Flood Middle School, Englewood, CO - Part 2
Demolition begins on Flood Middle School...
Work continued on the inside of the school for another three weeks. Driving home from work in June 2013, just after midnight, I saw that all the lights in the building were now turned off, after being left on 24-7 in the previous four months. Power to the building had been cut, it would be a matter of days before the school would be coming down.
The shovel first tore into Flood's walls on June 13, 2013. I discovered this by chance on June 21st, eight days later.
I can't remember where I was driving when I decided to stop by Flood, then discovering that demolition had begun as I approached from the south on Lincoln. Luckily my camera was in the car with me. I needed the best examples of intact-to-gone-forever in just a matter of feet for my story.
By that point, the southeast corner was gone. The round building was reduced to a cleared out foundation, main east entrance was down to the foundation. South wing was just a pile of rubble, and a pretty good amount of the southwest corner was now eaten up too.
According to a story in the Englewood Herald, demolition would take about a month. Crews will continue to tear down most of the south end of the building, then move north.
Once the building is down, the concrete floor will be cleared. Debris would be piled up on site, then separated into piles of bricks and metal that will be hauled off and recycled.
Over the next two months, I stopped by the Flood demolition site for photographs multiple times per week. Since I was already driving by...
To tell the story and show progress, I'm going to cover the demolition on a day by day basis. To give an idea the timeframe of this project, a sign was posted at the -now closed- bus stop
Great example of one of my favorite type of demolition pictures, when you find a single solitary out of place item among the debris. This defeated little chair with no legs is spared the inevitable for just a little longer than everything else around it...
The glass curved upper level of the courtyard has been toppled. Too bad it's buried, the debris looked really cool.
The triple doors to double stairs were removed and covered with plywood. With ventilation holes cut into it for asbestos removal.
As the school was being demolished, workers used the north side of the gymnasium as their parking lot and base of operations. I'd occasionally find fixtures from the school, dragged outside and leaned against the walls. Shopping carts with most of the basket removed, to allow easy wheeling of bulkier items, were also outside, next to intact shopping carts. Rows of lockers, tables and boxes, leaned against the north wall. A hole was punched into the building to feed electrical cords through.
This picture was taken from a block to the east of Flood, across the old athletic field. Four days after I first took demolition pictures, nothing new had been taken down. Work was focused on clearing what had already fallen.
Four more days later, much had been cleared out, and work was set to begin on the next segments to come apart.
With the building itself removed, the stairs inside the southeast entrance were exposed. Of course they didn't lead anywhere anymore...
These stairs were also some of the last pieces removed from the Flood site in late August.
They would get more and more beaten down as equipment repeatedly drove over and crushed them, during removal of other parts of the school.
The collapsing east side shows an avalanche of roof, floors, bent metal and even some wood tables and chairs.
Always a big fan of taking interior shots where you can catch a glimpse of what it once looked like inside. As the shovels tore into the school's west building, the east side of classrooms were gone, with the natural split coming down the hallway, which ended in a sudden drop off onto rubble. Some lockers were still clinging to life, stuck to a wall with no floor underneath. Through an open door, next to the lockers, a classroom sits appearing ready to go, with desks stacked on top of each other. Less than a week later, such school fixtures were buried under brick, concrete and steel.
Clearing out most of the courtyard, this would all be smashed and buried the next time I came back. Recognizable parts from the east were increasingly hard to find.
At the entrance to the street hockey rink, I got a better picture of the rules sign. I love how the letters are starting to melt off.
Out behind the auditorium, activity has calmed down, and some rainbow lockers have showed up.
The sad, rusted backstop of the long neglected and grown over baseball field, across the street from Flood. My crappy car makes a cameo in this picture...
Most of it collapsed on itself, with some of the bricks and beams knocked out onto the basketball court below. Video of beams and concrete falling onto basketball hoops would have been really cool to get... But I didn't, so this still picture will have to suffice.
Cheesy metal window blinds dangle over the walkway behind the basketball court, leading to the auditorium.
With the northeast corner of the school crumbled in on itself, the area it met with the main part of the school, just south of the auditorium, was now exposed. Hallways were now open, allowing you to see inside. Demolition exposed some of the original brick work, towards the north gymnasium. A more natural looking red brick showed up amongst the blandly painted tan and white brick.
Just south of the auditorium, the shovel was chewing up the roof. Munching beams and spitting them aside. It was almost hypnotizing in a sad way.
Before demolition began, I found a soft core porn mag by the basketball court. Three months later, I found a copy of Penthouse magazine just inside the security fence. (Is Penthouse still considered softcore? Been at least 15 years since I've looked at an issue. I know they show pink, but do they print penetration?)
As I was readying to leave the site, I took another shot from outside the foundation for the round building. The next swipe from the shovel took out the air conditioning unit on the roof. Which was then moved to the pile of metal for recycling. And I moved on to work...
From the west side, all looked relatively normal. Alpine Demolition kept the west facing exterior walls up longer than I'd expected. Working for weeks behind their cover. But they were just a facade, the school behind them was missing. If you looked at the west side of the school, you could see through what was left of the windows and see sky behind them.
The building had been collapsed, leaving brick, wood, concrete and steel piled up to the second floor. The school had been reinforced with a layer of cinder blocks and new brick on the outside, covering up the original 1920's era brickwork.
The last intact exterior picture I took of the west side of Flood. With the exception of the roof line starting to chip away. Those trees have no idea what is in store for them...
Once again, behind the thin walls. Nearly all of the original school building is rubble. Only the north auditorium is currently intact. Taking pictures like allows me to play a quick game of "what can still be recognized?" Which is a really fun game to play while looking at demolition sites...
Looking into what was the original auditorium, when the school opened in 1920. Unfortunately, large chunks of roof fell into the large open space, so I never could get a good picture of the interior.
At the southeast corner of the property, the round extension had been scraped to it's foundation. Just inside the back doors was a staircase leading into the basement, curving along the round walls.
No new segments of Flood came down since my last visit. After a few days of debris sorting, large piles of metal, wood and concrete sat in different sections of basement
For much of the last week, work was focused on clearing the large piles of destruction from the south and east ends, before tearing down the west side of the school would begin.
Trucks were being loaded with concrete chunks when I stopped by for pictures. The process seemed to be moving smooth. Two trucks arrived, were filled, then left, during the time I was taking pictures.
The main entrance on the east side was scraped clear, with only traces of tile left, near stairs crushed by heavy shovel treads destroying everything those stairs lead to.
The round building in the former courtyard was surprising intact, despite burial for a month by it's second floor. This was the entry point for the trucks to haul the school away to it's various recycling destinations.
With many truckloads of broken school already removed, you could see the much of the foundation and what was left of the basement rooms.
I was never inside the building so I have no context to wrap around what I was seeing. It was sad to see this historic building go, but at least I was getting pictures!
Here is another of my favorite Flood pictures... The iconic southwest entrance, still semi-intact, with the auditorium shaved off directly next to it. Ceiling collapsed in on three sides of the foyer. One daring fire extinguisher made it's escape from crushing doom, rolling down the stairs to temporary safety. Demolition crews made sure to leave a sign posted to ensure you knew that skateboarding was still not allowed there.
The stairs and sidewalk leading from Broadway, up to the west doors. They now lead to one door kinda hanging in place, attached to small chunk of wall, with a big pile of Flood guts spilling out between. If I wasn't trying to write a more serious issue of Wasted Quarter, I could have drawn a giant face vomiting behind the picture.
And just in case you kids think it would be the cool thing to do, obey the sign! Skateboarding is not allowed here either!
It didn't take long for the west exterior to disappear. Flood was now down to it's north end auditorium, along with some attached classroom chunks that hadn't yet toppled.
The gymnasium was now the only part of the school still standing. Everything connected to it was heaped in a pile, with the exception of a small piece of a former classroom, hanging onto dear life...
An open doorway into the second floor of the gymnasium, next to a hanging door into the south gym. (If you zoom in really tight, you can see a very small sign above the door with that title.)
Now exposed, the interior color schemes were painted blue and white. Unfortunately I couldn't get enough light for a decent picture of the auditorium interior before it was collapsed.
Flood remains are being sorted into separate piles of former buildings where they once stood. A makeshift road for moving equipment up a level to the west building foundation was set up through the former courtyard. The west building was on a hill and had no basement, as the newer additions did.
The southwest entrance was now three stairs leading to a cement platform, currently being scraped of bricks by the greedy shovel. But it looks like skateboarding is cool there now!
Stuff was still being removed from the back of the auditorium, there was a pile of trash sitting just inside the open door. The doors have been removed and are just leaning against the back wall. This is probably the last picture I will get of the north side of the auditorium before it is leveled.
The auditorium has been collapsed to the first level. Steel supports for the roof are now laying across the overhang to the north, and the gymnasium bleachers to the south. With the roof crumbing over top.
Clean up continues on the gymnasium, which has been reduced to rubble. Several piles of metal waiting to be hauled away for scrap, are being separated from the brick and steel mess left over from the collapse of the auditorium.
More gymnasium powderization... Not much else remains of the former school except large chunks of cement foundations, which were now being removed from the ground. Exposing dirt that had not seen the light of day in nearly a century.
Walking to the north end of the building on July 24th, I had discovered a gallon jug of milk on the cement barrier. It was still sitting there, baking in the hot sun on July 28th. Over the past four days, someone had removed the cap. The milk was now separated into a thick cheese layer, with liquid trapped underneath. Not much had changed with the milk jug over the last two days, when I snapped another picture on July 30th. The cheese was getting a little darker... I'd hoped it would remain here for the next few visits, so I could document what was going to happen to the milk.
Unfortunately, the milk jug has been tipped over by August 4th...
The foundation had started to be removed (including the round building) on the south side a week earlier, and the gymnasium was almost completely gone by Friday night.
Sunday night's trek brought a pleasant surprise. The storm the night before knocked down much of the security fence surrounding the Flood property. Ten or twelve people were inside the fence, walking around the foundation of the school when I got there. Since the fence was bent down, that means it's cool for me to wander inside as well...
While the auditorium was almost completely destroyed, the basketball courts claimed the title of last most-intact...
Most of the school foundation has been pulled from the ground. Basketball courts are still kind of there, brick and metal scraps sit next to -and on- the old rusting staircase. Pavement is being removed from the parking lots to the north of the school.
Yeah... I bet that broom is coming in handy...
Sitting in a nearly completely cleared section of former middle school, was this extra large ball, chain and mutilated tire... I found it perplexing...
Looking east at where Flood used to stand, from across Broadway. Pictures like this pound home how the removal of Flood from the city's landscape drastically changes the view. Say nothing of the character it loses...
The former Flood Middle School site is now graded and flat. With the exception of some cement walls on the very north edge of the property, that were used to hold up paved lots. Flood is now nothing but a memory.
After today, I declared the Flood Middle School Demolition Photography Mission officially closed.
It's Alta Cherry Baaaaaaauaaaaaa....
Shortly after Flood disappeared, the site began prep-work for the massive luxury apartment complex that would replace Flood Middle School.
Well, I'm not covering that...
Instead, I will leave you with a view of the intersection of Broadway Avenue and Kenyon Avenue in Englewood, Colorado. I'm looking northeast to where Flood used to be. With the ugly apartments popping up shortly, this was a view that only exited for a few months over the last century. (Photo taken August 24, 2013).
And when you think about gentrification and the urban renewal of old towns with a long history, those glimpses into the past often go unnoticed.
Work continued on the inside of the school for another three weeks. Driving home from work in June 2013, just after midnight, I saw that all the lights in the building were now turned off, after being left on 24-7 in the previous four months. Power to the building had been cut, it would be a matter of days before the school would be coming down.
If you haven't, go do that! I'll wait...
The shovel first tore into Flood's walls on June 13, 2013. I discovered this by chance on June 21st, eight days later.
June 21, 2013
I can't remember where I was driving when I decided to stop by Flood, then discovering that demolition had begun as I approached from the south on Lincoln. Luckily my camera was in the car with me. I needed the best examples of intact-to-gone-forever in just a matter of feet for my story.
By that point, the southeast corner was gone. The round building was reduced to a cleared out foundation, main east entrance was down to the foundation. South wing was just a pile of rubble, and a pretty good amount of the southwest corner was now eaten up too.
According to a story in the Englewood Herald, demolition would take about a month. Crews will continue to tear down most of the south end of the building, then move north.
Once the building is down, the concrete floor will be cleared. Debris would be piled up on site, then separated into piles of bricks and metal that will be hauled off and recycled.
Over the next two months, I stopped by the Flood demolition site for photographs multiple times per week. Since I was already driving by...
To tell the story and show progress, I'm going to cover the demolition on a day by day basis. To give an idea the timeframe of this project, a sign was posted at the -now closed- bus stop
Great example of one of my favorite type of demolition pictures, when you find a single solitary out of place item among the debris. This defeated little chair with no legs is spared the inevitable for just a little longer than everything else around it...
The glass curved upper level of the courtyard has been toppled. Too bad it's buried, the debris looked really cool.
The triple doors to double stairs were removed and covered with plywood. With ventilation holes cut into it for asbestos removal.
As the school was being demolished, workers used the north side of the gymnasium as their parking lot and base of operations. I'd occasionally find fixtures from the school, dragged outside and leaned against the walls. Shopping carts with most of the basket removed, to allow easy wheeling of bulkier items, were also outside, next to intact shopping carts. Rows of lockers, tables and boxes, leaned against the north wall. A hole was punched into the building to feed electrical cords through.
June 25, 2013
This picture was taken from a block to the east of Flood, across the old athletic field. Four days after I first took demolition pictures, nothing new had been taken down. Work was focused on clearing what had already fallen.
June 29, 2013
Four more days later, much had been cleared out, and work was set to begin on the next segments to come apart.
With the building itself removed, the stairs inside the southeast entrance were exposed. Of course they didn't lead anywhere anymore...
These stairs were also some of the last pieces removed from the Flood site in late August.
They would get more and more beaten down as equipment repeatedly drove over and crushed them, during removal of other parts of the school.
Looks like I missed out on free stuff...
The collapsing east side shows an avalanche of roof, floors, bent metal and even some wood tables and chairs.
Always a big fan of taking interior shots where you can catch a glimpse of what it once looked like inside. As the shovels tore into the school's west building, the east side of classrooms were gone, with the natural split coming down the hallway, which ended in a sudden drop off onto rubble. Some lockers were still clinging to life, stuck to a wall with no floor underneath. Through an open door, next to the lockers, a classroom sits appearing ready to go, with desks stacked on top of each other. Less than a week later, such school fixtures were buried under brick, concrete and steel.
Clearing out most of the courtyard, this would all be smashed and buried the next time I came back. Recognizable parts from the east were increasingly hard to find.
And this picture just rules.
At the entrance to the street hockey rink, I got a better picture of the rules sign. I love how the letters are starting to melt off.
Out behind the auditorium, activity has calmed down, and some rainbow lockers have showed up.
The sad, rusted backstop of the long neglected and grown over baseball field, across the street from Flood. My crappy car makes a cameo in this picture...
Hey! You forgot your microwave!
July 3, 2013
The northeast corner of the school was smashed to bits at the beginning of July.
Top two floors collapsed into the first, which still had standing walls.
Most of it collapsed on itself, with some of the bricks and beams knocked out onto the basketball court below. Video of beams and concrete falling onto basketball hoops would have been really cool to get... But I didn't, so this still picture will have to suffice.
Cheesy metal window blinds dangle over the walkway behind the basketball court, leading to the auditorium.
With the northeast corner of the school crumbled in on itself, the area it met with the main part of the school, just south of the auditorium, was now exposed. Hallways were now open, allowing you to see inside. Demolition exposed some of the original brick work, towards the north gymnasium. A more natural looking red brick showed up amongst the blandly painted tan and white brick.
Just south of the auditorium, the shovel was chewing up the roof. Munching beams and spitting them aside. It was almost hypnotizing in a sad way.
Before demolition began, I found a soft core porn mag by the basketball court. Three months later, I found a copy of Penthouse magazine just inside the security fence. (Is Penthouse still considered softcore? Been at least 15 years since I've looked at an issue. I know they show pink, but do they print penetration?)
As I was readying to leave the site, I took another shot from outside the foundation for the round building. The next swipe from the shovel took out the air conditioning unit on the roof. Which was then moved to the pile of metal for recycling. And I moved on to work...
July 4, 2013
From the west side, all looked relatively normal. Alpine Demolition kept the west facing exterior walls up longer than I'd expected. Working for weeks behind their cover. But they were just a facade, the school behind them was missing. If you looked at the west side of the school, you could see through what was left of the windows and see sky behind them.
The building had been collapsed, leaving brick, wood, concrete and steel piled up to the second floor. The school had been reinforced with a layer of cinder blocks and new brick on the outside, covering up the original 1920's era brickwork.
July 7, 2013
The last intact exterior picture I took of the west side of Flood. With the exception of the roof line starting to chip away. Those trees have no idea what is in store for them...
Another of my favorite Flood pictures...
Once again, behind the thin walls. Nearly all of the original school building is rubble. Only the north auditorium is currently intact. Taking pictures like allows me to play a quick game of "what can still be recognized?" Which is a really fun game to play while looking at demolition sites...
Looking into what was the original auditorium, when the school opened in 1920. Unfortunately, large chunks of roof fell into the large open space, so I never could get a good picture of the interior.
At the southeast corner of the property, the round extension had been scraped to it's foundation. Just inside the back doors was a staircase leading into the basement, curving along the round walls.
July 9, 2013
No new segments of Flood came down since my last visit. After a few days of debris sorting, large piles of metal, wood and concrete sat in different sections of basement
July 10, 2013
For much of the last week, work was focused on clearing the large piles of destruction from the south and east ends, before tearing down the west side of the school would begin.
Trucks were being loaded with concrete chunks when I stopped by for pictures. The process seemed to be moving smooth. Two trucks arrived, were filled, then left, during the time I was taking pictures.
The main entrance on the east side was scraped clear, with only traces of tile left, near stairs crushed by heavy shovel treads destroying everything those stairs lead to.
The round building in the former courtyard was surprising intact, despite burial for a month by it's second floor. This was the entry point for the trucks to haul the school away to it's various recycling destinations.
With many truckloads of broken school already removed, you could see the much of the foundation and what was left of the basement rooms.
I was never inside the building so I have no context to wrap around what I was seeing. It was sad to see this historic building go, but at least I was getting pictures!
July 11, 2013
West walls started coming down today...
Here is another of my favorite Flood pictures... The iconic southwest entrance, still semi-intact, with the auditorium shaved off directly next to it. Ceiling collapsed in on three sides of the foyer. One daring fire extinguisher made it's escape from crushing doom, rolling down the stairs to temporary safety. Demolition crews made sure to leave a sign posted to ensure you knew that skateboarding was still not allowed there.
The stairs and sidewalk leading from Broadway, up to the west doors. They now lead to one door kinda hanging in place, attached to small chunk of wall, with a big pile of Flood guts spilling out between. If I wasn't trying to write a more serious issue of Wasted Quarter, I could have drawn a giant face vomiting behind the picture.
And just in case you kids think it would be the cool thing to do, obey the sign! Skateboarding is not allowed here either!
July 12, 2013
It didn't take long for the west exterior to disappear. Flood was now down to it's north end auditorium, along with some attached classroom chunks that hadn't yet toppled.
July 13, 2013
The gymnasium was now the only part of the school still standing. Everything connected to it was heaped in a pile, with the exception of a small piece of a former classroom, hanging onto dear life...
Another view of the southeast entrance and various basement room foundations.
One tough little soccer ball made it through a ton of shit to survive another day...
July 17, 2013
The auditorium now (briefly) is the last part of the building still standing.
Going around the building to take a closer look at the auditorium.
All original parts of the 1920 Englewood High School have now been demolished.
An open doorway into the second floor of the gymnasium, next to a hanging door into the south gym. (If you zoom in really tight, you can see a very small sign above the door with that title.)
Now exposed, the interior color schemes were painted blue and white. Unfortunately I couldn't get enough light for a decent picture of the auditorium interior before it was collapsed.
Flood remains are being sorted into separate piles of former buildings where they once stood. A makeshift road for moving equipment up a level to the west building foundation was set up through the former courtyard. The west building was on a hill and had no basement, as the newer additions did.
The southwest entrance was now three stairs leading to a cement platform, currently being scraped of bricks by the greedy shovel. But it looks like skateboarding is cool there now!
July 20, 2013
The former southwest entrance was always so photogenic...
Stuff was still being removed from the back of the auditorium, there was a pile of trash sitting just inside the open door. The doors have been removed and are just leaning against the back wall. This is probably the last picture I will get of the north side of the auditorium before it is leveled.
July 24, 2013
Obsolete staircase with a missing school behind it.
The auditorium has been collapsed to the first level. Steel supports for the roof are now laying across the overhang to the north, and the gymnasium bleachers to the south. With the roof crumbing over top.
Some of the brick pieces spilled out to the sides, but it appeared to fall mostly inward.
Auditorium demolition from the east side.
July 28, 2013
Clean up continues on the gymnasium, which has been reduced to rubble. Several piles of metal waiting to be hauled away for scrap, are being separated from the brick and steel mess left over from the collapse of the auditorium.
July 30, 2013
More gymnasium powderization... Not much else remains of the former school except large chunks of cement foundations, which were now being removed from the ground. Exposing dirt that had not seen the light of day in nearly a century.
The Flood Milk Chug!
Unfortunately, the milk jug has been tipped over by August 4th...
August 4, 2013
The foundation had started to be removed (including the round building) on the south side a week earlier, and the gymnasium was almost completely gone by Friday night.
Sunday night's trek brought a pleasant surprise. The storm the night before knocked down much of the security fence surrounding the Flood property. Ten or twelve people were inside the fence, walking around the foundation of the school when I got there. Since the fence was bent down, that means it's cool for me to wander inside as well...
I walked around the remains of the former gymnasium, looking for clues of the building's layout.
Remnants of ceramic bathroom tile, drains and stairs were all that was left.
I can say for certain, that those are indeed stairs...
Less than a month ago, this was the triple doors to double stairs...
In mere days it will all be lost to history, but I did get a nice photo collection documenting it's demise.
While the auditorium was almost completely destroyed, the basketball courts claimed the title of last most-intact...
The stairs leading up to them, not as much...
August 11, 2013
Most of the school foundation has been pulled from the ground. Basketball courts are still kind of there, brick and metal scraps sit next to -and on- the old rusting staircase. Pavement is being removed from the parking lots to the north of the school.
Yeah... I bet that broom is coming in handy...
Sitting in a nearly completely cleared section of former middle school, was this extra large ball, chain and mutilated tire... I found it perplexing...
August 18, 2013
Looking east at where Flood used to stand, from across Broadway. Pictures like this pound home how the removal of Flood from the city's landscape drastically changes the view. Say nothing of the character it loses...
August 24, 2013
The former Flood Middle School site is now graded and flat. With the exception of some cement walls on the very north edge of the property, that were used to hold up paved lots. Flood is now nothing but a memory.
After today, I declared the Flood Middle School Demolition Photography Mission officially closed.
*****
Shortly after Flood disappeared, the site began prep-work for the massive luxury apartment complex that would replace Flood Middle School.
Well, I'm not covering that...
Instead, I will leave you with a view of the intersection of Broadway Avenue and Kenyon Avenue in Englewood, Colorado. I'm looking northeast to where Flood used to be. With the ugly apartments popping up shortly, this was a view that only exited for a few months over the last century. (Photo taken August 24, 2013).
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