I happened to come upon the Wikipedia page for wrecking ball. (Why? I was doing some superfluous Mafia Wars research).
Lo and behold, of all the wrecking balls in the world to use an illustration, this page uses a photo of a wrecking ball in Durham, NC.
What an honor for the Bull City!
Freaky. Did you send this to Gary at Endangered Durham?
Sorry, it isn’t a wrecking ball. It’s a picture of a hook and overhaul ball assembly. An overhaul ball usually weighs in the range of 35 lb to 1,500 lb, much smaller than the 1,000 lb to 18,000 lb of a wrecking ball. Its purpose is to provide the downfall weight that keeps the crane’s lifting rope from kinking when there’s no load on the hook and the rope is being payed out from the drum. The image has since been dropped from the Wikipedia site and replaced with that of a real wrecking ball in use; unfortunately, it’s in Chicago, Illinois, not Durham, North Carolina.