The Revitalist

Having recently seen/read of two examples of building materials salvaging that distressed me, I thought I share my observations. First, whole building salvaging in Holyoke, MA.
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The images above are before and after shots along Valley Mill Road, between third level canal and the Connecticut River. At the site a salvage company called American Deconstruction has been dismantling entire 19th. c. industrial buildings for their building materials,ie used brick, hard pine timbers and decking. The photo shows palletized brick ready for shipping to Louisiana. In this case the buildings were attractive to the dismantler because the roof was tight and hence the wood free from rot- sounds perfectly plausible except that, I would argue, with the buildings removed, Holyoke is left with bare, dirty old industrial land, of which they have plenty, without any re-useable buildings- the buildings added value to the site.

the above picture is of the context - a nice, well scaled, 19th c. village, soon to be demolished in the name of 'urban renewal', or private property rights, and the city left with what? As an aside, the large church, bottom center, was demolished recently as well.
second, illegal copper pipe stripping from foreclosed buildings in Lawrence, MA:
Copper salvaging has become collateral damage in the ongoing foreclosure crisis- apparently local men target empty and foreclosed-on property, and enter and strip out the copper and then deliver it to metal recyclers. In the case of the above image, the Lawrence Police received a tip from a recycler and were able to catch the thief with his loot.
As you can imagine, a home with the copper pipe stripped is pretty hard to re-occupy, exacerbating the already bad situation.