Word: schmiedigen
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Dates: during 1949-1949
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...High on a bamboo scaffolding, pudgy, white-haired August Ferdinand Schmiedigen, 66-year-old boss architect of Haiti's International Exposition, dangled a stone on the end of a long string. Then, having shown his sweating black masons that their wall was not plumb, he hopped down to take a rest. "I've never worked so hard in my life," he gasped...
...Since Schmiedigen flew down from New York last November to build the Haitians a $6,000,000 fair, he has lost 30 Ibs. As soon as he began the job, which has to be finished in time for Port-au-Prince's sooth anniversary in December, he discovered that there were practically no skilled workers in the country. He has had to train electricians, plumbers, welders, drillers, mechanics. He has personally supervised carpenters and masons, all of whom were imbued to a man with the Haitian aversion to straight lines and square corners...
...Swamps. By last week the results of Schmiedigen's labors were taking shape along the edge of Port-au-Prince's mountain-girt bay. The exposition with which Haitians hoped to crash the bigtime tourist business would be ready on time. A modern city bloomed on swamps where last year 15,000 Haitians lived in squalor. Between broad, flower-banked avenues stood half a dozen dazzling white official buildings that would serve later as government offices. Pavilions were rising for the U.N., the U.S., nine other countries...
...tourists expected by plane and ship, Schmiedigen was packing in all the Haitian color he could get. Staff artists sculptured likenesses of Haitian beauties, chipped out brilliantly colored linoleum murals recording Haitian history from Toussaint 1'Ouverture to President Dumarsais Estimé. A good third of the grounds was marked as the special Haitian sector. Here earringed women would sell mahogany and wicker, while in a small nearby stadium other Haitians would drum, dance and stage cockfights...
...Budget. President Estimé, gambling about a fourth of his government's revenues on the chance of winning tourist dollars, seemed satisfied with Schmiedigen's creation. The 1,500 workers, singing as they hammered, spoke of it affectionately as "ti exposition pa'nous" (our little fair). The impresario, a veteran of world's fairs in Paris (1938) and New York (1939), was pleased too. "But," he said, "I've given up hoping that a Haitian worker will ever learn to feel when a line is parallel to another line...
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