
A 1700-ton telco building that was relocated while running in 1950 - mrmondo
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/managed-retreat/2/
======
Ftuuky
My father worked for a company in Switzerland in the 80s and early 90s that
was solely specialized in relocating buildings: either too old to be
demolished due to historical value or because it was a cheaper alternative
than demolishing everything and building again 10 meters to the side. He loved
that work but it was very stressful and took its toll on him. I was very young
but still remember seeing this old wooden church crossing the street with my
father running in circles yelling to people.

------
cesarb
I didn't see it mentioned there, so I have to ask: what about the cabling?
Depending on where the telephone cables entered the building, they would have
to get up to 12 meters longer. How did they make that work? Did they splice
every cable? Or did the cables already have enough slack?

~~~
jacquesm
That depends very much on where the cables were running. Some of them will
have gotten longer than needed, others shorter and for some it may not have
made a big difference, merely a slight change of angle.

The phone companies deal with cable splices all the time (roughly at the rate
of backhoe deployment), so they most likely shut down the trunks one-by-one,
extended the ones that needed more wire and they may or may not have decided
to take up the slack in the remainder (to avoid parasitic inductance and
capacitance from rolling up the excess wire).

------
jihadjihad
Indianapolis has a very similar relocation story from 1930, with the
11,000-ton Indiana Bell building [1].

Fun fact: Kurt Vonnegut's father was the chief architect who recommended
rotating the building [2]. Earlier than that, there was also a building that
was moved by a team of horses to make way for the Indiana War Memorial, but I
can't find a source anywhere (I read about it while touring the memorial).

[1] [http://www.paul-f.com/ibmove.html](http://www.paul-f.com/ibmove.html) [2]
[https://www.indystar.com/story/news/history/retroindy/2014/0...](https://www.indystar.com/story/news/history/retroindy/2014/01/07/indiana-
bell/4354705/)

------
nathankunicki
Zero-downtime deployments 1950s style.

~~~
badosu
Sometimes it's good to remind ourselves of the many mission critical practical
applications in disciplines outside of Computer Engineering.

------
xg15
Impressive feat - however, I was puzzled by this:

> _Naturally, some of the workers were nervous about this idea. Matute Remus
> was sympathetic to their concerns, and wanted to reassure these operators
> and make them feel safe. So his wife Esmeralda agreed to also go into the
> building while it was being moved. She even took along their seven-year-old
> son, Juan Jorge._

Maybe this could work as a publicity stunt to persuade the general public that
there is no risk, but I can't imagine that you can reassure an expert who is
familiar with the actual risks by _rising_ the stakes. (Not to mention putting
his wife and child in danger for a psychological exercise)

~~~
pwagland
You are correct in that… however I think that this harkens back to "talk is
cheap, actions lead." That is, it is very easy to say "this is safe" even if
you don't think that it is. By putting something that you value on the line,
then you are showing your level of commitment to the statement that "this is
safe".

I think that you will find it is not the "technical experts" who were afraid,
but the workers in the building. This is exactly the sort of action that
reassures these people, since they see that you have "skin in the game". It is
also worth noting that he almost certainly didn't believe that he was placing
his wife and child in danger.

~~~
rimliu
There is also a tradition to have architect and engineer of the new bridge to
float in the boat under it while the bridge is being load-tested.

------
linkmotif
Reminds me of the raising of Chicago in the 1850-60s
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago)

~~~
ashleyn
I was floored to see shopkeeps still open _while they moved the building_.
Today, OSHA would have a heart attack.

~~~
linkmotif
Crazy huh?

> Consequently, the practice of putting the old multi-story, intact and
> furnished wooden buildings—sometimes entire rows of them en bloc—on rollers
> and moving them to the outskirts of town or to the suburbs was so common as
> to be considered nothing more than routine traffic.

------
mdda
I saw the same thing being done with a theatre in Manhattan in 1998 (to make
way for the Disneyfication of Times Square) :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_Theatre_(42nd_Street)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_Theatre_\(42nd_Street\))

~~~
mc32
The cleanup of NYTS was essential in getting tourists to keep going to new
york as well as make it a livable place --companies were all moving to NJ for
tax and quality of life reasons.

I really do not miss all the sex shops and prostitutes, pushers and all around
hustlers who used to have a run of the place. I for one am glad they cleaned
that up.

------
mrmondo
Faninating story, I first heard of it while listening to the latter part of
linked 99% Invisible podcast episode.

There’s some information on Jorge Matute Remus the engineer who designed and
ran the building move on Wikipedia:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Matute_Remus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Matute_Remus)

------
kasey_junk
[https://www.indystar.com/story/news/history/retroindy/2014/0...](https://www.indystar.com/story/news/history/retroindy/2014/01/07/indiana-
bell/4354705/)

They moved and rotated an Indiana Bell building in the 1930s.

~~~
nickpinkston
I came here to post this. It's crazy to see the big bundle of cable snaking
away from the building!

------
walshemj
I am surprised that it was practical to move, I suppose it must have been a
small manual branch exchange given the time.

Big central offices are massive buildings often with deep basements.

~~~
gaadd33
Is that true even in places with high water tables? Like much of Florida for
example?

~~~
SMeltser
Im pretty sure even with a high water table, its not as though the water would
seep through if its well sealed. A lot of times they have to seal them for
fire-safety

------
rwmj
I'm surprised that they don't move more buildings - I guess it is fabulously
expensive. When I was a child I remember that one local building was moved to
allow a road to be widened ([http://www.engineering-
timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem...](http://www.engineering-
timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=597)). I've never heard of a UK
building being moved since.

~~~
ljf
There used to be a show in the US about moving houses - generally they were
wooden houses and moved a mile or so to either a new part of town or another
town. I think the huge wide (and pretty empty looking) roads helped - I can't
think of many cases where you'd be able to do similar in the UK due to the
narrow roads.

Plus I'd rather move a wooden house than a brick or even a stone one.

~~~
toomanybeersies
It's fairly common to relocate houses in New Zealand, up to a couple of
hundred km away.

Wooden buildings built on piles used to be the standard construction method in
New Zealand before poured concrete bases became the norm, so they're
relatively easy to move: just chop the piles and jack it up onto a truck.

My parent's friends actually gave a house away for free. They were rebuilding,
it it was cheaper to give the house away for free and have the new owners pay
to get it relocated, rather than pay for demolition.

~~~
suvelx
The Museum Hotel in Wellington was also moved in 1993.

[https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/capital-
life/74342852/...](https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/capital-
life/74342852/museum-hotel-rides-the-rails--150-years-of-news)

------
ciguy
I actually saw this building and the statute of Jorge Matute Remus pushing it
while visiting Guadalajara last year. Fascinating story.

~~~
mrmondo
Did you know about the story / history behind the building before visiting the
area?

~~~
ciguy
No I had no idea, just kind of randomly came across it while walking around.

~~~
mrmondo
That somehow makes it even more special in my mind.

------
geogriffin
This gives new meaning to "location transparency" a la Erlang..

