DART to Start Tear Down of Deep Ellum Tunnel on MONDAY 8-21-06

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Heard on Ch 11 last night that DART will start the demolition of the Good Lattimer Tunnel, the one with all the art http://www.pbase.com/demdeepellummus...attimer_tunnel , this MONDAY! I bet that it won't take them too long to take it down-probably will use heavy equipment to tear it out. So if you want to get any photos taken of it THIS WEEKEND IS THE LAST CHANCE!

Supposedly DART will try to salvage some of the artwork-and move it to another location in the Deep Ellum area.

So I may head on down there the next couple days with flash to try to take shots of the inside of the tunnel , I have a few on the pbase page but there is still more work inside the tunnel that I didn't shoot before because I didn't have a flash with me.

[Mandy]

I find the demolition of this wall SOOOO sad. I was hoping to get down there before it was torn down, but I won't be making it this weekend so I guess I'm outta luck. Altho I'm never there any more, I love that tunnel and itwon't be the same without it.

[L Stegall]

I HATE THIS HAPPENING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And, yes, I meant to use all CAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Joe_Lorenzini]

Hey DEM,

Can you link a Google map to the location where this is at? I know a few people would like to make it down there before it goes down.

_/oe

[rozzie]

What on earth?? That's so depressing... I would think that tunnel was going to be there well past my son being old enough to hang out in that area. :( Man I feel old.... What is up with DART??

[L Stegall]

I live in Munger Place and drive by here everyday. Must. Find. New. Route. Arggggg.

[AndrewCCM]

Sad...I agree.. So much other "Art/Graffiti" that would be better to "blow up" - And I don't mean make larger...

[xseption]

I will check it out once more!

[Bruce M. Morris]

Paul,
I saw the article last night as well and immediately thought of you. Once you have got it all documented, are you going to make copies of the images for the Dallas Historical commission or whoever takes care of this for the city? At the very least I would think that someone in Deep Ellum would want to have it documented.. Maybe the Gypsy Tea Room would want some 16x20 prints for the walls....

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

I guess I need to pull my Maymia out and get this all on film too, though many of the art works have been defaced pretty badly.

The location is on Good Lattimer just north east of Elm and about 1/4 mile east of I-45. If you go you can either park on Elm and walk on down or you can actually park on Swiss on the other side of the "tunnel" and approach it from that direction *free parking on Swiss.

The tunnel supported over 4 railroad lines that ran over it and back until the 1960's/early 70's there was a warehouse/switching yard just on the east side of the tunnel (apartment complex there now). The Tunnel was built in 1930 and if any one knows anything about concrete they would know that concrete is not fully cured until it has been set for 100 years! That is right folks it gains strength until that time! DART has some BS report saying that the tunnel cannot support their little passenger rail trains which is as I just said BS. They say that the tunnel leaks, it does not leak! The only reason that it floods during heavy rains is that water rushes in down the streets it does not come in through the roof of the tunnel!

So if you get a chance to at least drive into it this weekend- DRIVE THROUGH AND GIVE YOUR HORN A GOOD HONK! Last Chance to get that echo effect in Dallas!

I know of two little railroad bridges that DART tore down and replaced on their line that runs to NW Highway by White Rock lake. DART JUST LOVES TO P*SS AWAY MONEY AND LET WHAT IS IN THEIR WAY BE DAM*ED! (BTW I live in an area that fought tooth and nail to keep the DART rail out of our neighborhood and we have succeeded so far since we knew that if it came through it would have split east dallas even further.
Just put in 2600 block of swiss ave for google maps.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Well Ch 8 had a story on tonight contradiciting everything, as to time frame, stated above. They said that one side of the road will be closed down sometimes in the next month and the other side will have 2 way traffic (which is feasable since the east bound side is actually made up of 2 tunnels with a row of columns between them) and that it could be standing for up to a year. I believe that this is smoke and mirrors and they will take the tunnel down completly next week and they just put out this false press to stop people from trying to protest the destruction of the tunnel.

What keeps me wondering is how are they going to hadle Live Oak which goes OVER the tunnel? Supposedly daily traffic flow counts through the tunnel are in the 8,000 car range but there is actually more traffic on Live Oak everyday and if they take the tunnel out there goes the roadbed for Live Oak! There is no easy way to divert the Live Oak Traffic other than directing it over to Elm or Gaston or even Ross which all have pretty high volume of traffic themselves during peak commuting times.

I say just leave the tunnel ALONE!

[René]

I went down there this morning and they already have the cones out splitting the lanes. This turned out to be a good thing because I used one lane to stand in, but also bad because Ill have to crop out the cones. Im just really glad I went down there one last time.

I have only flipped thru them, but I these two stuck out so far.

[rozzie]

Anyone planning on being out there today? I am thinking of possibly making a stop for a few snaps.

[L Stegall]

I spent about an hour there this morning and I was the only person there. I will post some shots later.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Went by close to sunset and spent over an hour and a half shooting mostly inside the tunnel and then bumped into a guy I've seen around shooting before and chatted with him. I bet there were maybe a dozen people on and off shooting pics from 7:15 or so on tonight with a few doing some night time shots. Everybody was going why are they tearing this thing down?
I noticed that they had torn down all the small buidlings just west of the Bankers Trust building so that area will most likely become parking for the DART station.

Saw on the top deck where they had 2 large pieces of destruction equipment along with about 6 portalets so they expect to have a pretty large crew working on this otherwise no need for 6 portapotties.

I may swing by there tommorrow afternoon to see how they are progressing, that concrete deck is THICK and will take some major work to break through it.

There had to be some sort of railroad line there before 1930 before this structure was built or they had the street cross the tracks at grade level and people just had to wait if the trains were blocking the road until this underpass was built. Guess Dallas just doesn't like to keep it's history though I bet you could park 50 sherman tanks on that structure and it wouldn't move a centimeter!