I was fortunate enough to be able to watch the demolition of a whole section of the wall this morning. It was interesting to see how the drill attacked the wall from all sides and how cracks slowly became visible. I even got to see a huge chunk come crashing down (pictures 8 through 10).
In the short amount of time it took me to eat a bowl of cereal and drink a cup of coffee, the rest of the wall bit the dust.
Here are two videos of this machine (which i think is called a crawler excavator) in action. In the first (CLICK HERE), it is loading the debris from the last section of the wall into a dump truck. In the second (CLICK HERE), it is smoothing the remaining pile of debris in preparation for the arrival of a second dump truck.
And here's the unsung hero of this operation, the man who operates the excavator.
I feel like i've been neglecting the south end of the site, but it's a little harder for me to get good pictures because of the way the buildings are configured and all the overhead wires. There seems to still be a little more tieback installation going on at that end.
The pile of bricks salvaged from yesterday's digging were carted away today, but thanks to the crew for putting one aside for me to add to my little substation museum. It does look a lot like the paving bricks on the next block of Glenwood Ave. At some point, i'd like to do a little more research into when the streets were paved and when and how the Red Line was built through this section. But in the meantime, i now have my own little piece of that history.
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This blog exists for one purpose: to follow the progress of the CTA substation project. Your comments relevant to that topic are very welcome.