Some Inside Info
John here, from Tech Superpowers. I spent some time yesterday talking with the demo foreman, and learned some interesting things. First, that Tonka-looking excavator - it weighs about 50 US tons (40 metric tons), and I can personally tell you it's capable of moving pretty quickly. Obviously, the arm and grappler are hydraulic; the lines run at 5,000 psi, and when it's revving, it moves over 130 gallons of hydraulic fluid every minute through the system.
Also, as it happens, pretty much the entire building is being recycled. Scrap metal from fire escapes and railings was carted off, and if you've been watching, you'll remember the large timbers all stacked on the right side of the site - those were sent off to a mill to be turned into some pretty large planks, the sort that tables & doors are made of, or that turn up in salvage lots as reclaimed lumber. The building being about 100 years old means that those beams were big in a way we just don't get anymore - there were simply larger trees around then - so those planks will be pretty expensive when they're milled down.
The timbers that can't be reclaimed that way will be ground up & compressed; they'll become wood pellets for wood-burning stoves. And the bricks? The good ones will probably be reclaimed, but most will be ground or crushed, and used in road beds. And in a true sign of the times, it's actually decidedly cheaper to recycle the entire building than it is to send the debris to a landfill.
Another interesting thing about Boston (and I'm sure other older cities) is that we have a lot of sections of town with warnings up about hollow sidewalks. In the finanacial district, there are signs all over saying 'don't park your truck on the sidewalk or you'll fall through,' essentially. Turns out they go back to the time when the city was heated by coal - the chambers were the coal bins for those old buildings. They're maybe 8ft deep, and when the coal trucks would come around, they'd dump straight into the bins under the sidewalk. Then you'd go and shovel it into your boiler, also conveniently located about 8ft below the street. Anyway, Boylston Street has hollow sidewalks, and this morning, as they prepared to take the front wall down, the first order of business was to punch through that sidewalk out front, so that any wreckage that happened to fall forward (they're pulling the building down from the rear, remember) would end up there, instead of out in the street.
Stay tuned for more...
Also, as it happens, pretty much the entire building is being recycled. Scrap metal from fire escapes and railings was carted off, and if you've been watching, you'll remember the large timbers all stacked on the right side of the site - those were sent off to a mill to be turned into some pretty large planks, the sort that tables & doors are made of, or that turn up in salvage lots as reclaimed lumber. The building being about 100 years old means that those beams were big in a way we just don't get anymore - there were simply larger trees around then - so those planks will be pretty expensive when they're milled down.
The timbers that can't be reclaimed that way will be ground up & compressed; they'll become wood pellets for wood-burning stoves. And the bricks? The good ones will probably be reclaimed, but most will be ground or crushed, and used in road beds. And in a true sign of the times, it's actually decidedly cheaper to recycle the entire building than it is to send the debris to a landfill.
Another interesting thing about Boston (and I'm sure other older cities) is that we have a lot of sections of town with warnings up about hollow sidewalks. In the finanacial district, there are signs all over saying 'don't park your truck on the sidewalk or you'll fall through,' essentially. Turns out they go back to the time when the city was heated by coal - the chambers were the coal bins for those old buildings. They're maybe 8ft deep, and when the coal trucks would come around, they'd dump straight into the bins under the sidewalk. Then you'd go and shovel it into your boiler, also conveniently located about 8ft below the street. Anyway, Boylston Street has hollow sidewalks, and this morning, as they prepared to take the front wall down, the first order of business was to punch through that sidewalk out front, so that any wreckage that happened to fall forward (they're pulling the building down from the rear, remember) would end up there, instead of out in the street.
Stay tuned for more...
1 Comments:
Cool reporting. Keep up the good work!
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