igloo demo (2)

The Igloo, with final arm about to fall.

It was a typical early spring day for Western Pennsylvania. The skies were grey, the breeze was chilly and there was a hint of drizzle in the air. The city was barely waking up and so was I as I made my way from my Shadyside Bed and Breakfast to the Lower Hill. There was an eerie silence all around and in the distance a distinct hum was crying out. I parked on Fifth and sauntered up Centre, slowly loading a roll of film into a now barely used Hasselblad. Just a few frames of what was left of this beautiful beast was all I desired on this bone-chilling Pittsburgh morning.

Grey. Grey. Grey.

I trekked across the grey parking lot. And that was all that was to be seen on this day. The Consol looked grey. The skyline looked grey. The Igloo looked grey. Even things that were in color looked grey.

There was a solitary grey Jeep parked in the vast ocean of grey asphalt that surrounded the Penguins’ home of forty-three years. Waves of concrete had fallen in the weeks before and the final pieces were about to crash and break and finally disappear in the sea of surrounding grey pavement.

Two workers on lifts were steadily working on welding through the final grey arms of this difficult to disassemble grey ice-box, but their perseverance was rewarded at about 11.45am on that grey Pittsburgh day. The dome came down. Grey dust floated everywhere. The building that once housed the Civic Light Opera and Mario Lemeiux was now nothing more than grey rubble and dust.

And only a few eyes were there to see it.

A few cameramen and videographers were perched just east of the demo site. I was there more-or-less by happenstance. No one else seemed to be around. Apparently no one else really cared. And perhaps that’s okay – that on that gloriously grey Pittsburgh day, the Igloo fell in near silence.

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igloo demolition

Igloo Demo. Saturday March 31, 2012. Appx 11.45am.