For days, officials worried a strong wind or shift of the earth might take down the house at 161 North Oak Ave., which was in danger of falling down a cliff onto condos below.
Friday morning, the home came down – by way of excavator and construction crews from J.J. Brennan Construction Co.
The demolition started at about 8 a.m., and by 11 a.m., the two story, three-bedroom house was a pile of rubble at the end of the street.
Howard Vagt, the demolition superintendent for J.J. Brennan Construction, said the crew would demolish the building quickly, but carefully.
“It could go down in a windstorm,” Vagt joked before the demolition began.
“But we’re going to try to carefully take it apart, small piece by small piece, get it in a neat pile, and get out of here.”
The demolition revealed a furnished home, filled with storage boxes in the attic, furniture in the rooms and carpets still lining many floors.
As the pieces came apart, steam poured from the rooms that were warmer than the 9 degree temperature outside.
A musty smell and dust hung in the air.
The couple that owned the house left earlier this year in the midst of a foreclosure process brought on by failure to pay property taxes for several years.
The foreclosure complicated the demolition while city officials tried to determine whether the elderly couple or the bank owned the land, and whether the home was insured.
That information was squared away Thursday, according to Mayor Mark A. Lauretti (the couple still technically owns the home, and it is still insured).
The city decided to pay to demolish the house because of the safety risk it posed, and will leave the debris for clean up by the party it is determined is responsible, Lauretti said.
The next step Friday, according to Fire Chief Francis Jones, is to have the debris checked for contamination and covered up to wait for removal.
The city will then assess if any additional steps need to be taken to secure the edge of the cliff any further, Jones said.
The situation started Tuesday afternoon, when a mudslide at the end of the street left the home teetering on the edge, without a full ground beneath it.
No one was injured in the mudslide or the demolition. Emergency crews were on hand all morning Friday to make sure none of the debris fell down the embankment to the Riverview Condos below.
Jones said spectators were permitted to watch the demolition from a section of the parking lot at the Riverview Condos far back from the embankment.
Other neighbors and interested people stood along the caution tape draped across North Oak Avenue. News cameras lined up there as well, and in the back yard of a neighbor on parallel Cliff Street.
