Another Snowy Day

The Bobcat and yellow excavator were covered with snow when workers first arrived at the Boylston Street site. Today the excavator tore down the last structures at the front of the site and began a sweep-up of the rest of the space. The temperature was 32 degrees when the work began around 7 a.m., and hit a high of just 33 degrees during the day. The time-lapse shows snow flurries at about 10:45 a.m. as the excavator took on the small remaining part of the building at the front-basement level. After that material was loaded up on trucks, the excavator began cleaning up other areas of the site, turning the ground from snowy white to Boston dirt-brown, and finally revealing the flat concrete foundation of the site at some places. By the way, if you look across Boylston Street, you can see another construction site, the location of the future Mandarin Oriental project, which will include a hotel, condos and apartments, along with a plaza and retail development.

First Week is Done!

Well, the first week of demolition work is finished, and today the excavator finally took a swipe at the front wall. There was snow on the ground and the temperature never got above 34 degrees on Friday in Boston. But despite the weather, in the morning wokers pulled down the final section of roof at the front of the building, and then later began knocking down the front wall. You can now see through the empty lot straight out to Boylston Street. If you look closely, you can tell that the excavator is actually one level below the sidewalk on Boylston Street. I expect that more clean-up will occur next week, and perhaps by week #3 or #4 we'll see some foundation work begin. Watch Friday's time-lapse here.

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...

Day #3

Well, I'm not going to blog every single day, but these first ones still carry a bit of the excitement! The excavator has left standing the very front of the building, but the giant claw was still busy loading up semi-sized dump trucks with the debris from previous days. If you watch closely, you'll see the excavator scrape off the brick wall on the left side, closer to the front. They come down in a huge poof of dust. Otherwise, most of the work seemed to be removing debris. Eventually the front of the building has to go! Watch the time-lapse here.

Day #2

Demolition work on Day #2 was much less dramatic than yesterday. The excavator mostly cleared out debris from the back portion of the building that was demolished yesterday, and began working on the last portion of the structure still standing at the front of the lot. Workers are starting around 7 a.m. and knocking off at 3 p.m., which is a typical construction schedule. I've posted a time-lapse video of the first day's demolition, and also a video of today's action. And to keep a closer eye on the Webcam, Antonio has created a Widget that you can download here.

Building Is Nearly Gone

At the end of work on the first day, the existing building is nearly gone! About 7/8ths of the brick and wood structure was torn down, with only 12-15 feet of the first and second stories left at the very front of the lot. Photos show that you can now see through to the Boylston St. side of the lot. Day #2 should see complete removal of the building, and the start of work on the foundation and whatever is beneath it. Check some archived first-day photos here.

Demolition Begins!

A work crew arrived shortly after 6 a.m. (EST) at the back of the store site, and a yellow excavator machine began tearing away at the existing building about 7 a.m. The excavator made quick work of the brick structure, tearing away almost half the building within an hour. Plywood over the windows of adjacent buildings provided protection from flying debris during the work. At this rate, it seems like the site could be entirely cleared off by the end of the week. After that, excavation will begin to prepare the site for the foundation for the building, long before structural steel begins to go up. By the way, the view you're seeing from the Webcam is from the rear of the lot, with Public Alley 442 just below the camera, and Boylston Street at the far end of the lot.

Let The Demolition Begin!

The long political and architectural process is over, and now the real work begins! City building permits indicate that tearing down the existing building will cost Apple $200,000, along with the $25,000 it cost to strip and prepare the building. Apple is also paying Shawmut Design and Construction another $200,000 for construction management services, city records say. Once demolition is complete, store construction will begin immediately, a condition of the city's building permit so the space wouldn't stay vacant for several months. Download (pdf) the Apple-related permit materials here.