There Goes The Neighborhood
Aug. 16th, 2008 10:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peristaltorThe other day things got loud. An enormous truck with a crane and flatbed had snaked its way down our narrow neighborhood streets and attacked one of the houses. Here's a shot of the aftermath.
Supersize me!
After workers busted through the foundation walls, those monster yellow I-beams were slid through with help from the crane. Hydraulic jacks resting on wooden cribbing -- beams stacked alternately at 90∘like a minimalistic successful game of Jango just before the final collapsing move -- literally inch the house off its concrete home for the last 60+ years.
Embiggenize now!
For now it's resting on its cribbing and beams awaiting the final permit process. In a few weeks, power lines will temporarily fall and traffic lights will be swung out of harm's way on a path from our neighbor's house to Lake Washington. Down that path between the hours of 11:00 pm and 5:00 am, this little blue box will ride on a big-ass trailer and creep to Kenmore, where it will be slid onto a barge for the next leg of it's journey.
Say yes to photographic inflation!
My neighbor Larry, who took these photos, swears he will stay up late to snap more pics of this final journey, so stay tuned. I thought it would be great fun to gather a hundred or so folks in peasant garb and follow the house down its path, holding torches and pitchforks and pretending to drive the monster from our midst.
These preparations carry a wistful thought as well. I can just imagine this little house being introduced to the neighborhood in 1942 little by little. It must have taken months for the "final" house to take its present form. I imagine each smallish truckload of studs, bricks and sticks comparable to a nod of recognition, a gentle glance, a shy hello. As each year passed, it continued to change, morphing color schemes, roofs, landscapes and occupants. This slow, modest, organic insinuation with its surroundings seems to me ultimately humble in nature.
By comparison, when it reaches its new neighborhood on Camano Island in a few weeks, it will just suddenly and rudely barge in.
Supersize me!
After workers busted through the foundation walls, those monster yellow I-beams were slid through with help from the crane. Hydraulic jacks resting on wooden cribbing -- beams stacked alternately at 90∘like a minimalistic successful game of Jango just before the final collapsing move -- literally inch the house off its concrete home for the last 60+ years.
Embiggenize now!
For now it's resting on its cribbing and beams awaiting the final permit process. In a few weeks, power lines will temporarily fall and traffic lights will be swung out of harm's way on a path from our neighbor's house to Lake Washington. Down that path between the hours of 11:00 pm and 5:00 am, this little blue box will ride on a big-ass trailer and creep to Kenmore, where it will be slid onto a barge for the next leg of it's journey.
Say yes to photographic inflation!
My neighbor Larry, who took these photos, swears he will stay up late to snap more pics of this final journey, so stay tuned. I thought it would be great fun to gather a hundred or so folks in peasant garb and follow the house down its path, holding torches and pitchforks and pretending to drive the monster from our midst.
These preparations carry a wistful thought as well. I can just imagine this little house being introduced to the neighborhood in 1942 little by little. It must have taken months for the "final" house to take its present form. I imagine each smallish truckload of studs, bricks and sticks comparable to a nod of recognition, a gentle glance, a shy hello. As each year passed, it continued to change, morphing color schemes, roofs, landscapes and occupants. This slow, modest, organic insinuation with its surroundings seems to me ultimately humble in nature.
By comparison, when it reaches its new neighborhood on Camano Island in a few weeks, it will just suddenly and rudely barge in.