5333 Connecticut Ave. Building Blog

A Collection of Our Favorite Top10 Videos

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☆ Video

• Week 30: Saturday, 29 March, 2014

☆ Video - In spite of the rain, a good construction-watching day.

-  Precisely at 6:58A the baby dozer tidied the upper site for the large cement pumping truck that arrived at 7:03A,

and by 7:42A the first of fifty cement trucks was dumping its load via the pumping truck to the south retaining wall.

The rain arrived at the same time and finally washed out all site work at 12:15P. The cement pumping truck was gone

by 1:10P and the site was closed shortly after. (1:52 min)

• Week 28: Tuesday, 11 March, 2014

☆  Video - Full Dance Floor

Everybody danced today. Work started with a pre-dawn light dance. All four earth moving machines were active most

of the day -- the little dozer even grabbed several shovels full of dirt to fix the entrance ramp. The resident backhoe

and bulldozer were joined by the Hertz backhoe in digging deeper down the site, from the edges inward. Any machine

digging at the west Connecticut side (bottom screen) was too low to be seen from the webcam. The dump trucks

slowed the Military traffic and their own progress by the need to back onto the site. The crew was also back at work

very deep on the south retaining wall (screen right), putting in retaining boards and tie backs (We slowed the time-

lapsed video to enhance the dance; fast forward with the browser controls. 4:39 min)

• Week 26: Saturday, 01 March, 2014

☆ Video - An Earth Moving Day

- The day started with a queue of dump trucks that filled the site and extended down Military Road facing west; the

queue continued for an hour with the backhoe and dozer both filling forty trucks. The two machines worked on the

Connecticut Ave side of the site, but so deep in the ground it was often hard to see the machines, only their scoops

as they reached up  to fill the trucks. In between waves, even the baby dozer joined the big dozer and the even

bigger backhoe to dig deeper and pile higher in preparation for the next wave of dump trucks; unfortunately most of

this earth moving was too deep behind the Connecticut Ave retaining wall for the webcam to see. Working from 7A to

4P, today was a record day; 177 dump truck loads of dirt left the site. We slowed the time-lapsed video to deepen the

appreciation of the deepening construction site. (5:28 min)

• Week 22; Saturday, 01 February, 2014

☆ Video - Now, THAT’S a Dump Day

- Ten of seven, the onslaught began. At least 20 dump trucks descended on the site, with six to seven on site, three

queued facing east on Military, and the rest queued facing west on Military. Of course the car traffic on Military was

managed down to a single, intermittent lane. Even with the bull dozer and backhoe both loading, there was a frenetic

pace for just over forty five minutes with over forty distinct dump trucks. By 1P, there was a striking hole at the

northwest corner, where the backhoe was digging  -- down. The 135th and last dump truck left the site at 2P,

beating the Saturday, 23 November, 2013 record of 100 trucks. Upstaged by the dump truck drama, the crew

worked on the south retaining wall, inserting more piping in new holes more than 30 feet below the first set. The crew

also worked on the planking north retaining and continued until 3P. (2:24 min)

• Week 14: Wednesday, 04 December, 2013

☆ YouTube Video - Slow Start To Busiest Day So Far

The day started with the activity off camera; the backhoe helped with the Kanawha retaining wall to the far

southwest, and the Jurassic Giraffe did its usual digging on the far northwest corner. However, by 9A the site was a

beehive of dump trucks, with the new bulldozer helping the backhoe load. And the Jurassic Giraffe moved to the east

side, where the backhoe cleared away the cement drive yesterday. At 9:40 another construction trailer was delivered.

This was definitely the busiest construction day so far. (1:38 min)

• Week 12: Saturday, 23 November, 2013

☆ YouTube Video - Air horn instead of rooster.

At 7:03A on a Saturday morning, the neighborhood was awaked by the blast of an air horn, and by 7:10A there were

nine dump trucks on site. They represented over a hundred dump truck loads that left the site today. And the

backhoe and dump trucks were the only equipment working on a Saturday. (1:31 Min)

• Week 12: Wednesday, 20 November, 2013

☆ YouTube Video - Jurassic Giraffe Happy Dance

The Jurassic Giraffe (aka post hole digger/pile driver) came downstage today to give the webcam it’s first good look

at the happy dance that was happening the last two weeks along Kanawha St. Dig a hole, shake out the dirt, dig

some more, shake out the dirt, put in an i-beam, fill with cement. The small bulldozer acted like a pilot fish, cleaning

away the dirt the Jurassic Giraffe dug out. (1:04 min)

• Week 11: Thursday, 14 November, 2013

☆ YouTube VIDEO

Busy day on the construction site. Welding continued on the Military St. side (screen left behind the trees); the

Jurassic Giraffe and cement trucks continued building a metal structure on the south east corner, and included

Jurassic Park sound effects (off screen right and in the left corner camera box); and the large backhoe and a string of

dump trucks continued removing the mount of dirt along Connecticut Ave (center screen front).

• Week 3: Thursday, September 19, 2013

- The Connecticut Ave fence came down.

- The Connecticut Ave, 100 year old, stone wall and steps were destroyed.

- The trees on the south west corner were all felled and chipped.

- A new double-thick fence was installed on the Connecticut and Kanawha sides.

☆ YouTube Video

Much of the activity is behind the street trees on Connecticut Ave., but watch the chipper smoke and grind in the

middle of the screen, disposing of hundreds of years of trees. Even though the activity is partially obscured, watch the

trees and bushes thin and disappear at the right of the screen, the southwest corner of the property, Connecticut Ave.

and Kanawha St. And 42 seconds into the video, a hundred-year-old, 10-story, blue evergreen is ever gone. At 1:05

minutes, another evergreen far right is down. (2:06 min)

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