Tower Records Falling Down, Falling Down...

PROGRESS?
Time for many of you old time Costa Mesan's to shed a tear or two.  The old Tower Records store (and before that the Harbor Roller Rink), was demolished today.  You can read Bradley Zint's July 5th  Daily Pilot piece about the proposed demolition and building a Walgreen's Drug Store in its place HERE.  Zint tells us that the owner paid almost $10 million for this site in 2007, just before the economy went into free fall.

PEEKING THROUGH THE FENCE
This morning I drove over to watch the demolition, but arrived well after it had begun.  I stood outside the green protective fence for awhile, then decided to sneak inside for better shots.  Nobody challenged me - or the real media photographers who were also there.

CHOREOGRAPHY
It was fascinating to watch the equipment grab  big mouthfuls of debris, then spin and deposit it so the smaller tractor could snatch up the recyclables and place them is stacks for later distribution.  They could have had ballet music playing...

 

OPEN WIDE!
Sometimes it was much like watching a mother bird feeding a chick.

A PAUSE...
I took a little break at the Del Taco store next door and visited with one of the homeless folks while I ate a snack, then returned to see what progress had been made.

IT'S PROBABLY A LEVEL SITE NOW
I suspect it didn't take more than an hour or so after I left to completely level the site and await the trucks to haul the debris away.  Soon that Walgreen's store will be erected on the site and provide much-needed pharmacy service to the Westside.

SO IT GOES...

So, we have this image of "progress" in our city to consider - an iconic site, where thousands of folks from the region would congregate to roller skate from the time the rink was built in 1950, through the other uses - a gas station and Tower Records - to now, where the purveyor of pills, Depends, shampoos, beach chairs, greeting cards, condoms and other necessities of life will do business for another decade or so.