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 phrenzee
     
Location: Canada
Gender: Male
 |  | Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
< on 10/21/2008 5:18 PM >
|  | | | Watch video
Engineer assails demolition
Tue, October 21, 2008
BRUNSWICK HOTEL: Work being done in unsafe conditions, Kevin McIlmurray says
By JONATHAN SHER AND KELLY PEDRO, SUN MEDIA
The demolition of the 155-year-old Brunswick Hotel was secretive and unsafe, says the engineer hired to oversee it.
Kevin McIlmurray said he was surprised yesterday when, while walking past York and Talbot streets, he saw the demolition had begun a day earlier without his knowledge or approval or even a safety plan.
He said holes were punched through a load-bearing masonry wall, joists were dangling and the floors and the northwest corner of the building were at risk of collapse.
And no one had bothered to shut off the utilities, McIlmurray added.
The owner of the Brunswick, Dan Dencev, was asked yesterday about the role McIlmurray was supposed to play in the demolition.
"He (was supposed to) help out with advice, guidance and supervision," Dencev said.
Asked why McIlmurray says he was keep in the dark, Dencev said, "This is precisely why I'm not going to talk to anyone," then politely said goodbye and hung up.
No one had placed fencing to keep people or vehicles away from the northwest corner of the building, and parking lots there already had cars yesterday morning, McIlmurray said.
The day before, people leaving a London Knights game were at risk of being struck by falling debris, said Lincoln Cushman, whose band Wet Iguana rehearsed at the Wick.
"People were walking home from the Knights game and pieces were falling off."
McIlmurray said neither he nor a colleague he sent to inspect the site yesterday would enter the building because it was too dangerous.
"I wouldn't park there. I wouldn't go in the building," he said.
The city's building head, Rocky Cerminara, yesterday described the demolition as likely unsafe and requested an investigation by Ontario's Labour Ministry.
"(The building's owner) was probably processing on an unsafe course," Cerminara told politicians on the city's planning committee.
The same politicians had been planning for nearly two weeks to decide yesterday whether to rescind a demolition permit granted last month.
Dencev's application was approved after he submitted a letter from McIlmurray that his firm, Spriet and Associates, would oversee the demolition.
But before the demolition was to begin, Dencev was expected to arrange a meeting between the engineer and the contractor who would do the work. The two would develop a safe plan to level the building.
Once the plan was written up, Dencev should have sought permission from utilities who would disconnect services, but neither step was taken before the demolition began, McIlmurray said.
The engineer said Dencev refused yesterday to name the contractor who had started the demolition but said he would provide a name of a contractor this morning.
The process rattled even some of those at city hall who had supported the demolition.
"If they had hit a gas line, the whole block would be gone," Controller Bud Polhill said.
Joe O'Neil, chairperson of the heritage committee, said he hopes the demise of the old hotel would become a rallying point to save heritage buildings in the future.
"Ten years from now the battle cry of the heritage community may be, 'Remember the Brunswick.' "
Wick manager Kate Haywood found out about the demolition when she showed up for work Sunday.
"There was a hole in the side of the wall," she said yesterday, standing in front of red spray paint on one side of the building where someone had written "save me!"
"I'm really going to miss this place. We were a close-knit group and now we have nowhere else to go."
A construction company was at the scene yesterday, putting up fencing around the parking lot and trying to get a permit to fence off the sidewalk, said Victor Ramos, head of the company.
He would not give the name of the company, but said it was trying to make the area safe.
Employees with the Beer Store were also on scene yesterday, hauling out cases of beer and kegs.
A lawyer for Dencev says the property has been bought by a developer for a new commercial or residential development.
Source
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UEUW
Location: Woodstock, Ontario, Canada
Gender: Male
Don;t be afraid to do what you love. =)
| | Re: Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
<Reply # 1 on 10/21/2008 5:21 PM >
| | | | whoa, crazy! that would be a life threatening UE if anyone could get in haha
~Make my enemy strong so that when defeated I will not feel ashamed.~
Explore, for if you don't you may never know what you are missing. |
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rainman8889
Location: H.T.S.F.C. Time to gain and a time to lose.
Bye for now.
| | Re: Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
<Reply # 2 on 10/22/2008 12:32 AM >
| | | | What a bunch of morons! Hope they get their asses kicked!
Gone for a while. Be back when I'm back. |
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videonerd
| | Re: Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
<Reply # 3 on 10/22/2008 12:51 AM >
| | | | Probably not. The developers may get a slap on the wrist, but they'll just build that as an "expense," covered by profit from the new building.
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hush
Location: London, Ontari-ari-ario
Gender: Male
| | Re: Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
<Reply # 4 on 10/22/2008 1:04 AM >
| | | | Yep, that's London. They did it the same way a couple blocks away when they built the John Labatt Centre - the developer demoed the Talbot Inn and its streetscape at 7:00am on a Sunday after indicating they would try to preserve it and incorporate it into the new building. Admittedly it was in bad shape but the building and its streetscape were from the mid 1800's. In that case the utilities were at least long since disconnected.
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Cadaver
Location: Transient, Southern Ontario
Gender: Male
| | Re: Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
<Reply # 5 on 10/25/2008 10:30 PM >
| | | | Whoah hold the phone here... They're demolishing the Wick?!
That photo must be old, it didn't look nearly as bad when I last saw it (October 5th). Hell, I was gonna catch a show there that weekend!
I don't remember hearing anything about this before now. Anyone got any background info on the plans to demolish it?
EDIT: Looks like it even surprised some of the staff, from the sounds of the article. I still don't get it though, it seems so out-of-the-blue!
[last edit 10/25/2008 10:33 PM by Cadaver - edited 1 times]
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fedge
Location: Gaud Corners, Ontario, Canada
Gender: Male
you blight up my life™®
| |  | Re: Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
<Reply # 6 on 10/25/2008 11:13 PM >
| | | | I sometimes wonder if getting overly sentimental over old buildings is practical. Look at Las Vegas - they reinvent the strip every couple years. Nothing is permanent or historical.
18-odd Years Of UER-ing! |
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rainman8889
Location: H.T.S.F.C. Time to gain and a time to lose.
Bye for now.
| | Re: Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
<Reply # 7 on 10/26/2008 4:56 PM >
| | | | Posted by fedge
I sometimes wonder if getting overly sentimental over old buildings is practical. Look at Las Vegas - they reinvent the strip every couple years. Nothing is permanent or historical.
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True there but the strip has become pretty tacky looking.
Gone for a while. Be back when I'm back. |
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starkey
Location: Greater Toronto Area
Gender: Male
| | Re: Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
<Reply # 8 on 10/30/2008 7:32 PM >
| | | | Posted by Cadaver
Whoah hold the phone here... They're demolishing the Wick?!
That photo must be old, it didn't look nearly as bad when I last saw it (October 5th). Hell, I was gonna catch a show there that weekend!
I don't remember hearing anything about this before now. Anyone got any background info on the plans to demolish it?
EDIT: Looks like it even surprised some of the staff, from the sounds of the article. I still don't get it though, it seems so out-of-the-blue!
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it totally was out of the blue and totally done on the sly. apparently the utilities weren't even shut off when they started going at the load bearing walls with a sledge.
bad enough there was some serious monkey business going on at City Hall but apparently Dan Dencev (the owner of not only The Wick but The Richmond) owes the city $13k for a facade renovation loan.
as for that photo that was before the stucco facade was added. it seems that's one of those old stock photos that keeps circulating through the press.
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Hi/Po
Location: Earth
Gender: Male
| | Re: Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
<Reply # 9 on 10/30/2008 11:56 PM >
| | | | Posted by fedge
I sometimes wonder if getting overly sentimental over old buildings is practical. Look at Las Vegas - they reinvent the strip every couple years. Nothing is permanent or historical.
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Actually, it is. Demolition and removal of rubble is energy intensive and the garbage is a waste of landfill space. If a building can be reused or incorporated into a new building, it's a wise idea to do so. Also, architecture and history is important to a society. It can be a source of inspiration and community pride. It can be an artifact of the schools of thought which dominated in the time the buildings were designed.
Las Vegas is a tourism driven city known for kitsch. It's not a place to take in the high points of American culture.
With all that said, the building may have been 155 years old, but didn't look to significant in the photo. I can see why you'd question getting sentimental over it. But to make a general statement over all older buildings is a bit odd. Surely there's some architectural triumph you wouldn't want to disappear. I'm sure you'd appreciate Paris.
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CopySix
Location: Barrie, Ontario, Canada
Gender: Male
Agent of the System
| | | Re: Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
<Reply # 10 on 10/31/2008 12:01 AM >
| | | | I was checking out the 'Wick on Thanksgiving weekend and decided not to give it a try.
A good deal of my student-life passed away inside this dive . . . fond memories.
'ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US'
URBEX - http://www.UrbExBarrie.Blogspot.com
Magic: The GAthering - http://www.MTG-Realm.Blogspot.com |
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phrenzee
Location: Canada
Gender: Male
| | Re: Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
<Reply # 11 on 11/9/2008 1:00 PM >
| | | | Source
'Wick's final indignity
Sun, November 9, 2008
By JENNIFER O'BRIEN
A massive overnight blaze ripped through the Brunswick Hotel yesterday, putting the last nail in the coffin of the 153-year-old building at the heart of a dispute over its heritage value.
When emergency crews arrived about 3 a.m., smoke and flames were pouring out of every window in the historic hotel. It took 24 firefighters two hours to put down the blaze.
Surrounded by police tape yesterday, only a skeleton of the building remained. The words "save me," recently scrawled across two sides of the building in red spray paint, remained.
"It feels like a step above somebody rubbing salt in the wound, like flogging a dead horse," said Joe O'Neil, chairperson of the city's heritage committee.
"I didn't think the building could be saved, but there were opportunities to save some of the wood . . . the bricks.
"I've seen some pictures of the inside, and the beams in the attic alone would have been worth a small fortune," said O'Neil. "They were oak hardwood and 12 to 16 inches. They would have been worth tens of thousands of dollars."
Damage to the building, which was gutted, was estimated at between $300,000 and $500,000.
The building was left standing only temporarily as officials gathered at the closed intersection of York and Talbot streets to discuss how and when it could be safely torn down.
To keep people away, streets were blocked off while police, firefighters, city engineers and Labour Ministry staff discussed the investigation and the fate of the building with an Ontario Fire Marshal investigator.
Because of the enormity of the fire, the fact it was already under demolition and in bad shape to begin with, none of the 24 firefighters went inside.
"It was a derelict building with smoke and flames coming out of it. It quickly became a defensive attack," said Deputy Chief Dave Kitterman. "They continued to pour copious amounts of water."
Last month, the building's owner, Dan Dencev, began to demolish the Brunswick without the engineer hired to oversee demolition. A large hole in the back of the building allowed air flow that accelerated the speed of yesterday's fire, Kitterman said.
Dencev did not return messages yesterday.
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NoSuchPerson
Stop, or I'll ask you again!
| | Re: Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
<Reply # 12 on 11/9/2008 3:12 PM >
| | | | Yeah, I'm sure that was purely "accidental"...
I guess it isn't fair to accuse anyone of mal-practice. But, after hearing the story, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. I have to admit, when I heard the cause of the Alma College fire was a couple of kids, I was absolutely surprised - I was CERTAIN it was the owner. He came off as a crass asshole back then, he still does today.
Unit calling radio say again? |
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Cadaver
Location: Transient, Southern Ontario
Gender: Male
| | Re: Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
<Reply # 13 on 11/10/2008 4:04 AM >
| | | | Every weekend I go back to the GTA, they do something else to destroy the 'Wick here in London.
There's nothing like arson for the sake of business progress to get my anger up. I'll hold off on expletives, but that sort of action is the lowest of low moves.
I've heard that Dan is being less than respectful of the complaints and protests of people who wanted to see the Brunswick Hotel preserved. A movement was started to boycott his other property here in town, and he's called it phony activism.
And yes, I'm also making that bold assumption that this fire was started with the intention of ending the debate. If it was simple coincidence, I'll be very surprised.
[last edit 11/10/2008 4:06 AM by Cadaver - edited 1 times]
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logtec
Location: Logtec is the UER representative for Scarborough, Ontario.
Gender: Male
Nice head, what's in the bag?
| | | Re: Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
<Reply # 14 on 11/10/2008 4:31 AM >
| | | | nice!
They say "you can't judge a book by its cover!" I say "YES you can, if the cover has a girl on it with a cock in her mouth, its PORN!" if she's 18 and the cock is black, its GREAT porn! |
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Stewie
Location: Hamilton, Ontario
Gender: Male
kill your idols
| | | Re: Brunswick Hotel demolition, London - video
<Reply # 15 on 11/10/2008 9:55 AM >
| | | | Wow, I didn't see that one coming. Weird.
> The hierarchy of power dictates that the person with the most power does the least amount of work and retains the highest benefit. |
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