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South End building pulled down like something built out of Legos - very, very tough Legos
By adamg on Sat, 11/25/2017 - 5:18pm
— John Hanzl (author) (@JohnHanzl) November 25, 2017
John Hanzl watched the demolition of a building at East Dedham and Albany streets today to make way for a 650-unit apartment complex. It took three tries.
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Comments
How in the world...
How in the world did they get a permit to do that on Saturday? Thanks to previous abuses of Saturday permits, the South End has a tougher policy than the rest of the city and I can't imagine what the "emergency circumstances" were that they brought to ISD.
Why is Saturday a problem?
If you could explain that, the rest of what you had to say would make a heck of a lot more sense.
Why is Saturday a problem?
Because it's forbidden without prior approval, that's why.
I forget; which Boston neighborhood do you live in?
https://www.cityofboston.gov/Images_Documents/construction_guidelines_tc...
Okay, then
Why is it forbidden?
One would think that it might be a better time if traffic was less problematic in the location of destruction.
In other words, what is the actual problem?
p.s. there isn't anything in that sheet (which I actually am familiar with) that specifically covers this particular sort of knocking down a building in a single pull. I lived in Boston when a number of buildings were imploded - they were all taken down on SUNDAY MORNING.
I'm betting that they had a special permit for this.
Well, according to merker
There’s been an issue with Saturday demolitions.
Also, in the sheet you are familiar with, construction is only to occur between Monday and Friday. Perhaps in the burbs construction like this is a 7 day a week thing, but in Boston we care about quality of life.
I'd tend to agree
that it is ideal to do something this disruptive over a major holiday weekend, when not only is there no regular traffic, a huge chunk of the population is out of town.
So there's a problem because
So there's a problem because it's forbidden, and it's forbidden because there's an issue with it.
Don’t ask me
I don’t live there. Merker must know, though.
Did they interfere with he purchase of
grey poupon?
But of course.
But of course.
It's probably the best time of the week to do it..
1 PM on a Saturday afternoon. The City probably granted a weekend permit because it is the least disruptive time to do it. Very few people are working nearby and most neighborhood residents are up and out by then, including me (I live on East Brookline at Albany). My only regret is that I was 15 miles north at a family event in the suburbs -I would have liked to have seen this in person.
Great video
Great video, nice job!
Part of the tension ...
Was waiting for a bus to pull up.
Are thumbs up coming back?
Because your post needs one.
Maybe ...
The site's been running great the past couple of weeks with the vote stuff turned off (except for yesterday, when I somehow deleted the directory with all the site's config info and UI files and most of the modules that make it run - was a fun time restoring all that). So sometime in the next few days I'll try restoring the vote stuff from scratch - delete the data, reinstall the modules and fire 'em up to see what happens.
TMI? :-)
you're welcome!
It's been painful to watch the old yellow house come down at 75 East Dedham, and then to see these buildings go too.
Although I have to admit, being there when the mechanical building was toppled was nuts. The video doesn't do it justice...
I'm one of three people who live on that entire street - soon to become 1,403 give or take...
Streetview
Awesome video. The building was pretty tall but very narrow -- only about the width of a large single vehicle garage. That explains how they were able to take it down this way. Here's the Google Streetview pre-toppling.
Memories
Sad to see that building go. I worked there for years. Our analytical department was in the space the building lands on, and I had a desk there temporarily after the labs were rendered unusable by the fire in 2005. That tall narrow structure in the middle - the one pulled down - was built in an alley to house the blowers and other mechanicals to service the labs in 575 Albany when the old building was renovated in the late 1990s. It was a beautiful renovation that preserved the big windows and high ceilings - which made for a comfortable working environment.
and
When the mechanical building is pulled down (they must have had to cut the hell out of the supporting structure to do that - that thing was build very solidly) you can eventually see the windows on the top floor of the old brick building, where I had a lab when I first started working there. The roof leaked like an old boot. We would cut up large trash bags and tape them into sluices to guide the rainwater away from our reaction hoods. There was a refrigerator that we were told not to move as it was parked over a cobalt 60 spill from years before. The drain traps were full of mercury. (All those hazards were removed during the renovation.)
Public Transit
That area desperately needs public transit. Albany street backs up with traffic at 4pm daily and will only get worse. Too bad raising the gas tax to pay for public transit isn't supported by the politicians :(