The Kingdome Comes Down...
February 2001
remember, all photos are thumbnails - click on them to get the bigger
version
When you click on you get a really big version of today's photo!
Thursday,
February 1, 2 p.m. - You can see even more of the
trusses ready for installation. And the northwest wall
got its steel reinforcements today. I know it's
February and this is still the January page but I'm
waiting until I have time this weekend to fix all
that. Oh, and a couple of people have conjectured
that the pole next to the middle rusty thingie is a
shaft for an elevator to get people and equipment to the
top for working... interesting idea, eh? |
Friday,
February 2, 11:30 a.m. - I didn't get a great
shot today and, I got home again just as it was getting
dark to see that even more of the trusses had been laid
out this afternoon. I got a note earlier this
morning saying that the Seattle
Times says the trusses are going up on Sunday.
After that I got a note from a woman at stadium.org that
they have decided to do it on Saturday. Either
way, I'll be here with the camera. So, stay
tuned!! Oh and also, you guys were right!
The long pole looking thing next to the middle rusty
thingie is, indeed, the shaft of an elevator. You
guys are good! |
Saturday,
February 3, 3 p.m. - The work started this
morning nearly before daylight. And then,
unfortunately, the sun came out so my photos of the
early work today didn't work at all. But, I could
get luckier tomorrow. The sections you see up
there now - on top of the south and middle towers -
weighs 196,000 pounds and takes all four cranes (three
to life and one to hold onto the first piece they put
up. You can't see it in the photo but there is a
porta potty on the top of the south rusty thingie (in
case anyone was worried). And, there's a wind
meter atop the middle one. If the wind gets greater than
15 mph, they have to shut down. The sections
should extend all the way to the north tower by Thursday
and then they will start at the south end again with the
top sections. It's going to be a great week! |
Sunday,
February 4, noon - They worked hard today and look
what they got done! It's really taking shape
now. I caught the elevator in the up
position. At the time I took this there was a fair
amount of welding going on, too and I could see yellow
glows at some of the steel intersections. It was
pretty cool but didn't show up in the photo. It
must be so amazing to be up there working. As I type
this it is 3:30 and I think they must be close to quitting
because the wind has really picked up. |
Monday,
February 5, 4 p.m. - Talk about dramatic! I
know, soon, we'll hit a patch when they start working on
the side we can't see and the changes on our side will
come more slowly but this truss installation is just
amazing to see. Hey, I got a note from Greg in
Ontario, Canada with a
link to his neighborhood implosion earlier this week
in London, Ontario. Great photos! |
Tuesday,
February 6, 4 p.m. - More progress. They are
all set up, in this photo, to lift up the next
section. I was hoping they would do it while I
still had good light but it looks like they are just
getting it ready for tomorrow. More new picks at First
and Goal! Thanks, Tony! |
Wednesday,
February 7, 4 p.m. - I love scrolling down through
this past week and seeing that truss grow. And,
they are ahead of schedule. They were supposed to
connect up to the north lump on Thursday! That
truss is an amazing thing to see. It's just beyond
me how they make that all work. |
Thursday,
February 8, 4:15 p.m. - We actually had snow this
morning! I tried to capture it in a photo but it
wouldn't show up. And while it snowed for several
hours it all melted when it hit the ground.
Sigh. I do love snow. I got a note this
morning from Greg who is chewing on some ideas for the
stadium opening and a possible gathering of all of us
who have watched the progress. That's a ways away,
but, it got me thinking that maybe a mailing list would
be a good way to for all of us to gather together
virtually. So I started one up. If you want
to join - and I hope many of you will - go to the mailing
list web page and join up! Or send an email to
clamcam-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. |
Friday,
February 9, 5 p.m. - The lid on the truss is
growing. There's only one section yet to go then
it will be complete from the middle rusty thingie to the
far southern lump. Notice too, that I got a fine
photo at 5 p.m. A month ago, it would have been
too dark. Longer days make my life much
easier! We already have 10 members of the mailing
list! Come on an join us. It will be fun. |
Saturday,
February 10, 3 p.m. - I've got some real info about
the truss! The lid that is being laid on top of
the sections that are there is the same height as the
main roof will be. And the truss, itself, will get
another layer that will raise it up 30 more feet!
Notice how the truss is connected to the bottom parts of
the two lumps? Well, when the top sections get
added, it will tie into the top of the lumps. And,
by the way, the truss that's up there now is called the
tri-cord and the one that will go on top is called the
box arch. How about that for some real info?! |
Sunday,
February 11, 1 p.m. - Today's arrow (and isn't it cool
how I got it to bend around?) shows how the roof will go
from the
top of the truss as it's installed now to the top of
those little pointy things at the back of the
seats... Actually, here's a photo that better
explains what I mean. And you can see how the box
arch will sit on top of what's there today. Also,
I got some very cool photos from 'inside the bowl'
(that's what the in crowd calls where the field will be)
from last Saturday when they first began installing the
truss. I've added them to the tour
page. |
Monday,
February 12, 5 p.m. - We got a new crane
today. Peter saw it on the way to work and sent a
note. He calls it Big Blue. It's really much
more spectacular than this photo shows, but I did get it
'in action'. Notice, too, that the northwest wall
is getting filled in even more. |
Tuesday,
February 13, 5 p.m. - Several of you caught the
first of the roof struts yesterday... today they added
more (see circle) and extended the line above the seats
where the roof will sit (see arrow). Really
cool. Oh and Tony found that First
and Goal has more new photos up and some of them are
very neat. |
Wednesday,
February 14, 1:30 p.m. - Today was just foggy-ish
all day and I couldn't get a good, clear photo.
But, the piece on the top of the seats was finished off
to the north end today - you'll see it in tomorrow's
photo and I did learn that that piece is actually a
perimeter gutter to catch water from the roof.
And, I also learned that Big Blue is actually one of two
Manitowoc 4600's that have been there all along but it
was re-configured to reach up to and over the
truss. Cool, eh? Oh and Tony found me in a piece
about the construction... They asked for a
quote a while ago and, of course, I was happy to
provide. |
Thursday,
February 15, 2:30 p.m. - This morning I got an email
from Dan who is the operator of Big Blue!!! He's
reading along with us. Isn't that the coolest?!
(And, I love his email address "craneologist").
In today's photo you can see Big Blue and Little
Blue. Big is the one with the fancy elbow near the
south end. And while we've all been focused up
high, the ground guys have been working. You can
see that they've done more work on the scoreboard area
and are closing in on finishing that southwest
wall. |
Friday,
February 16, 8:30 a.m. - Much to tell. First
of all SNOW! Yep, we got some. Now too much
down here but the surrounding areas got a good
bit. I got an early photo so I could capture
it. Jr_Sites discovered in previous photos that
they are apparently installing the glass in the suites
already. I circled the area where the activity is going
on. And Dan, Big Blue's operator, sent some
interesting factoids about his charge. He says
that he has 224 feet of tower and 210 feet of working
boom. Just add that one up for a whopping 434
feet. That's an incredible number to me.
Wild. Thanks, Dan! |
Saturday,
February 17, 1:p.m. - Well, the snow was fun but it
is gone and replaced with a haze that prevents me from
getting a great photo today. However, I did get a
note from Dan the Craneologist on Big Blue. He
says he works with his oiler, Lou, who keeps Big Blue
humming. And talks to an ironworker on the phone
who is often his 'eyes' since he can't see everything
from his cab. (Can you imagine wielding a 434 foot
arm working blind?!) He also says his cab is
actually separate from the house of the crane and it is
both heated in Winter and air conditioned in Summer and
insulated! I may just have to see if he and Lou
need a helper sometime. |
Sunday,
February 18, 2:30 p.m. - There was at least one big
machine working today. It was one of the bulldozer
kind of machines working around the rock pile.
With all the roof stuff going on, I haven't pointed out
some other action. Today's red circles are around
two curious pieces being built in the work area. They
have, I suspect, important futures but it's hard to tell
as what right now. |
Monday,
February 19, 3 p.m. - Today's photo has to be
entitled 'The Crane Salute'! They are all pointing
to something up there. Dan, the operator on Big
Blue, says Little Blue is operated by one of his closest
friends, Al and Al's oiler is Joe. Al and Dan have been
working cranes together for more than 20 years!
Dan's crane will go back to Little Blue's size when the
east side roof is done which, he says, will be in about
4 weeks. |
Tuesday,
February 20, 3:30 p.m. - I still have no idea what's
going on in today's red circle. They built that
curious thing up and now there are two guys welding a
railing of sorts on to the top of it. Very
curious. They have the northwest wall up to its
full height. Oh, and I got a great note in my guestbook
from Ernie who will be bringing us our masonry! |
Wednesday,
February 21, 4 p.m. - Well, yesterday, Tony spied
some 'horns' at the far south end of the truss and
speculated that they were the beginning of the top of
the truss. BUT, today they are gone! You can
see them in yesterday's photo, right by the head of the
arrow. Very strange. Also, Rikketyrik is
guessing that maybe that platform thing I talked about
yesterday might be part of the scoreboard tower
eventually. I'm skeptical but he's not been
wrong before so I'm reserving judgment there. One
thing I did notice today is that there is now a porta-potty
on top of the truss... it's at the bottom of today's
arrow. |
Thursday,
February 22, 4:30 p.m. - The horns were back this
morning. The shot I got at noon wasn't great but I
clipped a piece of it for proof of the horns' return
because by this afternoon they had been covered up or
replaced by a growth on the lump! It's the start
of the truss lid. And we got a bunch of new roof
supports at the north end. Kaj wrote with
speculation that the platform thing at the bottom of the
photo is going to be the inside of the elevator that
they will plop into where those groove looking parts of
the north towers are... Interesting. Oh, and Dan,
the Craneologist, reports that on Saturday, he and Al
(in Little Blue) are going to be transferring trusses in
mid-air! I will keep the camera ready! |
Friday,
February 23, 12:30 p.m. - The mystery is
solved. The structures in the bottom of the photo
- today, the main one has a black 'raincoat' on - will
be placed on top of the truss that's there now.
When the top arch goes up, these little dog houses will
allow the ironworkers access to the top part for
welding. Looks to me with the stuff already up
there, it's going to get crowded pretty soon! |
Saturday,
February 24, 4 p.m. - Well, I missed the mid air
transfer but you can see why it was needed. Those
roof supports in the middle take some real reaching that
even Big Blue can't do alone. Today's red circle
is around an amazing site. There's a guy standing
up there! No supports and no nuthin' just standing
there. A good wind could send him to 3rd base in
Safeco Field! There were several guys up there at
one point. You'd think they could find a less
terrifying place to gather for a chat! |
Sunday,
February 25, 3 p.m. - Today the two Blues were doing
their crane thing and we have even more roof
supports. And, I'm told that the guys up on the
high beams are not untied. They are ironworks are
are tied to a very elaborate fall protection
system. They wear a full body harness when they
climb up on the steel. Whew. I'm still not
sure I'd want to be up there!
|
Monday,
February 26, 2 p.m. - Look at those cool shadows on
the east side seats! And, speaking of seats...
There is another batch over behind the rocks (out of the
picture) and I saw a truck, today, taking a load over to
the east side of the stadium. |
Tuesday,
February 27, 5 p.m. - I really like this late
afternoon light. There seems to be more of
everything today. The did finish that last
northwest wall and since yesterday removed the work area
that was erected in front of it. |
Wednesday,
February 28, 3 p.m. - Ok... so here's the stadium
post earthquake. My house is trashed ... I
didn't want to cheat you out of a photo but I
thought you'd also like to see my house. I've
added an earthquake page
for details. This afternoon I wandered
out to the neighborhood and discovered that the stadium,
in fact, did suffer. The rebar on the west side
just flat fell over! They were working on it when
I got this photo (I'm facing north). I also got a
note from Dan, the craneologist. He said they had
no injuries on the site. They had some movement on
the east side that they will check out tomorrow.
Everyone left the site right after the earthquake and
they will go back tomorrow and assess. He says
he'll send me an update. |
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