When I arrived at the livery on Thursday, I found…no livery. In fact, I arrived just as the crew was leaving.

This was the livery when they started demolition:

And this was the livery eight days later:

The crew left a few of the old blocks.

Aside from those blocks, the livery was gone.

The loading dock platform is still there, but the ramp was filled in to make the site level.

With the site open and quiet, I took a peek into the Mack.

(The garage doors opening onto Jackson Street are just to the right of the frame.)

Wait, wait, I misspoke earlier. Not all the livery’s blocks had been taken away. A few were left to patch up the Mack’s damaged chimney.

Some of the bricks were left on a nearby windowsill.

The Mack needs plenty of work, but it has plenty of potential.

The livery demolition had lasted longer than I’d expected. After watching the Wolverine disappear in just a few hours, I thought the livery might be gone in a couple days. When the project extended past the weekend, I stopped wondering every day if THIS might be the day the building would be just a memory.

Then on Wednesday I showed up to find the final wall on the ground and most of the rubble gone.

The cleanup work drew a fascinated spectator.

Chelsea Farmers Supply has always been hidden by the livery. When the livery’s east wall fell, the farmers supply building became a lot more visible.

As the rubble removal progressed, the view north improved.

Come back tomorrow for the final post in the livery demolition series.

I showed up to the livery on Monday to find…a lack of activity. (Apparently I have bad timing.) However, I did notice the Mack’s chimney had sustained some damage.

I came back Tuesday to find…a lack of activity. This time it was because the excavator was having problems.

That didn’t stop Jon and Henry from checking out the scene.

With the back wall mostly down, the church behind the livery got a new view looking north.

It started to rain, so I shot a couple more photos of the rubble and left.

On Friday the crew worked on bringing down the rest of the back wall. (They cleaned up some of the rubble and had it trucked away, too, but I didn’t take any pictures of that.)

Sometimes the excavator looked a bit precarious on its perch atop the rubble, but the operator kept it upright.

When the walls were down, they started moving debris around to prepare for its removal.

I wasn’t the only one watching the demolition. This spectator didn’t seem to appreciate the noise.

Not much of the building was left standing after Friday’s work.

The livery demolition continued. I arrived around midday, after some work had already been done, but I arrived during a lull in the action.

It wasn’t long before that lull came to an end.

Continue reading →

It’s been the season of notable demolitions here in Chelsea: a week and a half after the Wolverine was demolished, another crew started the work of razing the livery building. The notion of leveling that particular historic building to make way for a parking lot generated a bit of controversy that resulted in delays, but in the end, the project moved forward.

The initial word was simply that demolition would begin sometime during the week — there was no specific start date given. I didn’t want to miss the beginning, so I went on Facebook and asked locals to keep an eye on the site and let me know when the demolition seemed to be starting. How effective was that tactic? Well, when the crew arrived, not only did I get several Facebook messages, but I also got a message on Twitter and even an email! Because of the helpfulness of those wonderful people, I arrived a few minutes before the demolition began. My thanks to all those who kept me informed!

The crew started by knocking out the boarded-up windows.

The excavator patted the building on the head…

…and then punched it in the face.

Notice the year painted on the building:

It turns out that’s not the year that particular building was built. That livery building was constructed in the early 1900s, a few years after the Mack Building. (The Mack is visible on the other side of the livery in the first few pictures.) The livery is gone, but the Mack — a building with its own great history — is still standing.

When he’d cleared enough of the wall, it didn’t take much to bring down the top.

That let him take a few bites out of the roof.

The work drew a few spectators.

That was where work stopped on Wednesday. Do you know what that means? Yes, that’s right: this is the first in what will be a series of posts on the livery demolition.

(SPOILER ALERT: it ends with an empty lot.)