Electric jungle gym already half-way gone

Well, that was fast.  Just ten days ago, the electric jungle gym on Third Street was removing its first transformers.  Today, the thing is halfway gone.  There’s even a little brick building visible now we’d never noticed.  We’re calling it the halfway house.  The crews working to deconstruct the steel mess are from Chicago and are torch-cutting the steel into large pieces.  Once on the ground, a giant tin-snip cuts them into truck-size parts ready to be hauled away.  There’s also a lot more concrete in this thing than we expected and piles of it are laying around the site.  It’s estimated the entire site clearing process will take another 4 weeks, but the steel frame should be gone pretty quick at this pace.  The rest of the time involves ripping up the asphalt and concrete around the site so it will soon appear that the electric jungle gym was only a bad dream.

Meanwhile, deconstruction of the electric towers five blocks west is set to speed up, too.  A large red crane arrived on the backs of several semis and is waiting to be set up.  This crane is huge.  One commenter called the large tower at 8th Street the ‘lattice tower’, so we’re going to call it that too.  It and the smaller tower just west at the foot of 10th Street should be gone soon as well.

• Museum Plaza Electric Towers Go Wireless (Broken Sidewalk)
• Demo Watch: Electric Jungle Gym Under Deconstruction (Broken Sidewalk)

Tearing down the electric jungle gym

Electric jungle gym already half-way gone

Porcelain pinecones and transformers

Electric jungle gym already half-way gone

Crane arrives to deconstruct lattice tower

Crane arrives to deconstruct lattice tower

The days are numbered for this electric tower

Extra! Extra! The arena is growing tall