Buildings crashing left and right......

All of the Railroad Avenue buildings have been demolished and only one of the houses on College Ave. remains. A cyclone fence has been erected around the entire work site. The webcam is now operational (as shown in the photo). Disappointingly, it is not the streaming video that I had been told it would be but is only still shots, refreshed every 15 seconds. The webcam shots can be accessed at http://cfserv.dickinson.edu/about/webcam/science.cfm

Demolition schedule!

The campus was informed of the demolition schedule via e-mail a few days ago. Starting today, the Railroad Avenue houses and the College Street houses will begin to come down. After the houses are down, James Center will be demolished. Altogether, the demolitions should take about six weeks. Kaufman Hall is now occupied by the former James Center residents, although some minor construction is still taking place at Kaufman. There is still a lot of work to do on the Louther Street entrance and the parking lot, and the energy plant on the same site as Kaufman is still under construction.

My wife and I dug up some great peonies from the yard of one of the College Street houses (with permission, of course!). It will take them about three years to flower after transplanting but these are the great old-fashioned kind with the wonderful smell so it will be worth it.

As a side note, the last house on the south side of Louther (422/424 West Louther Street) came down yesterday, soon to be replaced by a beach volleyball court. Perhaps Carlisle will become a stop on the professional volleyball tour!

Background activities

There has been a fair amount of "background activity" going on -- lots of utility work and a few trees around Tome have come down. Backhoes have opened up large holes in the ground between Tome and James. Work at the Kaufman site appears to have slowed down but a large moving van was loading up big items from James this morning. Nothing exciting (like large buildings crashing to the ground) but definitely a constant buzz of supporting activity.

Smile, You're on Candid Camera!

A camera has been installed on the corner of College and Louther; newly minted alum Natalie Martin is shown pointing at it in the picture. The word is that the camera will be used to show streaming video of the construction process. The houses on Railroad Ave. have been gutted and are ready to come down. Lots of "Do Not Enter" police tape surrounds the College St. houses. There has been no real noticeable activity around James itself, other than lots of boxes being carted out and moved down the street to the Kaufman building.