A grapple ate a concrete panel on the first day of demolition, tearing down windowless walls that once kept children in darkness and making room for a new, light-filled East Rock Global Magnet School.
The demolition work took place Thursday afternoon at the school at 133 Nash St., which is being completely razed and rebuilt as part of the city’s school construction program.
The new $45 million school, designed by Newman Architects, is slated to open in September of 2012, according to program manager Carolina Cudemus from the Gilbane Building Company.
Melissa Bailey Photo
Around 12:30 p.m., Bob Moriarty (pictured) got behind the wheel of a Volvo 460 excavator with a grapple attachment designed for demolition. He swung it around to the wall of the school cafetorium and tore down several concrete panels along with their gray stucco overcoat.
It was Day One of the four-week operation to take down the 1973 school, which is often referred to as a “bunker” or even a “prison.” The job is being done by Trumbull-based Standard Demolition, an affiliate of Stamford Wrecking, best known for imploding the New Haven Coliseum.
There will be no dramatic implosion at the East Rock school, workers said — just a steady effort to dismantle the concrete from its steel frame and send it off to a recycling plant.
“In mid-July, nothing should be here,” said Cudemus.
As she walked to the site of the work, she sensed something in the air — a misting machine, which sprays water in the air to minimize the dust from the demo work.
She stood by in a hard hat as Moriarty did his work. Cudemus said the concrete will be ground up and sent to a recycling plant, which in turn will resell it. The metals, along with an abandoned satellite dish, will be recycled separately, she said.
Newman Architects
The view from Blake Field.
In their place will rise a smaller school with much more light, said Brooks Fischer of Newman Architects, which designed the new building.
“It will be a lot more open,” Fischer said, “much more open to the community than the current building.”
Bruce Ring, the project supervisor for construction manager R2D, held up a drawing to illustrate that point. In the place of broad, windowless concrete walls, the drawings show lots of glass letting light into classrooms, hallways and common spaces.
The new building will be 86,000 square feet big, a significant reduction from the current 136,000-square-foot building. It will serve 543 kids. Cudemus said the reason for the reduced size is that the current building is too big for its declining student population. East Rock Global Magnet School is a neighborhood school pulling kids from a defined geographic area. It also has a robust special education program. Students have been commuting to a swing space on Leeder Hill Road while their school is being rebuilt.
Cudemus said the district has gone out to bid for a contractor to build the school. She said she expects a bidder to be chosen shortly and for construction to be complete in time for kids to return to the school in September 2012.
East Rock is one of only three remaining projects in the mayor’s $1.5 billion effort to rebuild or rehab every city school. The foundation is going in for a new Hill Central Music Academy, Cudemus said, with construction slated to be finished by September 2012. The city is still scouting sites for a permanent home for its Engineering and Science University Magnet School (ESUMS).
Melissa Bailey File Photo
Cudemus announced Thursday that the school has salvaged a much-loved mural (pictured) that greeted drivers on their way off the highway into East Rock. She said the mural was taken down Wednesday and wrapped in plastic. It will be rehung on the side of the school that faces Eagle Street next to a new playground.
Ring, the project supervisor, said the gym floor had a different fate. A local “urban miner” had sought to save 7,000 square feet of maple flooring, but it didn’t work out. Ring said he pulled up the flooring and sent it to the dump Wednesday; 70 percent of the flooring was rotten. “It wouldn’t have been good for anyone,” he said.
East Rock Alderman Justin Elicker, who took a peek at the site Thursday, called the new design “a welcome change.”
“The more windows the better,” he said. He said he is particularly enthused about a library space on the corner of Willow and Nash streets, which will be the new location of East Rock Management Team meetings. That space can be isolated so that community members can use it at night while the rest of the building is closed, Cudemus said.
Elicker (at left in photo, with Cudemus) said he’d still like to see some more changes to promote traffic calming around the site. When the project came up for approval before the City Plan Commission, the panel OK’d a special exception for off-site parking on a lot on Mitchell Street, kitty-corner from the school. That means teachers will have to cross Willow Street every morning at a congested area where cars fly off Interstate 91 and into East Rock.
“It’s important to set the tone right here,” Elicker said. “This is the gateway to the neighborhood.”
Cudemus showed plans for four crosswalks as well as expanded sidewalks to give pedestrians more room while they wait to cross the street. Elicker said he’d like to see a bump-out on Willow as cars head East.
State reimbursement for the project — which comes at a rate of 78.9 percent — applies to improvements only within a defined boundary, so improvements on Willow Street would not be reimbursed, Elicker said. He said he will continue to push for a way to slow down the traffic there.
Workers have installed seismic meters on the streets to gauge the vibrations from the demo work. Elicker took down the project manager’s cell phone number — “in case I get any complaints.”