitters it must house. CN Tower will provide television transmission capabilities for CBC, CTV, ETV, and cable TV. It will also accommodate all the FM radio channels allocated to the Toronto area,

mobile systems, and of course CN telecommunications. To illustrate the height, a helicopter at the site near Toronto's waterfront flew the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, Donald McDonald, to the point in the sky the tower will scrape. We are right now at 1,805 feet. CN went it alone when CP dropped out of the tower project, but the two companies continue their partnership in developing the surrounding 200 acres into Metro Center, a mammoth development of offices, apartments and recreation facilities that will take a generation to build and eventually double Toronto's downtown area. But the chairman of Metro Toronto, Ab Campbell,

cast some doubts as to whether Toronto's new anti-development reformer politicians will ever approve the rest of Metro Centre. Work on the communications tower is expected to start in a few days. CN will employ a thousand people and spend 21 million dollars to get its place in the sky. Bill Harrington, CBC News, Toronto. When do you join the crews and when do you begin working on the CN Tower? So I started my apprenticeship at the Bank of Montreal, which was then it was in the basement. So we were doing when I started, we were just coming to street level.

That was my my first time there was late December 73, early 74. And I spent most of that summer all the way through till the next Christmas a year. And we got to about the 50th floor and all the time we're on that building, we're watching the CN tower. So, you know, I'm a kid, I'm a kid, I'm thinking, I need to go over there. That's higher than this building, right? And found out the name of the fellow that was a foreman running what they call the Raisin Gang, the guys who were putting the steel together and found him at Christmas and called him and he said, well, kid, come on over and we'll give you a shot. And that was, I think,

I think it was January or February, January of 70, what would that be for 74 and they were already the restaurant level was done Mike so I went there for the I was there when they were putting the sky pod together. So to give some context here so I'm still not born yet Jack so we're in February 1974. I'm in development, okay? I'm under construction. Okay. But in February 1974, the CN Tower is already the tallest structure in Canada. So it sounds like you're watching, you're working on another impressive building and you're watching this tallest structure in Canada being built and you're like, I want to work on that. Yeah, well for sure. You know, we didn't realize then what kind of an icon it was going to be,

you know, now. Like, and we know it's an icon, like, but you know, I just thought, yeah, no, I need to go over there and check that out. And I was working with a fantastic crew. And I was encouraged by the journeyman that I was working with to just go give it a try. If you can get over there and do it. So yeah, it was very fortunate to get to get to and to get to the top of the house. I, I, I called the right guy, apparently. Well, now I need to know you mentioned you didn't know exactly how iconic it was going to be, but you knew this was going to be the tallest freestanding structure in the world. Right. So how much more impressive do you need it to be, Jack? Well, it's hard to leave friends and family, you know, and those guys, I grew up, you know, they were the first crew that

I started my apprenticeship with. So, you know, they, they were part of my life for a long, long time. And, you know, I could still name their name. So, right. It was hard to leave there. And I was very fortunate to get accepted because I'm sure there were a lot of other guys looking to go there. And know being in the family family name sort of helped too right. I bet all those Mezzlies working on working around did you call I think I wrote it down what you called it did you call it the Raisin Gang? Raising yeah raised it but we did do that you know the raising gang thing uh no raising gang so that's actually the crew that puts the steel up so in our industry there's you know the guys that you see actually taking the steel

from the crane putting it in place you know putting their wrenches in putting the bolts in cut the piece loose and go get another piece. That's, that's what most people see as an ironworker. But there's so many other there's welders, there's bolting crew, there's the the survey crew, there's you know, all the skilled trades are involved. And it's an awesome industry. Now I was reading about you and that you were one of the riggers who is known as free walkers. Oh, yeah. So what does that mean?

Free walkers? I don't know where that free walker thing comes from. But in the old days, there wasn't fall protection. So you know, we we now have legislation in place since the early 90s when it was mandated that we had to have fall protection when you were working at heights. So now it's called WALL. So working at heights, you have legislation, you actually have to be trained, you have to take courses on working at heights. You know, there were a lot of fatalities in some industries where there were a lot of fatalities in some industries where we're

falling from heights and we still are. We just got to do a better job at it. And in our industry, I think we did a fantastic job of adopting that fall protection. But in those days, there wasn't fall protection. Like you look at pictures, you know, the ironworkers only have a tool belt on like, and a hard hat. So yeah, it was, it was interesting. So we sort of, I guess we did sort of walk free of, you know, of all that fall protection equipment that we wear now. Yeah, like we climbed the tower, like, yeah.

So okay, I almost in a moment, I'm gonna have you walk me through like a typical day, because I'm trying to understand exactly what you iron workers are doing up there. But were there any casualties? Did anybody die in the construction of the CN tower? You know, in our world, no, but there was a fatality On a windy day. I believe it was a surveyor or a project manager was on the ground and A piece of plywood blew up knocked him down. He hit his head and he died Unfortunately, he died No, sorry to hear about the fatality. That's one too many, but it is amazing that you freewalkers because I'm thinking, you know, I am workers, iron workers, not free.

I know. I think I'll blame the Toronto Star for that freewalkers nonsense. Because I'm reading that Toronto Star article and they're putting quotes freewalkers and I'm like, oh, that must be like a term. But you're telling me, no. Well, you know, walking free, I guess makes you a free walker. Yeah. Anyway, like today, we were pretty free, Mike. So I'm gonna have you walk me through a typical day, but I got to understand. I'm assuming once you're up at those heights working and you're not tethered or anything, it must be awfully windy. It's amazing you guys weren't just blowing off this sand tower. Yeah, it was. Yeah, windy is a yeah, well we had a lot of days shut down because of wind, but there were other projects to do. You know, we could, we could actually go back down inside the tower.

They're more than just putting up the antenna, more than just building a sky pod. I mean, there's, you know, you can walk from ground to restaurant, well, ground to sky pod in a stairwell. So somebody had to put those stairwells in, right? The stairs. So lots of rigging in there, the slip form. Yeah, there were things, lots of activities where we could go down and do things where we didn't need to use the crane. Follow-up work, bolting, welding, you know, that kind of thing. Now, okay, so walk me through a typical day. I'm just curious, a typical day for Jack Mesley 50 years ago as you're working on what would be the world's tallest

freestanding structure. Why? I wish I had wrote it all down, Mike. But yeah, so morning starts, you know, it's an elevator ride, a long elevator ride. It's an old rack and pinion. So they had construction hoists or construction elevators and the crews got in the elevators. Now you have to remember too,

there were crews that were on night ships coming down and crews going back on day ships going up. So really quite a busy place and staggered ships. Even then we had staggered shifts so everybody could get to where they needed to go. Elevator ride to the 1500 foot level, which was basically the restaurant-ish kind of thing somewhere between the five floors of restaurant and the roof. Then there was another like a hoist. We could call it an elevator, but it ran on cables. It was a small cage. I think two or three of us could get in it at a time. There was an operator that we looked at, or radio, I can't remember. I think we could look at them. And it went to the sky pod level, so another two or three

hundred feet up on the outside of the tower. And then drop you off at the sky pod and start to erect steel on the sky pod. So all that steel came from the ground to some of it came to the roof of the restaurant, like as a staging area, then it got picked up from there and actually put into place by the connectors that were that were in that crew. Now, how long would it take you to get to the top where you needed to do your work? She's, you know what, I don't I don't remember that far back. I don't know, probably half an hour, an hour, like to get where you need it to be.

So yeah, okay. So like, maybe an hour up and then an hour down. That's two hours. So is it fair to say once you're up there, you're up there for the entire shift. Oh, yeah We didn't know. Yeah, there was no comment. There was no coming down from there You'd go and try and find a place where you could get warmed up when you needed to but no you didn't get it There was no coming to the ground till quitting time. That's for sure And how long was a typical shift like are these like and we were 10? I think we're 10 or 12 hour days. We were 12 hour days.

Yeah. Could you make coffee up there? No, you packed what you were going to have. Yeah, there was, yeah, there was no coming down. And like, okay, when you needed, you know, when nature called what you had buckets or something. Yeah, there were, there were some, there was some rudimentary,room facilities to do what nature called. Okay. Now, you mentioned you weren't aware of how iconic it would be. When you're with the workers

on that length of time, you're building this tower. I'm just curious for a sense of the camaraderie. Like, did you guys realize you're a part of history? Oh, yeah, I think I think we all knew what we were building. That's for sure. And you know, I was I was an apprentice. So in those days, apprentices didn, it was interesting. But, you know, we were all a team. It was like, I think it's just every day showed up, went to work, trusted each other, had some fun, went out a couple of beers and started again tomorrow. I think that's how life was then and I think it's pretty similar to the way life is for us as ironworkers now even. Yeah.

Okay, we're going to talk soon. We'll talk about what you're up to these days. For sure I know you're the president of the Ontario Erectors Association, but 50 or still 50 years ago. What a time to be alive. So now I'm curious about Olga. What can you tell us about Olga and what your role would be when Olga, the Sikorsky helicopter is bringing the antenna into place.

Yeah, so before the antenna, so after the sky pod was, steel was erected, the next step was to take the crane down and it was a big crane, like big hoist, you know, it had to go to the ground and back up. Basically, you had to have three or 4,000 feet of cable on it to go up and down. That was the first phase. Then once we dismantled it, it got on the ground.

Then it was time to start the antenna. So I remember going to the island airport as a crew that was going to be involved with erecting the antenna and taking the crane down. And we met the three pilots over there. They had, I think the crane, the helicopter, it's basically a crane, it came in a plane. They didn't fly it. I think it was dismantled and came in a plane and then got flown from somewhere to the island airport and we went to meet the pilots and went through some procedures with them. That's when Paul, he was going to be the guy that talked

to the pilot and the crane operator in the helicopter. And we went through some procedures with them and then they came and flew over to the base of the CN tower and landed. And we talked to all the ground crew that was there that was going to be working with it to you know to pick up the pieces that came up and all those pieces they were like they were like cans so if you're going to picture a five-sided can of one inch plate or more and lots of bolts and in segments that the helicopter could actually um pick up and take up with other ancillary like it had that bolt so the bolts were inside the can when it came up so we had bolts to finish erecting before we could direct the next piece we could finish bolting it and so we met the pilots that was quite an interesting thing they They were all Vietnam vets.

Helicopter was huge. I remember the props. The prop wash was a 70 or 65 miles per hour. So I'll say 100k down wash on Tapia. So like when it came over Tapia, you knew it was gonna like, it was windy and it generated static electricity. So we had to ground the can that we had, we called the wand and you had to hook the wand onto the can so you didn't get shocked from the static electricity when you grab the piece. Yeah, so you actually touch the piece, like it's not, it just doesn't fly over and drop it on there.

It's windy, it's loud, you can't talk. You can't talk to anybody beside you, it's all hand signals. We were hand signaling Paul, he's talking to the helicopter pilot. So go back to the helicopter. So it capacity is around 20,000 pounds, so 10 tons. It has a hoist in the back of it because it looks like a giant dragonfly, right? And it has a hoist under the belly and there's a pilot sitting in a bubble behind. He's the crane operator. And then there's two pilots in the helicopter, a co pilot and a pilot and all three of them can talk to Paul, we

can't talk to Paul, which is strange to me that we didn't all have like, but in those days, what technology? Are you kidding? So when we when our first pick, you know, tell the story is not but our first pick was to take the boom out of the crane, which was a big boom was probably 150 foot boom, horizontal boom, like a big tower crane, like you see on all the condos, it doesn't look it doesn't go up and down. It stays horizontal. So it doesn't loft. It's a big boom. So engineers figured out center center

gravity. We went up early, early, you know, before the helicopter got there, did some of the dismantling that we need to do. We took smaller pins out, or took the main pins of the boom out, put small pins in. So theoretically, when the crane came, it'd be easier just to knock them out the way it went. We took the cables that hold the boom in place, we put smaller pins in there. We got a lot of stuff ready and I remember it was quite a day Mike, the first day to have that, you know, there was no trial run. That helicopter didn't come up and hover over us and we figured it out. It was like day one, this is what you're doing.

There was no practice. Yeah, it was a wild ride. There's no dress rehearsal. It's a, we're doing this. We're going, we're doing it live. Yeah, we did. We did it live. I remember they evacuated the tower.

There was no other workers. We went up way too early in the morning, I think it was still March, so it was cold. We were doing a max max pick so all the maximum capacity the helicopter could handle. They actually had limited fuel on board because they had to have that capacity. It wasn't as smooth as we would have liked it to have gone, trust me. We actually had to cut some of the crane apart and the helicopter had, I don't know, 10 or 15 minutes of fuel left. Otherwise, it would have been catastrophic. So yeah, we were very fortunate to, and in those days, the world didn't know that it was just the smoothest thing that ever happened. Well, that's why you're here. We're getting the real talk, but it sounds like you, it's always a good idea to have

a plan B. Yeah. The plan B was to run and hide if we're running out of fuel because they would have cut it loose. Yeah, that's plan C. Come on. The helicopter wasn't crashing, trust me. Come on, Jack. That's plan C, okay? That's plan C. No, we were, yeah, we were organized as we could be and we had a fantastic team. And I think there was 10 of us up there, basically some guys around the tower crane itself and

some of us up on the boom and the mast. You can see those pictures. The journeyman ironworkers that I was working with were super skilled. They knew what was going on. And yeah, it was, I think, I think it. I think that was probably the most amazing part other than the top of the last piece. Right. So did you guys refer to this giant Sikorsky helicopter as Olga? Like, is that what you guys referred to the helicopter

as? Yeah, that was her name. She had a name just like a boat and planes. That was her name. It was Olga. ass? sure if they counted the damper and all of that kind of stuff in there, some ancillary stuff that went on, but 39 picks. Yeah, I guess that's probably how many cans there were, but we did more lifts, you know, taking the crane down there's probably 10 or 12 of those, and the tower sections had to come out. The helicopter hovering like a giant dragonfly continues the unusual airlift, depositing her cargo of steel section by section atop the steadily growing tower. The Olga will make a total of 56 lifts. As the forward pilot maneuvers the craft into position, the aft pilot guides the sections into place with pinpoint accuracy.

The men must work quickly. Olga's flights are locked into a tight schedule dictated by the movement of passenger trains far below. Working to this schedule, she's managed as many as three lifts in less than 15 minutes. In less than 30 days, helicopter and tower crews would accomplish what would have taken six months. Yeah, yeah, you're bringing back memories now, boy. Well, Jack, it's just amazing that you pulled it off, right? Like, what an ambitious vision. And again, like you said, the story is written that it was smooth as silk, and here we are learning that, you know, it was as smooth as silk could be. But, you know, you got to give credit to that. There was an engineer that came up with this dream that worked for Canron, engineer that came up with this dream that worked for Canron and young guy, brilliant guy, worked with him for years. His name was Jerry Morrill and he came up with the plan

and the design and all the work that went on in the art and the crews that tried to figure out how it was going to happen and how do you get a can on top of the can and not have it slip off so there was these big ears and we had smaller bolts to connect it with so we didn't have to worry about pinning it and everything while the helicopter was still holding on like there was a lot of planning like like way more planning than I ever knew as a 19 year old trust me I know now how much planning went into this so well as an apprentice there they weren't going to let you plan anything. No, the only thing they let me plan was how to climb up inside there and stick a boulder,

bolt, or a pin or something in a hole. And you mentioned Canron. So is that who was paying you during this work? Yeah. Canron erected the restaurant level and the pod and the antenna. And I worked for them for a long time. Okay. So you mentioned March. We should just remind people it was March 1975, and that's why we're talking about 50 years. So all this work is happening in March 1975. It all finishes on April 2nd, 1975. So almost exactly 50 years ago, 50 years ago this month. I'm just going to remind people, people know this, but 553 meters, which if you don't speak metric, that's 1815. So 1815 feet. And of course, here's my question, Jack, I have a few more, but you know how you are you an NFL fan? Oh, yeah. Okay. You know how there's a Miami Dolphins team that had a perfect season? Yeah. Oh,

yeah, I was around for that. Right, of course. Markary Morris, Larry Zonka, Bob Greasy. So every season, those who are still with us, they celebrate when a team has their first loss, okay? Because they take such great pride that they're the only

undefeated team in NFL history. There was a Tom Brady team that they're the only undefeated team in NFL history. There was a Tom Brady team that lost in the Super Bowl that was on their way to an undefeated season and then they got upset by the Giants, I think. So yeah, so here's my question. I think you know, or maybe you know where I'm going, but the CN Tower was the world's tallest freestanding structure until 2009. And I am curious, I need the real talk on this

Jack when you learned in 2009 that the Burj Khalifa in Dubai was taller than the CN Tower were you upset like were you ticked off not a chance I just wish I had been there to work on it you're're a better man than me, Jack. I'd be pissed off. Yeah, and you know what? God bless all those guys that work there because, yeah, they know what it's like. It's windy. It's not cold. It's super hot there, you know. So you got to give them credit for everything that went on there. Like what a fantastic project and the technology that they have now for elevators and staging equipment and because you don't have enough cable to go to the ground on your crane. So they had to stage everything.

Like oh it's the planning's fantastic. Yeah I've got yeah I got to say congratulations to all of them. 2009, I was a lot smarter than 1973. Trust me. Okay. So now it's interesting because off the top, I referenced Nick Aini's podcast, which is called Building Toronto Skyline. We talked to, I think it's Pinnacle. We talked to the people building the skyscraper at One Young Street.

Oh, yeah. And the penthouse is going to be the same height as the observation deck of the CN Tower. Yeah. Which is amazing. Yeah. It's a very cool project. It's too bad it got delayed the way it did. But I have a good friend that owns the company that's erecting the curtain wall.

And they're just getting going at it hard right now. So it's a very cool project. I've talked to him about going to visit and I'll have a walkthrough with him. So we'll see. Yeah. Great job. Very cool.

So just before we leave the CN Tower in 50 years ago, I'm just wondering, I hear about how it can, it sways up there of the wind and then, and just, was there anything like, I mean, I'm sure there were several things, but anything you can share that was unique about this particular structure? It's, it was so, well, so tall, but obviously, but it's so unique. I'm just wondering what, you know, what had to be considered that maybe the average person wouldn't be aware of? Well, it's made to move. It's made to move. There's actually two big rings

inside what you look at in the antenna now. It's covered in a and what we call it plastic, but it's it's covered in an epoxy. So there's air that runs between the steel portion of the antenna and what you see on the outside because it's shielded for frost, snow, ice, all that stuff. So it's heated in there, but inside there, Mike, there's two dampers, they call them dampers. So they're big rings that hang inside on the antenna and they're filled with lead sheets

because we couldn't lift it all at once. So the ring came up and the sheets come up and then they loaded the ring. So it works as a damper. So it swings opposite direction that the wind is blowing in there. So when we were erecting it, oh, the tower moved for sure. Like you could sit on top of the cannon, it would move a couple of feet in the wind. Like it just, you know, swaying like sitting in a boat.

You know, you're sitting in a boat, you get a wave and you're just sorta, yeah. Yeah, windy. And when you sat on the top, like I have a photo in the house, I think my kids all have the photo in their houses too, of you know, standing on the top of the antenna holding on to the lightning rod. And you could feel that baby moving like, yeah, I moved a couple of feet, 18 inches, 24 inches for sure.

Well, that's significant. Like that's a lot of sway Well, if it didn't move it at break, right? So it needs to move or to break So it's made to move. So do you have that this photo? That's you that's your your kids have and you have this photo of you up there oh There's a couple of them. Yeah, but this one is on top of the well Can you can you send me like could you email me your favorite photo of you up there? Yeah. Yeah sure I can do that. There's no electronic so it's gonna be like a

Scan or a photograph or something like that. Okay, whatever you have I can get it to you for sure That'll be the photo. I I tie to this episode I think that's totally right. And I'm going to ask you a moment about, you know, I'm going to share a few my thoughts on the CN Tower because I'm 50 years old so I don't know Toronto skyline without the CN Tower. So I'll tell you how I feel and then how you feel 50 years later. But I find it interesting that you finished that CN Tower in April 1975, 50 years ago, but the public opening is June 26, 1976.

Do you have any idea why there's over a year gap between completion and opening? Oh, they had to finish it. Okay, okay. So for concrete, put windows in drywall, finish elevators, lighting, you know, safety, safety checks. Yeah, like it's much work after we leave. Like we, we build a high rise tower now, like, like 160 Front Street just finished, right? So that I'm using that as a new example, because that was one of the last steel structures that went off office towers, like, so steel does commercial, mostly commercial because they want open space, right, so you get 80 feet of open space, you can put your office wherever you want to residential like condos, they do smaller spans more walls And they then they have to go in and finish everything as well So you build the tower you build the steel you take your take the crane sound normally and then all the other finishing trades

Come in takes at least a year, you know HVAC drywall flooring tile Walls wallpaper, you know, everything, right? That makes it. And then they have to move in furniture. Right. So yeah. Okay, I guess it all is the definition of the word finished. So the CN Tower is finished on April 2nd, 1975, but you still got to paint the thing. You got to paint it. You got to put drywall in. You you gotta build the kitchen so you can do the revolving restaurant, remember? Of course. It was one of the first revolving restaurants, remember in the 70s or 80s, that was the coolest thing. You got to get the full 360 of the city, not much to look at

in the city in those days, trust me. Well, York was probably, well, other than the two TD towers, probably, well, other than the two TD towers, there were only two then. And the Bank of Montreal, BMO, it was only at 50 floors. Commerce Court, I don't know what they call that now. Commerce Court, is it still called? I think so. Bank of, yeah. So, King of Bay was nothing what it looked like now, what it looks like now. I mean, we built the podium there for the banking podium. We built another high rise just just one street over the convention center. Then we did two more TD towers. Well, we did Roy Thompson Hall. Yeah, like

Roy Thompson Hall, like the Sky Dome, Air Canada, Scotiabank Arena. Yeah, you just walk down the sidewalk and play in the stuff and I get accused of that. My kids say, Dad, you didn't build everything. All right. So this leads to my question. So I wanted a quick question. Were you at the grand opening in June 1976? Of the tower?

Of the CN Tower, yeah. No, I don't think so. I was actually, I can't remember where exactly it was in 76, but we left the tower, a gang of us left the tower. Some of us went to another project in the city. I went north for a few months and then I ended up that year at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Yeah. That's another episode. Okay, maybe they call that the big O so I think they still owe you money on that. They still owe somebody money I'll tell you why I don't want to get into politics but it was still a super project Mike like you know now I'm 20 I'm driving down the road to Montreal and you know what there's a Montreal is a

pretty cool city in So looking back 50 years later, firstly I guess again I can't believe I'm talking to somebody who was up there working on this 50 years ago, Jack, so thanks for doing this. But like where do you go from there? I know the Olympic Stadium is another exciting project and but once you're working as a young young apprentice you're doing the world's tallest structure. Is it, is that sort of like, how do you get that high? No pun intended, or maybe I do intend this pun, but how do you find that high again? Like how do you go on and get impressed by your projects when that's where you started

almost? Well, you know, like I think, I think you're just chasing're just chasing the jobs, just chasing the projects. And you know, there's other fantastic jobs that we did in the city. I mean, walk around there and look at what's been built. It's awesome what's been built. And they're all unique in their own way. We did work in the subways underground. I went up north and worked underground. We did gold mines and nickel mines.

What's going on over there,? Is that a you got is that an alarm? Yeah no yeah it was a FaceTime from my actually my son. I'm turning them off there you go. Well you got to take that okay. You know everything everything we did and and it I was an apprentice, so I was pretty, in those days an apprentice was low on the scale of, so you get humbled pretty quickly, doesn't matter where you work, right? And you had to go to school, like I had to go to school, had a great group of friends, a great crew that we worked with, you know, that sort of traveled around in the city while I was an apprentice. Once you're a journey person, you can get out of Dodge when you want to, leave town, go and work wherever you need to go and work.

And I did that. And then, you know, I met my wife and she sort of makes you grounded, right? Their very wives are, they can humble you in five seconds, right? So, 45 years later, I'm still being humbled. So, Jack, amazing. How many kids you got? I got two. I have a, my daughter turned 42 yesterday and she's headed to the city with her man for her birthday. And I have a 40 year old son and I have two grand, two

grandkids. Um, and we're, we're lucky that they're all close where we live here. They're all our daughter lives in Collingwood. Our son lives near Thornberry. And yeah. Amazing. Yeah. So when you're when you're downtown or you only have to be downtown, so maybe I'll start with this. That I don't I don't know our skyline without the CN Tower. Like it's always been this like this beacon. Like and I I bike this city like crazy and you can see it from everywhere you can see it from so far away like it's just the CN tower is visible yeah Mike we can see Niagara Falls you can see the mist from Niagara Falls across the lake on a clear morning. You could go up on the tower and we could look across on top of the clouds. There were mornings where there were only two cranes sticking out of the clouds and that was

the two cranes that were on the Bank of Montreal. There are pictures of that. I got to meet Horace Remo, the famous photographer for the Toronto Star. He gave cameras to people to take pictures. It is awesome if you search some of the pictures that he took in the star. And then we had an old guy, I wish I could remember his name. He came up with this camera. He would take pictures and sell them for 25 cents. So if you were working, he'd take a picture and you had to give him a quarter, right? And he'd come back the next day with an envelope full of pictures. So you'd give him like five bucks, you'd get 20 pictures. I wish we had all those pictures.

Trust me. He was, he was a great old guy. So when you see the CN Tower, are you able to show any restraint or do you have to tell your grandkids, your kids and just say, I built that? No, they all know the kids, the kids told me, grandpa, that's a nice tower. And we're going to a hockey game or a football or a baseball game, right? Going to a baseball game. Grandpa, they have $1 hot dogs today, right? It's Tuesday. Can we go get some? They've been up there. They get it. Maybe one day

when they're older, you know, doesn't matter, Mike. Like it, we know, we know the guys, the guys, and there weren't many women in there, but I'm sure there were a few involved. The guys know who did that work. And we probably need to have a reunion while I'm sitting here talking to you. And we can do that because we're unionized contractor. So the unionized contractor pays and the guys get their pensions and benefits from the pension benefit office so they know who's alive and who's dead right so if we could find them and that would be super cool well that's a great idea because the you know we mentioned the grand opening was june 1976 which means next june is the 50th anniversary

of the grand opening to the public that would be a great time to have this reunion. It would be. All right, CN Tower should do something about this. Okay, so looking back, final thoughts, Jack, and then we'll touch base on what you're up to these days. I got to know what the Ontario Erectors Association is, but you have a, I guess I'm curious for the sense of pride you must have, especially on this 50th birthday, when there's so much attention on the CN Tower, like the awareness of this, this vision. What pride do you have? And do you feel like Toronto today has the same ambition, the same vision it had in the 70s to build such a unique and wonderful structure? Well, that's a lot of questions, Mike. You know, I'm old, I only have so much retention.

All right, so first start with the any sense of pride? Yeah, I think when you look back, it's not the height of the building, and it is, I guess, but like, people build stuff. And we're so fortunate, we get to build cool stuff. We do. Our industry gets to build cool stuff. Whether it's the, you know, 7 million square feet of a battery plant or you know the longest bridge, suspension bridge in North America, you know down at the Gordie Howe. I think but it's the people. It's the people. That's

what it is. People build cool stuff and owners of construction companies take big risks and spend their money and build cool stuff. We build cool stuff. And you know, the crew on the CN tower and hopefully even today, the crew shows up every day, Mike, every day, just like you do. You get up in the morning, you put your mic on, your headphones on, you say, okay, who am I going to talk to today? But the crew shows up every day. Trust is so big. You have to know what your partner's doing, what your, because everybody's joined up.

You have to know what your crew is doing. You have to know what the plan is. And you just get the work done. I think that's the whole story right there, buddy. The whole story. In 2025, does Toronto have it in itself to build something as ambitious and visionary as the CN Towers? Yeah, I think so. Like, look what we're doing at the

portlands at the bottom of the river there. And look at those cool bridges, you know, the super cool painted bridges. And if you're a bike rider, you're riding there all the time. And you know, as much as you know, Ford's a little bit sketchy on what's going on at Ontario place. Could be, could be cool. Could be a cool place to go. Think we need to get rid of the airport. This is my political thing. We need to get rid of the airport and build a park. And we need a steel bridge. You know, I feel bridge to the island. Jack, that's what I've been touting. I want to be able to bike to the island.

Okay. I have a motorcycle so I could ride over there. I have a kayak. That's how I got to get there. There you go. We have a you got to know I have Mike, I have two kayaks hanging in the garage like we live in Thornbury, Beaver River, the you know, we fish we hunt we you know, that kind of stuff. And you're, that kind of stuff.

And you're also the president of the Ontario Erectors Association. What the heck is that, Jack? Okay, so we're an employer bargaining agency. That's what we do. So I represent, there's probably 300 specialty steel contractors in Ontario. So all those steel buildings, all those warehouses, everything is sealed, see that steel, that's one of our contractor association, member of our contractor association.

We're associate members with the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction. So, you know, they're the engineering group that build all that, we're the guys that put it up. So, and we're mainly in 1979 or 70 1980, the provincial government mandated that the contractor associations had to bargain with the unions with all the skilled trade building trades unions. So, iron workers, sheet metal workers, carpenters, pipe fitters,

sprinkler fitters, sheet metal, roofers, there's a bunch of them. And right now, May 2025, we're in negotiations with our friends in the union. And I sit at the table, I represent our contractors. I sit on the contractor side and we negotiate with our friends in the union for the ironworkers and the operating engineers, so crane operators. We're bargaining with them right now. Hopefully we don't have a strike. Well, here's hoping, but that's you've been at it over 50 years. Any plans to retire so you can do

more kayaking and hiking and fishing? Rosie says I can retire, but she's not sure where I'm going to live. So yeah, I don't know. We'll see how it goes. I'm still a happy guy. I still like doing what I'm doing. I love the industry. Yeah, it's good. Well, I hope you get that reunion going for next June. And thank you so much for this.

I loved revisiting what we did 50 years ago. And I got to say, you build a hell of a tower, man. I love seeing it on my rides. It's a beacon of a beacon of this city, and it's important to all us Torontonians. So good job there, buddy. Very cool. Yeah, I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me. It was, it's love. I love telling stories, just my kids and my friends don't wanna hear them anymore. Well, a lot of people are gonna hear it now. So Jack Mesley, thanks for this and happy 50th birthday to the one time world's tallest freestanding structure, the CN Tower. Thanks for having me, Mike.

And that brings us to the end of our 1,677th show. Go to torontomike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. Much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery. They're hosting us on June 26th for TMLX 18. Everyone is invited. 30 Queen Elizabeth Boulevard from 6 to 9 PM. Be there.

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She was on Degrassi. She bakes. And you won't believe which FOTM she's dating. See you all then. So So I'm going to go ahead and get the So The So You