Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Knock 3 times on the ceilings that you don’t want to see, twice on the pipe you don’t want to show.
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Tag: Demolitions
Just a couple of house losers:
Chip, chip, chipping away. Try these spots next:
Update: Demos are in! See below.
The city’s permit database appears to be down; today’s demo list will have to remain a mystery — until it’s is back up and running.
That, and a couple of garages get taken to the woodshed:
And now another Swamplot reader sends in this curious photo from this morning, showing the collapsed box formerly known as the Central Presbyterian Church on Richmond Ave. between Cummins and Timmons — and demonstrating to those of you who might have worried that the collapse of the 1962 building’s modern steeple could pose some threat to Richmond Ave. traffic that there was never anything to worry about. Everyone is safe. The congregation has decamped for the St. Philip Presbyterian Church just outside the Loop on San Felipe; the land is being cleared for apartments; the giant cross is at rest.
- Previously on Swamplot: The End Comes for Central Presbyterian, Mod Richmond Ave. Church Ready To Fall for New Apartments
Photo: Eric Nordstrom
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Getting rid of a few halfsies, too.
Reader Brian Thorp sends in a couple of photos documenting the final hours of what he’s now labeled the “holiest” church in Houston — it was, at least for a time today. The Central Presbyterian Church at 3788 Richmond Ave. was designed in 1962 by Astrodome architects Wilson, Crain, Morris and Anderson; it sits on the site where the Morgan Group is ready to build a new apartment complex. By 9 am this morning (above), the church had developed a few punctures in its side. By noon, much of the dust, and a good portion of the church’s walls, had cleared:
A Gold Creek streak and some good old fashioned Heights knockdowns round out today’s assortment of demo delights:
The longtime Houston Ballet building on West Gray bows out. Plus a few more tomatoes and bouquets:
What are you leaving for us now — just a few scraps?
The facilities steering committee at UT’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has decided to demolish what’s left of the institution’s Houston Main Building at 1100 Holcombe Blvd. with several blasts of dynamite — before the end of the year. The announcement in an online employee-only newsletter cited safety concerns for the decision: “Manual demolition with jackhammers and blow torches would expose our employees, our patients, the public and dozens of construction workers to noise, dust and vibration for months. Implosion reduces that exposure to a matter of minutes.”
The 18-story Med Center structure was known as the Prudential Building before M.D. Anderson purchased it from the insurance company in 1975. It was vacated last year, and demo work on the building began this past April. The newsletter announcement also recaps the institution’s explanation for knocking down the structure, which was designed by Houston architect Kenneth Franzheim in 1952 as part of Houston’s first suburban office park:
When older buildings get in the way of your construction plans, you know who to call.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HAD BEEN SAVING THEM FOR SOMETHING “These are the first two buildings that IAN+A designed for Compaq way back when – and my first two high-rise buildings. Sad to see them go. I guess this means I can get rid of the drawings now.” [Tbarrow, commenting on HP Go Boom: Watch These Former Compaq Buildings Disappear in a Cloud of Dust]
If 2 office buildings go down in a cloud of dust in what looks like a forest, will anybody see it? In Houston, certainly — and so many onlookers have been kind enough to upload their own demolition videos, too. So here you go: vids of this weekend’s Controlled Demolition implosion of 2 unloved former Hewlett Packard office buildings at the future Lone Star College University Park campus near Hwy. 249 and Louetta. A much longer video from Hewlett Packard here features details and interviews.