A downtown resident, and poster to the Newdowntown listserv posts about toxic clouds of progress emanating from the Rowan Building at 1AM.
"In the dead of night last night (TUE Aug 16, 1 AM) workers went into
the top floor of the Rowan Bldg. above the corner of 5th and Spring
with what sounded like huge grinders and began sequentially going
from room to room and window to window, making an horrendous racket
and blowing out huge clouds of dust and debris and letting it cascade
to the streets below. The workers appeared to start initially using
only flashlights, then after about a half-hour, a single worklight or
two."
I was so startled by what appeared to be some kind of triage-style
stripping operation that I was very concerned that people had broken
into the building and were stripping and stealing architectural
artifacts. I phoned the police immediately. When they arrived 20
minutes later, the police communicated with the workers and reported
to me that the building's guards had said they knew about it.
What were they doing? Why were they doing it at 1 AM? What was the
composition of these dust clouds? Were they stripping lead paint or
asbestos or some other toxic substance that they knew they could
never get away with during the day? This morning the sidewalks were
covered with dust for blocks and a huge cloud of dust hung in the air
for blocks up and down Spring Street and 5th St. - persisting into
the afternoon. In my living room where windows were open, everything
is covered in a pall of dust.
Tom Gilmore - you know I'm your biggest fan for all you've done for
this neighborhood and downtown LA as well as how wonderfully I hear
tenants say that you run your businesses. Did you know about these
shenanigans last night? Were your contractors pulling a fast one on
you and possibly exposing you to huge liability for creating a toxic
hazard? Aren't buildings required to be draped and sealed when doing
this kind of massive dust generation during renovation? Is this going
to continue night after night for all of the other floors of the
Rowan Building and perhaps the El Dorado?