Around 1920, the owners of 70 Irving Street built a concrete block garage. It was a two car garage with elaborate sliding doors and a reinforced concrete roof with a glass cupola on top. We were told that it was built that way as a fire precaution - so that if the car / gas / oil in the garage caught on fire, the surrounding houses would not also go up in smoke.
I am not sure it was ever a beautiful structure, but by the time we purchased the house, it had fallen into disrepair. Here is what it looked like when we bought the house:
It is a pretty bad picture, but I never thought it was worth taking a picture of.
Here is what the garage looked like from my vantage point before the real demo started:
The demo consisted mostly of one guy in a machine that poked at the garage with metal "finger" that just pounded back and forth until the concrete said, "Uncle". A couple of other guys would run in every now and then to clear out some debris, and then the poker would start up again.
What follows is a bunch of short videos showing the poker poking...
Getting Started:
And the first thing to go is the (rather huge) wooden beam:
They just nibbled away a couple of square feet at a time:
I loved the dexterity of the operator - check out the little flick at the end:
Almost done - nibbling away, being oh so careful not to have it all fall down on the neighbors...
And the wall comes tumbling down:
And here are some photos of the aftermath:
After cleanup, we have a (code required) 3 feet of wall left.
And while the wall is not beautiful, the (mostly) unobstructed view into the green of our neighbor's backyard is.
Looking at the house (and up towards the street) from where the garage used to be, and where our outdoor dining area will be (hopefully soon)...
That's it for now...
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