Front Classrooms

The construction crew continues to work on the remaining classrooms in the primary hallway.  The interior walls between each classroom will remain but the outer and hallway walls will be torn down. 

During the last few weeks of school, Mrs. Ames was denied a view from her windows due to the giant pile of fill dirt.  That's not a problem any more!!



The demolition of the other classrooms requires a bit more precision. 



A great view of one of the skylights that were located in the hallways. 

End of Day 3 of the Demolition

This afternoon, June 27th, ended the third day of the demolition of the small classrooms.  The 54 year old classrooms are officially gone. 

This is a very strange view of our building. 

From a higher viewpoint the Rosies give a point of reference.  The remaining brick wall is the area that led to the door referred to as the 'gazebo door'. 

You can now imagine what the original building looked like in 1954. 

End of Day 2 of the Demolition

The work continued into day two of the demolition.......

As they knock the classrooms down, the backhoe operators continue to separate the debris into three piles.....metal, brick, and soft materials. 

A lone drawer among the debris. 

Only two classrooms remain. 

A last room waiting to meet its fate. 



Many things have been removed including wiring, conduit, and ceiling tiles. 



End of Day 1 of the Demolition



The post from last Thursday showed the beginning of the demolition of the six small classrooms at the end of the building closest to Mary Queen.  This post shows the amount of progress completed by the end of day one.  After all, how hard is it to just knock it down? It was a much slower process than one might think.  In their own way, the fork lift operators have a very organized system for the destruction of our building. 



At the end of the first day, they had torn down almost 1/2 of the classrooms.  In this photo the rooms that belonged to Mrs. Graham and Mrs. McDaniel are gone and half of Mrs. Connelly's room is down. 

 

No more first graders in this room. 



This is the opening where the back door used to be. 



Old Portables

The old portables that were at the end of the intermediate hallway were scheduled to be dismantled and removed from the CME property.  This process took a couple of men several days to complete. 

 They began by removing the decking. 

The back steps were removed and then the skirting. 

The tie-downs that were used to keep the portables secure had to be removed one at a time. 

No more deck/porch. 

No more old portables. 

The view from where the small rooms used to be. 



The portables are sitting in the parking lot waiting to be towed away. 



The Old Pine Tree

There is (well....was) a large pine tree close to the classrooms on the Clays Mill Road side of the building.  Alas, it is no more.  But the tree put up a good fight until the bitter end. 

First, the bulldozer operator started leveling out the fill dirt that is all around the tree. 



He then took his first of about 20 tries at pushing the tree.  Even though she was wounded she still wouldn't go down.  Her roots were strong and deep. 



The dozer pushes again and again. 



Notice the wounds to her trunk.  The dozer operator moves dirt away from the base of her trunk and gives another try by pushing from the opposite side.  But alas, she still stands. 

Oh no!!  Reinforcements have been called in.  The back hoe swings around and this is the final result. 



The Walls Are Coming Down!!

This morning the crew began demolishing the small classrooms on the Mary Queen side of the building.  A very skilled back hoe operator began taking down the rooms about 9:00 am.  It took about an hour and a half for one room to get to the stage you see in the last photo. (A prepared photographer would have had a video camera ready but it is boxed up in a classroom waiting to be unpacked.)


Photos of each stage of the demolition are below. I have also taken some sequential photographs and published them to a video.  It was the only way to get the effect of the demolition through the use of individual photos.  The video is at the end of the post.

Notice that the windows and frames have been removed. 

The back hoe is ready for work.   

This took about three minutes to tear down. 

The removal of one beam caused the roof to cave in. 

As items are torn down, the operator moves them around and sorts them.  The bucket of the back hoe is like an extension of his arm. 

The hallway wall to this classroom is now gone.  Notice the golden dust pan hanging outside of a former first grade room.

After an hour and a half, this is how much work had been completed. 

If you look carefully you will see that there are actually three different piles of debris.  In the center are metal pieces, to the far left are soft items like drywall, insulation, and roofing.  The pile further back in between the other two is made up of bricks.  The operator knocks down a large section of the room and then uses the bucket to sort it into these piiles.  Some pieces are salvaged and the others are hauled away. 

Before and During

This is a view of a classroom after everything has been boxed up and moved out.

 

 Now the room has some great ventilation. 

Wednesday Update

I was hoping to be able to post pictures of the demolition of the end of the building but it has been delayed until tomorrow.  In the mean time, here are a couple more shots of things around the building. 


Conduit and lighting fixtures are more items that are being removed from the building and reused. 



Workers have to clean up the broken glass and window frames that were knocked out of the classrooms.  The worker on the ground is a former Clays Mill student. 



The portables that are currently on the property are going to be dismantled by the district.  Removing the decking is the first step. 

More Demolition

All five of the front, larger sized classrooms have finally had all the windows knocked out.  It looks strange to see the building, kinda' like someone that is missing their front teeth.

The gate into the gazebo area was removed so that the SkyTrak could get back and begin breaking out the windows and walls of the classrooms on the other side of the hallway. 

It's Fun to Tear Down

Today the construction team began demolishing the larger classrooms in the front hallway.  These classrooms will not be completely torn down.  The interior walls will remain but the outer and hallway walls will be replaced. 


Today, a SkyTrak machine was used to knock out the windows of a classroom. Notice the small bin located on the end of the machine.  The operator would insert it into the classroom through the window area.  Workers would then fill the bin with items from the classroom.  The operator would then take the load to the dumpster at the end of the building and start again.  The bin would be full of everything from insulation to ceiling framing to pieces of our beloved closets. 


After watching this little bit of demolition, I understand why it's fun to build something just to knock it down.  The operator of the SkyTrak said that he has lots of fun tearing stuff down. 



In this view of the room that they are currently demolishing, I wanted to point out a few things.  The light green arrows on top show the skylights that were once used in the classrooms.  The red arrow shows the level where the ceiling tiles were installed.  A close look shows that the paint is still a different color than the walls.  The yellow arrow shows all that is left of the closets that the teachers love so much.