And another one gone, and another one gone…

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• Sorry!

  Shafts is what we get from the city... :)

• it's gratifying that the media actually considered the demolition story worthy enough to cover. iBlogs like andrew's are great for venting and for providing information to an enlightened few but it's important that in order for the message to have the most impact on the community, the mainstream media needs to be made aware. That is why I called the star Wednesday shortly after i saw what was going on on Wednesday.

  the fact that the lowe/martin house was in the Star on the same day the seagraves demolition occurred certainly helped motivate the media to come out and i made sure i pointed that out to Doug Williamson from the Star when he called me the next day which helped make him appreciate the significance of the timing and what had just happened - again!

  So don't forget to contact the media whenever you feel that our heritage is being threatened! The people of our city need to know what's going on!

• lol...:)

• This has made me terribly sad, but nice work Windsor folk for organizing all this fast.

  Looking at these pictures, the quick knockdown, the rubble left on the sidewalk, unsecured. It's obvious it was a rush and dodgey job. Up here in Toronto we have our own problems with tearing down historic structures, but there would be, as one other blog put it, "hell to pay" if something like that went down up here.

  If this demo can galvanize so many people so quickly, perhaps it's loss might come to some good, to start a wider public movement to save the good that's left in windsor, and serve notice to either the political or bureaucratic incompetence that allowed this happen.

  To the two Chris's in the above newsclip - way to represent Windsor's good interests. Well done -- the tone was just right.

• i contacted 311 this morning and logged a complaint regarding the health and safety issue of the demolition site. I also stated that the owner did not follow proper procedure or protocol in the demolition of the site and I wanted to know what repercussions he would be facing. They indicated that a building inspector would be visiting the site and they would follow up with me.

  I advise everyone to call 311 and have your concerns on record, contact your councillor, email the ministry. It's the voices that count. They need to know that people are upset about this.

• and i'm in agreement with chris in keeping the pressure on. no sense in being angry about something and then just forgetting about it.

• i also called 311 with a complaint regarding the health and safety of the site and demolition

  (no fencing, debris strewn everywhere, no grates over sewers to prevent runoff from entering sewer system, public was still able to access the area while demolition was happening, etc.)

  They said they would look into it. I will be using my calls tracking number to check up on it soon enough and see what was done.

  Although I didn't like the fact they wouldn't log the complaint unless I gave my name and phone number...

• At the very least, this is a Health and Safety violation, exposing the public to an unsecured demolition site. (It is fortunate that someone was not injured in this quick, secretive demo.) If that were not the case, why is it that other demo sites are blocked off entirely? No one in the business is going to secure a site and spend time and money on same if it weren't mandated to do so. Do the powers-that-be in other demo projects secure their sites out of the goodness of their hearts? It must be mandated to secure a demo site, so the City, in all of its too-little-too-late wisdom, needs to act on that. But it probably won't happen because they don't want to piss off the owner of a future big-box site who will pay big taxes. Just being realistic here.

  A reader mentioned the asbestos aspect. When other buildings are torn down, a team is supposed to secure the site and assess and remove all asbestos--this sort of thing probably takes weeks. In this case, it apparently did not. There is a violation there, that no asbestos assessment was performed. The public was exposed to asbestos, highly likely, as most reno's in old buildings prior to the 1970s probably entailed "new" duct work in which asbestos was a component. And then there is the old linoleum tiles used in the 50s, possibly a part of that building, whose components probably contained that toxin. And it was a windy day, so anyone living downwind, not to mention watching in the open at an unsecured site, probably got a dose of airborne asbestos, thanks to the surreptitious deed.

  If I lived nearby, having been potentially exposed to this carcinogen, I'd be contacting the Minister of the Environment, and going down the line right to Parliament officials, to find out my recourse.

• Asbestos was one of the concerns that I expressed to the Ministry of Labout when I called this morning. When I drove past around 1 p.m. the equipment was idle and there were a few people standing around talking. Hopefully the MOL is involved.

• So, the equipment is idle, and, theres's uncontrolled asbestos on this site in the open air even at this moment as pedestrians pas by... sad....