209 Pearl: tearing down walls and sawing through pigeons

Having patched the holes in the roof of 209 Pearl last weekend, Jesse and I turned our attention to demolition today, removing quite a bit of the old plumbing, and most of the walls in what will eventually be the loft apartment opposite the offices of Landline Creative Labs. Everything was going pretty smoothly until Jesse, sawing through a board just over his head, unknowingly cut right through a pigeon, severing its head. When Jesse saw its brown, feathered head falling past his face, he leaned back into the wall, at which point the rest of the body rolled off the board that he was cutting and fell onto him. I wasn’t there to see it, but Jesse said the bird’s headless body bounced off his shoulder. Here’s Jesse working on a different section of the wall, followed by shots of what the soon-to-be apartment looks like now, and the enormous pile of lumber we dragged out of the room. [If you know of anyone who could use a bunch of lumber, let me know. It’s full of nails, but still in pretty good shape.]

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I mentioned above that, last weekend, we worked on the roof. Here’s Jesse cutting boards to the hole cut by the firefighters back in September, 2014, when one of the tenants in the boarding house that used to be on the second floor set fire to his room.

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Working on the roof, by the way, is awesome. Ypsilanti is totally beautiful from up there… I’d like to say more, but I somehow lost a few fingertips on my right hand today, and it hurts like hell to type.

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10 Comments

  1. Eel
    Posted April 25, 2016 at 6:46 am | Permalink

    Decapitated Pigeon Creative Labs has a nice ring to it.

  2. anonymous
    Posted April 25, 2016 at 9:19 am | Permalink

    It’s a shame that Water Street has been shut down. We could have made some awesome stuff with all of that wood.

  3. Rob Hess
    Posted April 25, 2016 at 9:40 am | Permalink

    Yo, Mark. I could use some of that lumber for stuff over at the ice cream store. I don’t need all of it, but maybe, oh, 15 or 20 full size 2x4s or so? Happy to walk over and pick them up sometime this week!

  4. Posted April 25, 2016 at 10:11 am | Permalink

    Decapitated Pigeon Creative Labs has a nice ring to it.

    I think you’ve just found LandLine’s mascot.

  5. Amber
    Posted April 25, 2016 at 10:25 am | Permalink

    Also, the Food Coop could always use lumber for their wood fired oven.

  6. Kat
    Posted April 25, 2016 at 10:44 am | Permalink

    I would buy decapitated pigeon merch.

  7. Bee
    Posted April 25, 2016 at 12:35 pm | Permalink

    Decapitated pigeons… Severed unicorn heads. What’s the difference.

  8. Seeking Mr Right now
    Posted April 25, 2016 at 9:02 pm | Permalink

    Just suppose this may be written by someone from Ypsilanti.
    It’s possible.

    [link removed at poster’s request]

    Sorry for posting off topic. I love all you do for this amazing town and won’t be offended if you delete this post.

  9. Elviscostello
    Posted April 26, 2016 at 2:02 am | Permalink

    Mark,
    My mom worked in that building when it housed the Hopkins, Thomas and Blair Insurance Agency. Was a really nice place as I remember.

  10. Posted April 26, 2016 at 8:15 am | Permalink

    Bee, brilliant! A severed unicorn head sewn onto a decapitated pigeon!

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