I saw the same thing being done with a theatre in Manhattan in 1998 (to make way for the Disneyfication of Times Square) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_Theatre_(42nd_Street)
AMC 25 movie theater is in the building now. Very interesting!
A 1700-ton telco building that was relocated while running in 1950
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Re: A 1700-ton telco building that was relocated while running in 1950
#42I'm surprised that they don't move more buildings - I guess it is fabulously expensive. When I was a child I remember that one local building was moved to allow a road to be widened ( http://www.engineering-timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem... ). I've never heard of a UK building being moved since.
It depends on a lot of factors, I imagine. I stayed with a man in Iceland who had moved a family house across town when it became his new home for himself and his family.
When materials to build a new house are phenomenally expensive, and perhaps labor expensive as well, it becomes cheaper to deal with the logistics of moving an entire dwelling intact.
Re: A 1700-ton telco building that was relocated while running in 1950
#43I'm surprised that they don't move more buildings - I guess it is fabulously expensive. When I was a child I remember that one local building was moved to allow a road to be widened ( http://www.engineering-timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem... ). I've never heard of a UK building being moved since.
I don't think it's that uncommon. A historic building near where I live was moved, and then people changed their mind and moved it again.
See: https://dailygazette.com/article/2013/05/04/historic-niskayu...
and: https://dailygazette.com/article/2017/09/13/this-is-cooler-t...
Re: A 1700-ton telco building that was relocated while running in 1950
#44Impressive feat - however, I was puzzled by this: > Naturally, some of the workers were nervous about this idea. Matute Remus was sympathetic to their concerns, and wanted to reassure these operators and make them feel safe. So his wife Esmeralda agreed to also go into the building while it was being moved. She even took along their seven-year-old son, Juan Jorge. Maybe this could work as a publicity stunt to persuad…
Why shouldn't this reassure someone who is an expert in risks? Risk comes not only from the technical and scientific aspects of an operation but also the organizational processes, compliance, and actual execution. And for those, incentives and motivations matter a lot.
Knowing his wife and child were going to be in the building, you can bet he watched the workers like a hawk and triple-checked all the work and every calculation. Without his wife and child there, it's less certain whether he was equally thorough.
Risk is something like likelihood of failure multiplied by consequences of failure. If you increase the consequences some but decrease the likelihood more, you could have a net reduction in risk.
Re: A 1700-ton telco building that was relocated while running in 1950
#45Indianapolis has a very similar relocation story from 1930, with the 11,000-ton Indiana Bell building [1].
Fun fact: Kurt Vonnegut's father was the chief architect who recommended rotating the building [2]. Earlier than that, there was also a building that was moved by a team of horses to make way for the Indiana War Memorial, but I can't find a source anywhere (I read about it while touring the memorial).
[1] http://www.paul-f.com/ibmove.html [2] https://www.indystar.com/story/news/history/retroindy/2014/0...
Re: A 1700-ton telco building that was relocated while running in 1950
#46I am surprised that it was practical to move, I suppose it must have been a small manual branch exchange given the time. Big central offices are massive buildings often with deep basements.
Is that true even in places with high water tables? Like much of Florida for example?
Re: A 1700-ton telco building that was relocated while running in 1950
#47I am surprised that it was practical to move, I suppose it must have been a small manual branch exchange given the time. Big central offices are massive buildings often with deep basements.
Is that true even in places with high water tables? Like much of Florida for example?
Im pretty sure even with a high water table, its not as though the water would seep through if its well sealed. A lot of times they have to seal them for fire-safety
Re: A 1700-ton telco building that was relocated while running in 1950
#48Re: A 1700-ton telco building that was relocated while running in 1950
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's an even more wild example - the city of Chicago was too low to the water, causing sanitation problems. So they moved the whole city, one building at a time... about six feet straight up . With the technology of 1850-65. While most of the buildings in question were in use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago
Infrastructure projects of old fascinate me. I can't imagine this being done today. Same with things like the El, NYC subways, and the Eisenhower interstate system: the amount of overhead these projects would encounter (for both better and worse) would be prohibitive.
The classic "if we could put a man on the moon, why can't we put a man on the moon" situation.
Re: A 1700-ton telco building that was relocated while running in 1950
#50This gives new meaning to "location transparency" a la Erlang..