Saturday, May 3, 2008

Is the Woodwards Tower Tilting?






Two old timers at the Ovaltine Cafe today were saying that the tower at the new Woodwards site at Abbott & W. Cordova looks like it's tilting north. I don't know. What do you think?

One man said, "I hope it collapses. That would be funny." He was revealing the bitterness that some Downtown Eastside residents feel about the fact that despite protests and a squat at the site, they failed to win the number of social housing units they wanted there.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Old fashioned masonary buidings had to go skinnier as they went up, with new steel built construction they can go wider as they go up, which can lead to the illusion that the building is tilting. It's called cantilevered construction.
My friend who lives across the street and is a professional carpenter says that for the first seven months of construction all they did was tie it into the earth with multiple clusters of dense rebar. He also points out that steel construction can bend somewhat, as opposed to masonry, so it's not so likely to topple.

reliable sources said...

anonymous,

Thanks for clearing that up.

Anonymous said...

Rachel here, my other friend who lives across the street with the carpenter said he went to a bunch of meetings about the Woodwards building and that one of the main things the community was insisting on was a community centre on the main floor. There's still a commnity centre in the latest plans, he says, but now ot's going to be on the basement and the second floor and the main floor is going to be a TD bank. Bait and Switch, as per usual.

Anonymous said...

Bait and switch? What's so bad about the community center being in the basement?

Anonymous said...

Myself, I prefer to live in places where I can get natural light, not being big on spelunking

Anonymous said...

one night i looked out the window and saw two lights: a steady one and a flashing one, so i thought it was a helicopter, but i looked at it with binoculars and saw that it was a crane!