Rensselaer Adventures

This blog reports events and interesting tidbits from Rensselaer, Indiana and the surrounding area.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Demolishing Monnett continued (and updated)

Today, Thursday, the excavator was working on the last half of the north wing of the Monnett School. It did not have to go much further before it would get to the east wall.
 Below is the view of the school from the south. On the fence you can see the No Trespassing sign that was in a earlier picture, when the wall was still there. That was last Thursday.
I will probably be updating this post with picture for the next few days rather than putting them in separate posts.

Update Friday:
Today the excavator seemed to keep pretty busy loading up trucks with debris. The metal goes to the local scrap yard, Rensselaer Iron and Metal. I did not ask where the rest goes.
 This morning noticed that the wall of the furnace room was down and you could see two furnaces in depression.
 Later in the day the furnaces were gone and the excavator was working in what had been the furnace room. It tilted slightly when it entered the room.
 Not much later there was nothing left of the room.
I talked to one of the guys doing the work. He said that the north wing was not built the same way as the south wing. Does anyone remember it there was an addition to the school? It may have been built in 1957. There is a plaque in the administration building with this date, but no one is quite sure that if it is for original construction.

There is not much structure left to tear down, but there is a huge concrete pad on which the school set that will take some time to rip up.

Update: Monday Feb 11
When I went past the school this afternoon about 2:00, most of the northwest corner was gone, with just a bit of the wall left.
Coming back about an hour later, that last bit of wall was gone and the pad was being scraped clean. In the background you can see a truck being loaded with scrap metal.
 Much of the outside wall of the north wing is still standing, and you can see it above. There is a lot of debris that is within those walls that will have to be removed. Only the east corner of the south wing is left, the little bit with the elephant pictures.

Update Tuesday:

When I stopped by today there was no activity on the site. The north wing was full of debris that needs to be hauled away, but except for a little bit of wall on the east end, the south wing is gone.
Here is the view from the other side of the wall. Uranus and Neptune are missing.
 A bit of the concrete pad on the Southwest corner has been ripped up, exposing the sand below.
 I noticed that the ramp leading to the last of the modules was being taken apart. I believe that this module will end up near the football field. If you know more, please tell us in a comment.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

1957 sounds right for original construction. By 1960 or so they had bricked up the original floor-to-ceiling windows of the classroom on the right front corner of the school, which was set apart from the other classrooms. I never had a class in that room, sunny or otherwise, but my siblings did (and I was envious). The south wing (with elephant) opened for all seventh-grade students in 1966, I believe. As for the photo with the furnaces, Mr. Malone ruled that domain when I was a student.