The girder was the beam that held the floor. A piece of steel or iron rolled into an I-shape and bolted across the top of the columns. The girder carried everything. The floor. The furniture. The people. The piano on the third floor that had not moved since 1920. The girder did not care what you put on it. The girder held it all and said nothing. The girder was the building's spine.

The girder was riveted. Before welding there were rivets and before rivets there were bolts and the rivets were driven hot. A man heated the rivet in a forge until it was cherry red and threw it to the man on the beam and the man on the beam caught it in a bucket and drove it into the hole with a pneumatic gun. The rivet cooled and shrank and the shrinking pulled the plates together tighter than any bolt. The weld replaced the rivet because the weld was faster. Faster is not the same as tighter.

The girder was visible. In the old buildings the girder ran across the ceiling and you could see it. The I-shape was honest. The flanges and the web were the engineering on display. The girder said I am holding the floor and here is how I do it. The modern building hides the girder above a dropped ceiling. The dropped ceiling is a lie. The lie says there is nothing up there. There is a girder up there. The girder is the most important thing in the building and the building is embarrassed by it.

The girder sang. When the building moved in the wind the girder flexed and the flex was a vibration and the vibration was a hum. The tall buildings hummed on windy days. The girder was the building's vocal cord. The concrete building does not hum because the concrete does not flex. The concrete building is rigid and the rigid building does not sing. A building that does not sing is a building that does not talk to the weather. The weather is the only conversation worth having.

They pour concrete now. The girder gave way to the reinforced concrete beam and the concrete beam is cheaper and fireproof and the concrete beam does not rust and the concrete beam does not sing and the concrete beam does not care what you put on it either but the concrete beam never held a rivet and a rivet is a handshake between two pieces of steel. Every rivet was a decision made by a man on a beam four hundred feet in the air. The concrete is poured by a truck. The truck does not make decisions. The truck pours.

See also: Joist, Rafter