2024 – The Demolition of the Federal Credit Union Bank – Part 3 of 3
………………………..(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on July 10, 2024)
As mentioned earlier, I couldn’t fit the work done on April 16, 2024 in its sequential spot because of its size.
NOTE: some of these pictures will fully enlarge when clicked on and some will not. Click ’em all to find ’em all.
Actually, what was going on was that the front sections of two next-door-to-the-bank addresses – 373 and 375 Main St – were to also be knocked down as part of this project (the back parts of them had already been taken down earlier – which I had covered, but I was not able to identify them by address from behind). Here’s the wide shot:
But this allowed me to go back to Main St and shoot a lot of closeups – like these:
Signarama made the cut, but just barely:
The fun part of the job – window smashing:
Bombs away!
Four bites:
Dumped by hand:
Dumped by force:
The dust buster and the steeple:
I don’t know what the problem was with this woman, but she just parked in the ONE southbound lane on Main St as if she owned the place. I never did find out what they were arguing about, but it must have been pretty bad if the one worker she seems to be semi-pointing at is filming her. And I’m taking pictures just in case………I don’t know what:
The next thing I knew, they wrapped her up in insulation and suspended her from a beam:
Just kidding – this is simply the numerically-next picture in the group I selected for this post.
In any event, she’s gone and things are getting back to normal on Main St:
The next two north-aimed images were taken through fence-covering wind flaps. The first one was taken when I went home for lunch:
There’s still a good chunk of 373 and 375 Main still to come down.
This one was taken that evening. 373 and 375 are just piles and the brownish, south-facing side of Signarama is now visible:
These two north-facing views were pre-lunch. The second one is a more zoomed-in version of the first. In both, you can see the same hose squirting away:
This last one was taken in the evening and faces south. I’m standing in front of Signarama by the fence that separates it from the demolition:
May and June were dedicated to the long (and slow) cleanup of the site…………..not exactly Photo City. I have 12 shots to show that I took on 8 different days, so if you need a nap, now might be a good time.
There were lots of rock and concrete pieces to deal with. When trucks were there being loaded with rocks, soil/dirt was unwanted, so every scoop – and there were at least a few million of them – had to sift the dirt out:
All the basement rooms had to be gotten rid of and large pieces were tossed about:
This was the worst: EVERY large rock or piece of concrete had to be broken-up into much-smaller pieces:
This took FOREVER and the sound was really annoying.
I was sure that this was going to fall into the basement at any moment:
I went out for a walk that day and shot what was left of the drive-thru over a fence. I was surprised it was still up and was sure it would be gone in a day or two, but look what I combined it with – a shot taken 15 days later:
Not a lot of progress there.
The next day must have been King-of-the-Hill day:
Two days later, I took this picture from Main St. It’s a nice shot of my apartment (7 floors up in the background)………..oh yeah – and some rocks:
Oops! Just found another 15-days-later shot of the bank’s drive-thru:
Same day………….AND I still have all this breaking-up drilling sound to look forward to:
Oy!
Three days later (May 29), the big rock pile is almost gone (the equipment is also showing signs of “going”):
May 31 – almost done:
June 4 – Wellllllll……….maybe not quite done yet:
Jump ahead to June 22 – this is a very unusual sight. The Main-Berry-State-Camden site is one block south down Main St. Almost every day, I could see cranes working on one side of it from my living room.
On this day, I saw a LONG truck carrying one down State St (one block west of Main) and turning on Passaic St toward Main (quick note to self: “This could be a very interesting shot if it makes a left onto Main”).
It did!
Unfortunately, it was just too wide a shot to get all of it. In this picture, the cab of the truck is on Main St, but the bucket of the crane (not seen) is still on Passaic St:
Almost got it…………….
June 24 – It looks like the cleanup is complete and the site is ready to be built-upon as two men appear to be making sure everything’s a go for what’s next:
I think I know why the excavator is still there………
July 1 – Looks like I guessed correctly, as the first shovel-full of dirt is brought up and dumped:
Oh, great! Now we get to go through the whole process in reverse for the next couple of months…………..only this will be a much bigger (and taller) project.
Can’t we just leave it as is and have a nice corner park?
The kids who’ll live in all these new buildings need a place to play!
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