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Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Century Building Memorial Parking Garage work stoppage update

What is causing the ongoing work stoppage at the hole in the ground where there used to be a Century Building?

Little Birdie #1 said that they drilled down 60 feet and hit water.

Little Birdie #2 said that they had been doing concrete testing. After two weeks, the concrete poured was bad, so they wanted to give it a full 28 days to cure completely (Concrete takes 28 days to cure.). This sounds possible, but strange because so much has been poured and built already. Piers are there, as are much of the beginnings of an elevator shaft, although it is possible.

Little Birdie #3 said that they drilled down 60 feet and hit water, and they didn't know when they'd be able to start again.

Little Birdie #4 said that they drilled down 60 feet and hit water, and they need to drill down 80 feet. When the concrete testing story was mentioned, this birdie said that a lot of things are going wrong with the garage, but they'll start work again tomorrow.


It's hard to say conclusively what's true, but it's interesting to me that this problem of the site being full of water keeps coming up.

Very early in the life of the Century Building, there was an office where one could purchase tickets for the ill-fated Titanic. Part of the reason the Titanic ultimately sank was that some of its officers tried to push ahead despite bad conditions because they wanted to set a world record on the maiden voyage of the ship. Foolish pride and pushing ahead despite the conditions is sinking work on the former site of a ticket office of the Titanic, at least for the time being.

1 comment:

Mark S. Abeln said...

Downtown Saint Louis is full of historic springs, including one that I've been told is still visible in the basement of the Public Library. One spring was artesian and its waters were sold for medicinal purposes; it was at the corner of O'Fallon and Main -- the latter street being subsequently renamed.

When the river was at near record low levels, I took a walk on the riverfront and counted six springs at the water's edge.