A ski buddy of mine (Robert Israel, seen in the video) just finished lifting the 7000 ton Palace theater 30’ WITHIN its building to preserve the historic landmark (required) yet redevelop the building.
My comment to him was that I would’ve be popping valium like Pez. I’ve moved a bunch of residential buildings, and those were challenging enough. I’ve always said that the one sub who cannot have a bad day is the house mover–someone dies if he does. Hats off to the engineers, too!
Wow! That is absolutely amazing. Thanks for sharing.
Very cool seeing the time lapse video! I’ve been in the basement dressing rooms for the Palace, (two very steep flights of stairs going down!) which I guess must have been part of what was demolished to create the lifting structures. It’s incredible to picture that whole structure above moving in one piece.
“Boy are my arms tired!”
You know what is bigger than a theater? Chicago.
Oh, fine, up me by a billion tons. Whatever!
4 feet is for pikers.
500 city blocks of Galveston (2,000 buildings) were raised 8 to 17 feet after the great hurricane of 1900, with buildings elevated using manual screw jacks. The project took eight years.
OK, that’s impressive. We humans be crazy.
Seattle did something similar to solve the flooding of their streets, but rather than lifting the buildings, they raised the road levels leaving the bottom floors of buildings below ground. If you are ever in Seattle and want to go on a unique tour, I recommend it.
Back in the 1920, here in Syracuse they had to move a hotel from it’s currents spot to a spot across the street to make room for the new Hotel Syracuse that was planned. They had to rotate it 180 degrees first and then move it. The building weighed 12 and a half million pounds (6,200 tons). People continued to stay there and businesses inside stayed open while it was done (which took 90 days).
Hopefully this link will work: