Word: mcshain
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...Real Dinger. Back in the main lobby, Truman said he had frightened the builders (John McShain Inc. of Philadelphia) into putting up a new chandelier. The old one looked like a livery-stable lantern, and he threatened to knock it down with a baseball bat if they put it up again. The state dining room is also getting a new chandelier, he said-a real dinger...
Last week, when the 15 bids were opened for the contract to renovate the White House, at a cost of $4,160,000 plus a fixed fee, McShain was the winner again. The highest bid was a fixed fee of $950,000; the lowest, $100,000, was McShain's. Said McShain: "I figured nobody would go as low as that, so I bid it. I may not make a nickel on it, but I've done so much work in Washington, I just thought I'd like to add the White House...
...Carpenter's Apprentice. McShain, the son of a prominent Philadelphia builder, entered Georgetown University at 19, intending to become a lawyer. But when his father died in John's freshman year, he decided to carry on the business. For three years he worked on the job with his employees, learning to be a carpenter ("That's what a builder really is"). At night he went back to the office to study bookkeeping and estimating. In 1930 he got his first chance-the Philadelphia Board of Education's $2,100,000 Administration Building. "It looked...
...Master Builder. During World War II he had a peak of $150 million worth of buildings under way at one time, spent a year completing the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park. "Sometimes," says McShain, "there's money in such jobs, sometimes there isn't. But I'd rather break even on a monumental building than make a million on an uninspired warehouse." Nevertheless, McShain did well enough to buy the 600-room Barclay Hotel on Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square, to become part owner of the 400-room Claridge Hotel in Atlantic City...
...McShain now has $100 million worth of buildings under contract, including Washington's $21.6 million General Accounting Office and the $16.8 million Clinical Health Center. He has just completed the $3.8 million Du Pont Circle underpass. On the White House job, he has to contract to complete it in 660 calendar days. He feels sure he can do it, though he won't have room to use more than 300 workers at a time. His big worry: dodging the souvenir hunters...