Landmark comes crashing down
 |
|
||||||||||||||||
City officials hope to rebuild the historic Pioneer Square pergola, which collapsed when it was struck by a truck early yesterday. But it may take weeks to determine if that's feasible.
"The first thing is to see whether we can't put it back the way it was," Mayor Paul Schell said yesterday as he viewed the heap of twisted metal and glass left behind when a semi driver unfamiliar with Seattle made a tight turn and wiped out the 1910-vintage structure. No one was injured in the accident.
"I hope the guy's got good insurance," Schell said.
The brittle nature of cast iron, and new building codes that require structures to be more resistant to earthquakes, will complicate the task of putting the much-photographed glass-topped canopy back the way it was.
"It's all bent and torqued and fractured, and a lot of stuff is shattered," said Woody Wilkinson, director of facilities maintenance for the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department. "It looks like it's basically destroyed."
The pergola originally was built as the upper level of an underground restroom that still exists but has been sealed off. The structure is an internationally known Seattle landmark. It is part of the Pioneer Square Historic Preservation District, which was placed in the 1970s on the National Register of Historic Places
Kevin Carl, an architect for Jones & Jones, which performed a major restoration of the structure in 1972, said some pieces may be reusable, while others would have to be refabricated.
"It's like an airplane crash. You have to go back and look at every piece," Carl said. Although cast iron can bear a great deal of weight, it tends to snap or shatter rather than bend.
"We had it for 100 years, and I'd like to see us have it another 100," Schell said.
If not pergola, another symbol
But if it's impossible to restore or recreate the pergola, the mayor said he'd propose another major symbol to mark Pioneer Square as "the birthplace of our city."
City Councilwoman Jan Drago, a Pioneer Square resident, said the good news is that no one was hurt and that the driver and his company are insured. She added that the city keeps an emergency fund it can draw from if necessary to help with the rebuilding.
"I think money isn't the question," she said, adding that the key concerns are getting the information about what can be done and how long it would take.
The truck is owned by U.S. Xpress Enterprises, a Chattanooga, Tenn.-based company. The company identified the driver as Pete Benard, 56, of Greensburg, Pa. Benard has worked for U.S. Xpress since October and only recently began driving trucks, said Russ Moore, vice president for safety for the company.
The company said it is insured by Liberty Mutual, whose claims adjustors visited the accident scene yesterday.
U.S. Xpress said a senior company representative was coming to Seattle to meet with city officials about the accident. Moore said he couldn't discuss details about what happened until the company gets a chance to talk with Benard.
"First and foremost is that we're sorry, and we expect to do the right thing and step up to the plate once the investigation is complete," Moore said. "We want to assure the people of Seattle we're just very concerned.''
The driver was cited
Police spokesman Sean O'Donnell said the truck driver was making a tight right turn from Yesler Way to First Avenue about 5:45 a.m. when the trailer's rear wheels ran up onto the corner of the sidewalk and the top of the trailer hit the pergola roof. The impact jarred the structure enough to bring the glass roof and the columns below it down like a line of dominoes.
Benard, who was unavailable for comment, was cited for driving on the sidewalk.
The driver was unfamiliar with the city and was having trouble finding an address. Although there are restrictions on when and where semis are allowed downtown, O'Donnell said it was not initially known whether the driver was violating those restrictions.
Dan Norman, a barista at a Tully's coffee shop across the street, said he was setting out pastries for the store's 6 a.m. opening when he heard what sounded like "a Dumpster falling off a second story and crashing onto the sidewalk."
When he looked out the window into the still-dark morning, he saw round white balls tumbling from the truck roof onto the sidewalk. He thought the truck had spilled glass balls and then realized what he was seeing were the round light globes of the pergola.
Parks Superintendent Ken Bounds said an initial concern was to fence off the area to prevent people from getting hurt or taking parts of the pergola as souvenirs.
"We have to secure it, clean it up and see what we can do," Bounds said. "Our intention is to rebuild it, but there have been a lot of code changes since 1910."
News of the mishap quickly drew onlookers who bemoaned the loss of the familiar symbol of Seattle. "It's like getting up in the morning and finding the Space Needle missing. It's very sad," said Joe Pritchard, who has led tours of the area.
Visitors to the scene included 11 students from small Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, making an "urban geography" tour of Seattle, Portland and Vancouver, B.C. Looking over the rubble and the strips of red and yellow crime-scene tape, one of the students quipped, "Maybe we should have come by yesterday."
Material from The Associated Press was used in this story.