Bus Stop Review

(go to the beginning)



Prior images from a similar angle are: 1, 2, 3.




(this concludes my view of the Terre Haute House Tear Down. See it from the start.)

Roof level review

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You might want to compare that picture to this from similar perspective when there were still a few floors of hotel standing or this when most of the south wing was visible or the "before" view of the Terre Haute House on the last Saturday in September.
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LAST DAYS

The above picture taken by hanging over the north wall of the city parking structure roof wall shows the last day of the Terre Haute House. You may want to compare it to an earlier picture from a similar perspective or from this taken in October 2001 from the same angle but two blocks away and 11 stories up and showing the parking garage in the foreground. The last days picture was taken from about where that pickup truck sits.
(next... bus stop review)

On Christmas Eve eve

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I stopped by the Crossroads Cafe to say Merry Christmas to a couple of old friends and they wanted to know if I had been out at the Terre Haute House Tear Down site when the ball came off. Wow, the ball came off! I had visions of the six thousand pound sphere flying into what's left of downtown. In a previous entry I have expressed concern that the rubber tire that served as a shock absorber had no safety cable and was told by the hard hats, "If it falls, it falls."
Think of a yo-yo. You might guess that the string will break on a yo-yo sooner or later. Why else would you buy yo-yo strings in a package of 5? Similarly, the crane operators brought a number (also about 5, I'm told)of shock absorbing tires to the demolition site. They were down to the last one but were not swinging the ball into the wall of the building when the tire shredded. According to the boy in the picture, a witness I believe, the tire shredded and the ball came off while pounding down on some of the last few floors of the southwest section above the old Sandwich Shop. He didn't see the ball fall into the hotel ruins but saw the hook and cable come up empty.

I suspect the tire shredded when the crane operator was retrieving the ball after a drop. They unhooked the shredded tire and affixed a hook to the boom and began to lower it into the ruins. Bystanders were saying that they would not go in there so I looked through a third story window and saw the last man to visit the old Terre Haute House. He wore a red hard hat as he walked on the rubble. I raised my camera but he stepped out of sight and hooked the cable onto the ball. I didn't see him leave.
The crane operator brought the ball out to the street for adjustments and testing. He may have pounded a few more floors down with it

but most of the remainder of the hotel was raised with this machine.

The crane boom was decorated with Christmas Lights and raised in silent celebration.
(next... roof level review)

Terre Haute House Tear Down

(next)From South Seventh Street bus stop the corner of the old botel seems stubborn (or I am). I guess it's me. I won't realize it is going to be gone until I'm photographing a hole in the ground.
(skip... 12-23)















From the southeast corner of the city parking garage roof, the cityscape has changed.
It has changed even more from the northeast corner... and will change some more soon.

DUELING CAMERAS

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Yesterday (the 22nd) I stopped at the Terre Haute House Tear Down (it has taken me two months to come up with a name I like) before a late lunch at the Clabber, a beer at the Terminal and a basketball game at Hulman Center. I snapped some pictures of the last stages of the remaining corner of the hotel (I'll show you later).

The Channel 2 camera man shot me and I shot him back.
(next... Tear Down)

TERRE HAUTE HOUSE STATUS

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It looks to be about 2 thirds gone from this view as compared to what you see if you scroll down to the second picture from this link.  
(next... Dueling Cameras)

THH DEMO WATCH KIT

update: Now that the n/e corner of 7th and Wabash looks like a skinned softball field and amateur photographers are snapping shutters elsewhere, some of the links in the following are dead.

(skip)Hautians near and far, you may participate in the Terre Haute House watch.

This camera may be pointed anywhere but is often pointed at the east (EES) side of the old hotel. Click onto the link in one browser window.
This frequently refreshed camera image is often of the west side, the diminishing face, of the hotel.

It has been said that they will use water to keep the dust down and I have wondered what they will do on cold days. The high temperature forcast for today was 35 but the current is 28 or 4 degrees below freezing. However, I've seen hose spray in some of the pictures from these two sites.

The demolition continues. These three links comprise the Terre Haute House demo watch kit:

http://www.vigoschools.org/thhousecam/index.sh
http://www.wthitv.com/towercam.asp
http://www.wthitv.com/weather.asp

(next... status)

Stand Clear

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Avoid North 7th Street between Cherry and Wabash.  

 
The skilled crane operator will use the outer wall to contain the debris and they will use water to keep the dust under control but on cold days, they can't spray water and there comes a time when the containing wall must be knocked down.  
 
Chunks of the Terre Haute House fly farther astray than the demolition crew would like to acknowledge. The piece of concrete with reinforcing wire held by the youngest of these observers was found west of the west sidewalk of North 7th. Maybe someone tossed it there from the street. 
(next... DEMO WATCH KIT)
These boys in the Packer jackets can't be trusted to wear their own and their grandfather can't be trusted to know the difference.

the view from the bus stop and back

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From this angle there's little visible difference in the upper floors between December 3rd and 6th but the stone facing and the columns from the ground floor east side main entrance is down opening a view to the ISU Business School and the Education School Buildings a half mile to the north east.  

From the east side of North 7th Street you can get an idea of the size of the columns. The Crossroads Cafe is visible in the distance on the southwest corner and the red awning on South 7th Street marks the spot where I take the bus stop series of photos.  
(next... Stand Clear)

December 6 view

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  The exposed skeleton of the old hotel points to some tricky crane operations ahead if they are to pull the debris down onto the west side of North 7th Street. My photographic angle in this picture makes the building seem taller and more likely to fall upon the Vigo County School Corporation than it is.

The top of the City Centre building is visible beyond the VCSC and the Sycamore Building stands two blocks away. Click on picture to enlarge.
(next... view from bus stop)

Now I see

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 Here's a peek-a-boo view of the Clabber Girl Museum clean through an east/west opening in the Terre Haute House. The museum occupies the Ninth Street Hulman and Company building.
Here's a summary of the financing for the new hotel (when the Trib/Star web site is not busy) and how tax dollars will figure in.
(next... December 6 view)

PROGRESS (if you call it that) ON THE DEMO (if you call it that)

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 From the east, it looks like there has been little progress on the demolition project this week until you look carefully and see that you can see sky out the west window. How much longer can the 6000 pound ball pound into it without piercing the 7th street wall above the entrance? 
 The grand entrance to the hotel lobby was between the third and fourth of 6 giant cylindrical columns. I never thought I would see them uncapped let alone horizontal.(next...now I see)

FROM THE SOUTH 7TH STREET BUS STOP

(skip)Hautians are drawn to the Terre Haute House in its final days. Many circle it taking images into their memory, trying, perhaps, to square their remembered picture of the building with what confronts their eyes, a hotel with skin torn off and the insides pounded down to rubble. From the north or the east now, it is already hard to remember what it looked like last year or before. I remember a black and white photo my brother took from the bus stop where the South 7th Street bus stopped in the old days when the Terre Haute House was a part of a lively downtown. The Grand Theater occupied the building immediately north of the hotel and beyond it and across Cherry Street the Marathon runner logo marks the gas station (we called them service stations then) at the north east corner, and the south side of the old YWCA beyond that.
 
 
It was that view that was in my memory as I took the picture after the Sandwich Shop closed and the hotel was cold in the snow.
 
 
I wanted to duplicate the angle and came pretty close for an amateur with a handheld pocket camera. Here you see the vacant hotel before and during demolition.
 

 
More to come. (next... Progress)