Building demolition

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Is there anything more sublime than watching a building being demolished? I just spent 10 minutes of my lunch break watching a man driving a piece of machinery that looked like a snub-nosed dinosaur gradually scraping huge chunks of brick off the side of an old office building. About a month and a half ago, I became part of a crowd of people watching a wrecking ball at work, massive pieces of floor and wall crashing down. Obviously there's a visceral appeal to destruction, loud noises and violence and so forth. But do you think there's a psychological appeal as well? Perhaps satisfying feelings of revenge against these structures that we created but which will probably outlive us? Or is that all just bunch of jibber-jabber?

― NA (Nick A.), Friday, 7 May 2004 17:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Last summer, they tore down a multi-level parking garage downtown to install a mere parking lot. I spent every chance I could watching the wrecking ball and savouring the irony of tearing down a parking lot to put up a parking lot. Joni Mitchell eat yer heart out!

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Friday, 7 May 2004 17:55 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.controlled-demolition.co.uk/home/kb33/building_implosion.htm

― sgs (sgs), Friday, 7 May 2004 17:57 (twenty-one years ago)

It's mesmerizing. For about a month they were tearing down the building next to the art museum here, which I can see from my office. It was especially great when I would be on the phone or something and look out and see them take out some pillar that would cause a huge section to come crashing down.

Mmmmmm...demolition. I think it's just a fun way to enjoy agression.

― Scott CE (Scott CE), Friday, 7 May 2004 17:57 (twenty-one years ago)

It's almost frightening how easily the buildings come down. You think of them as being permanent, but they fall apart like a gingerbread house. And all the construction guys running around with half an inch of plastic on their heads to protect them from the chunks of masonry and wire rainging down...it's a little scary.

― NA (Nick A.), Friday, 7 May 2004 18:02 (twenty-one years ago)

What's great are the wrecking balls.

*waits for double-entendres to roll in*

― sgs (sgs), Friday, 7 May 2004 18:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it's the rapid change in form that's cool. If they could build as fast as they could demolish, that would be just as cool. Also the power of the machines and/or pieces of building hitting the ground is appealing. Just like thunder, trainwrecks, fireworks, home runs .. power, cause & effect.

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 7 May 2004 18:05 (twenty-one years ago)

there's an art, to demolition.

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 7 May 2004 18:08 (twenty-one years ago)

the city imploded two gigantic water towers in brooklyn 3 years ago. it was impressive to see them fall in like card houses.

― lauren (laurenp), Friday, 7 May 2004 18:11 (twenty-one years ago)

But I'm not sure if that would be as satisfying as the longer-term demolitian via machine. The peak of excitement might be higher, but it would be over so fast.

― NA (Nick A.), Friday, 7 May 2004 18:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm still upset that I missed the demolition of that overpass in Milwaukee a few years ago (an overpass that I used all the time that they demolished to raise the property value of the land below, if I recall).

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 7 May 2004 18:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Seems like having a road where people drive off and crash & burn below because the overpass is gone - wouldn't *help* property values.

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 7 May 2004 18:20 (twenty-one years ago)

It does if you make sandals out of the tires.

― NA (Nick A.), Friday, 7 May 2004 18:20 (twenty-one years ago)

One time after gig in Milwaukee, in winter around 3:30 am, I did end up trying to get on the freeway there (I hadn't been in town in awhile). It wasn't very clearly marked, and about the time the cops pulled up behind me I was wondering what all these gigantic chunks of cement were doing strewn all around.

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 7 May 2004 18:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I think I'll write a movie about a burnt-out office worker who quits and starts working for a demolition company, taking revenge on office buildings.

― NA (Nick A.), Friday, 7 May 2004 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

i was going to watch them implode veterans stadium, simulcast over the net. but i slept instead.

it was cool to see 'em implode the kingdome.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 8 May 2004 22:42 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't like demolition. I want everything to stay the same. Also demolitions produce large clouds of choking dust..which I don't like. That dust reminds me of the cloud of dust produced when part of our living room ceiling collapsed one Sunday afternoon when I was about 9. Big chunks of falling plaster made substantial dents in a transistor radio and the dust had a sickly smell that seemed to come from times before I was born and that was, as a result, unpalatable and revolting. So that is why I hate demolitions and any form of disruption and want everything to remain peaceful and artificially calm. People who existed before I was born appear to me to have been dirty scum (in a way) and I do not wish to be tainted by them or the dust they left behind.

― David (David), Saturday, 8 May 2004 22:58 (twenty-one years ago)

If a building were being crushed, blown up, etc. I can see myself enjoying it. However, the slow destruction of buildings is something I find a bit unnerving in an impatient kind of way.

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Saturday, 8 May 2004 23:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Maynard G. Krebs and the Endicott Building to the thread.

― Speedy (Speedy Gonzalas), Sunday, 9 May 2004 05:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Isn't "building demolition" an oxymoron?

― Aimless (Aimless), Sunday, 9 May 2004 15:05 (twenty-one years ago)

whoa

― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 9 May 2004 15:06 (twenty-one years ago)

five months pass...

I think the most sublime experience of all would be to watch the destruction of a building where you used to work. If they were going to knock down this office building, I'd come by on a Sunday with a deck chair and a milkshake and just watch.

― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 11 October 2004 17:55 (twenty years ago)

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