Dismantling a rusty bridge?
How about putting all of that monumental effort, labor and energy into getting a JOB?

the follow up story is great

HAMMOND | The Whiting man responsible for dismantling the Monon Bridge over the Grand Calumet River without permits said he personally declared the structure abandoned and was doing officials a favor by tearing it down.

"I myself state that this property is abandoned," Kenneth Morrison of Whiting said Wednesday. "It's like a shipwreck. If a ship sinks, that's abandoned and it's fair game."

Local, state and federal officials disagree.

Posted by Radical_Ed Dismantling a rusty bridge? How about putting all of that monumental effort, labor and energy into getting a JOB?

Very doubtful they could pass a drug test.

He is very determined. He asked the city in 1991 and 2014 for permission to scrap it, before just doing it. You have to have giant balls to just dismantle an old bridge and think that no one would say anything.

These guys just showed up at the livermore falls pulping mill, yanked out the 2 turbines, and repurposed them with out asking, and the pictures they took show it was a monumental task

they say on the website they purchased them, but it was found out later that they just took them

http://www.frenchr...ivermore_falls.htm

Having lived my entire life as the working poor (rarely unemployed and never for long, btw) I'm hesitant about the flippancy of 'just getting a job' because that procedure is not always just that simple or available for anyone who just shows up willing. (Especially when you can work so many hours putting in really a lot of work and not make anything close to a living wage).

On the other hand... this is not generally how I would approach the state of shitty compensation in this country... I guess some people just need to march to their own drum? Their own illegal, maybe you didn't think this all the way through drum?

Posted by Radical_Ed Dismantling a rusty bridge? How about putting all of that monumental effort, labor and energy into getting a JOB?

I'm sure they never thought of that.

Posted by Mike Dijital These guys just showed up at the livermore falls pulping mill, yanked out the 2 turbines, and repurposed them with out asking, and the pictures they took show it was a monumental task they say on the website they purchased them, but it was found out later that they just took them http://www.frenchr...ivermore_falls.htm

What the actual fuck? Let's steal all this equipment and document it. Also, that is a lot of time and effort.

Posted by Radical_Ed Dismantling a rusty bridge? How about putting all of that monumental effort, labor and energy into getting a JOB?

Simple and beautiful. I suppose Im sorry some people feel like the economic system is against them, but I'll expand on Radical Ed's advice here and offer: how about getting a better job?

Even a mouse will stop running down the wrong corridor in a maze eventually if there is no cheese to be had at the other end.

Mike, where's the info about them just taking the turbines? Is there any backup on that? I was there when they were taking them out, it took them a week or two at least, and it wasn't really a secret at the time. I am pretty sure they had bought the rights to them from someone... (Farina family possibly?) I am not sure who owned the mill property at that point but I think it belongs to the town now. I grew up near there, it was always a popular hangout and swimming hole. The effort to get the turbines out was pretty significant. I remember talking to them at the time, and they were a bit coy about what they were doing there, but it was pretty obvious even for a non-technical observer to see they were removing something large.

Wait. A single guy tore it down? I have trouble taking a lawnmower apart, I can't imagine taking a bridge down.

Posted by Anarchisto I have trouble taking a lawnmower apart

That's okay. That's job security for people like myself.

Posted by Anarchisto Wait. A single guy tore it down? I have trouble taking a lawnmower apart, I can't imagine taking a bridge down.

When I was young, I took an absurd amount of joy in being able to take things apart, especially electronics. I just wanted to be able to undo them unto their smallest components. Not in a smashy way, in a take-apart way. A computer dying in the house was like xmas. Did I narrowly dodge becoming one of those people, somehow? Is that person still inside me, waiting to be unemployed, bored, and maybe a little drunk??

Posted by crows When I was young, I took an absurd amount of joy in being able to take things apart, especially electronics. I just wanted to be able to undo them unto their smallest components. Not in a smashy way, in a take-apart way. A computer dying in the house was like xmas. Did I narrowly dodge becoming one of those people, somehow? Is that person still inside me, waiting to be unemployed, bored, and maybe a little drunk??

I did this too. Oh wait... I still do. I have little containers of electronic components everywhere. I might need them one day!

To be fair, the man did ask the city if he could purchase the decaying bridge, to which they themselves are not even sure who owns the rights to it. As much as I dislike scrappers, I will side with him because the city should have made an effort to restore the bridge, or at the very worst have it removed. But noooo... "If it isn't ours it cannot be anyone's. Screw it, let's fine him anyways for dismantling a bridge built in 1890 that nobody pays money to maintain."

This is reminiscent of the homeless guy who stole a bridge beacon.

Like, why?

Like A through Z said, there are so many shades of grey. If this bridge was in serious disrepair, rotting away and bound to end up in that river anyways, and the city didn't take any responsibility, then how much of a criminal is he? I do think that he should try to not damage the river.

I've seen many cases of people scrapping things out of buildings just before demolition, either for cash or adding something to their collection. It's a bigger crime that most of a building just goes into the shredder sooner or later. A bridge is something different but still...

All this invokes a concept dear to urban explorers hearts; abandonment. Yes there is a legal concept called abandonment, also known by other names, there is legal precedence and Im sure plenty case law to support that.

Say the highway department i.e. the state owns a bridge, a road used to go over it and a right of way had been long established for this public thoroughfare. then for whatever reason the right of way becomes abandoned, the road got re-routed or whatever natural catastrophe destroys the road, who then does the infrastructure belong to? In some cases it may default to the land owner depending on how it was acquired in the first place, was it seized under common law for the good of the state (eminent domain)? Was it purchased with state funds from a private seller?

There is a process for abandonment sales, I worked at a car dealership repair shop each month we had to have a "sheriff's auction" to get rid of cars people would abandon on our lot. I don't know the details here but given the right circumstances, a proper notice to the state or county, this guy could actually have obtained salvage rights to the bridge.

post script: he also let a bunch of debris, railroad ties etc loose in a public waterway, that alone could lose the case for him.