SoLo - Before the Rapture

[scooterj]

From our own ScooterJ. Wish he was still in that office so we could see what the view looks like now.

Oooh, I had forgotten all about my animated series!
(It'll lock up for about a minute if you are on IE but then will flow smoothly once all the photos are loaded.)

Here's a few other pictures from that window...


A very early overview (10/16/03), before even the Nightmares building had come down...



The trees atop the Empire Theater




These two show the very first work that was done in the district, digging up the old trolley tracks under Walnut:


Hotel President renovation work...



Installing new utilities (note the surface lots still in use)



Moving day for The Goldmine while a bulldozer is anxious to knock down the Morgue...


Animation of part of the teardown...



The teardown of the basketball building...





The view on 3/17/05...




Here's a few pictures of the buildings in the arena area just before their destruction...













A few hours later...


I think that the middle rubble pile was where they later found the old basement safe that was booby trapped with explosives...





The aftermath of the water main break that pushed back the President opening and shut down the KCPL building...










Here comes the new President letters!








And, the fall of the TWA building... 

[scooterj]

I'd forgotten about that too, but what is the building across the street next to President?

Hmmm.... I can't remember, but I do remember that when they demolished it there were a lot of ancient computer monitors in the rubble pile.

[schugg]

what was the outcome of that safe they found?

[scooterj]

I think the bomb squad came and blew it up.

[staubio]

Awesome, scoot. Thanks. I owe you another drink.

Now I have to mourn TWA all over again, though.

[DaveKCMO]

i love this picture:

[heatherkay]

That is awesome -- are those all the little lightbulb boxes?

[kuslamb]

I have never hung giant letters, but I would imagine that the cost associated with finding a way to put the light bulbs in the letter after the letter had been erected would outweigh the cost of putting in new light bulbs.  Either way, you have to put the light bulbs in again after the letters are up because they will burn out/break.

Seems like someone got anxious and put all the bulbs in too early?

[anniewarbucks]

I remember placing the H&R Block World Hedquarters, NABC and the Sprint Center labels on Google Earth.

[staubio]

Now that the arena is complete, the loss of the Law Building really is that much more profound. There was a lot of traffic from the Arena MAX stop that must walk by the gravel lot that sits in the place of what could have been a bustling building. That was a tragic loss as this corner is now a prime part of downtown traffic flow.

Google Maps image still shows the law building. Overall, obviously, we're better off than what is in the aerial but I'd love to have that building back.

[Maitre D]

Some Chris guy on flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/christhomas/sets/)  has great shots of the P&L progress too.  This is a pretty good set of pics:

[DaveKCMO]

did anyone catch the time lapse of the webcam that they were playing inside the SC? we caught it in the metro sports lounge. wish they would have slowed it down a bit because it went by in less than 5 seconds.