To make crown molding correctly, plasterers must constantly run a blade across the top of the plaster as it dries. “Turn away for even two puffs on a cig and you’d have to throw the whole thing out — ...

Sometimes, on a nice afternoon, Jeff Poree drives by the Peristyle in City Park, where he and his workers spent three months in 2012, resurfacing every bit of the century-old ceiling and ionic columns ...