Your Turn...
Will Durst begins his building trade adventures in Nashville
with Dawn White, a third year apprentice who used a local union training
program to turn her life around. Dawn thought she'd hit rock bottom when
her son's father died in a car accident eight years ago. With her job experience
mostly based in minimum wage office work, she had to find a better way to
pay the bills. This year she will earn journey-level wages of $20 an hour
and the union has awarded her an academic scholarship fulfilling a life-long
dream to become an engineer. Moving on to the Big Apple, Will takes a ride
up one of Manhattan’s most legendary office towers. With a crew of apprentice
stone masons and second generation bricklayer Dennis Holloway, Will helps
lay the final restored cornerstone on the outside of the 72nd floor of the
Empire State Building. Bringing historic buildings into the twenty-first
century, we follow Dennis on a trek across the Manhattan skyline where he,
his father and many cousins have built new ones and restored the old. Now
Dennis teaches building restoration to young men and women, revitalizing
what used to be a father and son trade.