Atomic Glee
New Blood
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2006
- Messages
- 10
Aaaah, there we go! Out of 15 Post Pergatory! 
Anyway, here's some photos I took of a *genuine* controlled demolition and its prep work - the implosion of Landmark Tower in downtown Fort Worth, TX, the second-tallest building imploded ever. As I mentioned, I live just a couple of blocks away from this site, so I had a great opportunity to observe the work being done to the building in preparation for its date with the ground. These photos are hosted on my own web server.
The prep work took *months* of time, and involved the removal of the building's base, removal of several steel columns in its frame, the gutting of the interior, etc. etc. etc. These two photos show the crew from Midwest Wrecking hard at work on the exposed base of the tower's structure. It's not the work of a few "guys in hard hats," but a small army of them with heavy equipment and months of time, not to mention an exposed structure to play with.
Nobody would notice that sort of work in an office, right? Not to mention how it'd be, I'd say, impossible to do all this in an active office building with nobody noticing, or even do it at all - how long would all this take without being able to get at the whole frame like that? The mind boggles.
This shot was taken just a day or two before implosion:
As you can see, the building has been draped with protective netting, and further netting is going on the base. A lot of cables were strung around the columns on the base as well, to help control the collapse of the columns after the charges blow. The mount of dirt was a wall built around the trench dug around the building - Landmark Tower was surrounded by several restored historic buildings, and the drop had to be precise to minimize the chances of damage to the other buildings (more on that later). I believe (trying to remember exactly when this photo was taken) you can see some of the many, many charges on the columns in the foreground, and this is after they removed a lot of columns to weaken the building. I think you can even see how much wider some of the column spacing looks, thanks to the removal of so many columns. Speaking of which...
After they removed a lot of columns, they had to keep the building stable while charges were placed and the last bits of demo work were carried out. This is just one of several large wood block columns erected to stabilize the tower as work finished.
All this work brought us to this:
Note: downtown Fort Worth is actually really pretty. It was a dark, dreary, rainy day when the implosion occurred, so the photos I took then aren't all that attractive. I was on the 13th floor of the Burnett Plaza office tower to get the implosion shots.
2nd Note: I saw a thread here where somebody posted footage of the Landmark implosion, and somebody commented on the lean the building executed before coming down. That was intentional. The implosion was designed to lean Landmark north and west a bit before dropping it straight down into the trench dug around it. The plan worked perfectly, as it dropped really nicely into the trench and the only notable damage to the historic buildings around it was a handful of broken windows. You can really see the lean in that first shot!
So, there you go. I seriously doubt any work of this nature could be carried out in an occupied, active office building, let alone having it done and *nobody remembering it or noticing.*
Anyway, here's some photos I took of a *genuine* controlled demolition and its prep work - the implosion of Landmark Tower in downtown Fort Worth, TX, the second-tallest building imploded ever. As I mentioned, I live just a couple of blocks away from this site, so I had a great opportunity to observe the work being done to the building in preparation for its date with the ground. These photos are hosted on my own web server.
The prep work took *months* of time, and involved the removal of the building's base, removal of several steel columns in its frame, the gutting of the interior, etc. etc. etc. These two photos show the crew from Midwest Wrecking hard at work on the exposed base of the tower's structure. It's not the work of a few "guys in hard hats," but a small army of them with heavy equipment and months of time, not to mention an exposed structure to play with.
Nobody would notice that sort of work in an office, right? Not to mention how it'd be, I'd say, impossible to do all this in an active office building with nobody noticing, or even do it at all - how long would all this take without being able to get at the whole frame like that? The mind boggles.
This shot was taken just a day or two before implosion:
As you can see, the building has been draped with protective netting, and further netting is going on the base. A lot of cables were strung around the columns on the base as well, to help control the collapse of the columns after the charges blow. The mount of dirt was a wall built around the trench dug around the building - Landmark Tower was surrounded by several restored historic buildings, and the drop had to be precise to minimize the chances of damage to the other buildings (more on that later). I believe (trying to remember exactly when this photo was taken) you can see some of the many, many charges on the columns in the foreground, and this is after they removed a lot of columns to weaken the building. I think you can even see how much wider some of the column spacing looks, thanks to the removal of so many columns. Speaking of which...
After they removed a lot of columns, they had to keep the building stable while charges were placed and the last bits of demo work were carried out. This is just one of several large wood block columns erected to stabilize the tower as work finished.
All this work brought us to this:
Note: downtown Fort Worth is actually really pretty. It was a dark, dreary, rainy day when the implosion occurred, so the photos I took then aren't all that attractive. I was on the 13th floor of the Burnett Plaza office tower to get the implosion shots.
2nd Note: I saw a thread here where somebody posted footage of the Landmark implosion, and somebody commented on the lean the building executed before coming down. That was intentional. The implosion was designed to lean Landmark north and west a bit before dropping it straight down into the trench dug around it. The plan worked perfectly, as it dropped really nicely into the trench and the only notable damage to the historic buildings around it was a handful of broken windows. You can really see the lean in that first shot!
So, there you go. I seriously doubt any work of this nature could be carried out in an occupied, active office building, let alone having it done and *nobody remembering it or noticing.*
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