Gilman Square blocked off for fear of building collapse

[ron_newman]

Police have blocked off Medford and Pearl Streets at Gilman Square because they are concerned that the vacant, city-owned Homans Building may collapse. This building is on the south side of Medford Street between the railroad bridge and the gas station.

They allowed me to pass through the area on my bicycle, but asked me to stay on the north side of the streets, away from this building.

Comments

[wintahill.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. The building has been boarded up and looking ugly for a long time, but I did not realize it was that structurally unsound.

[skexy.livejournal.com]

probably more a factor of the piles of accumulated snow on top of it than general disrepair

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

It's an *and* kind of world.

The building has been in utter disrepair for years. The Historical Society kept trying to compel the City to restore it, but the City did a couple fairly extensive studies about using it for office space and determined it was not feasible.

For some time the Fire Department was using it as a space for drills, but maybe five(?) years ago *they* deemed it unsafe, even for rescue drills.

Historical Society tried again but failed to use their tiny little leverage to get the City to restore it.

Last summer there was evidence of some squatters living in there.

The snow and general weather conditions have undoubtedly exacerbated a lot of other issues, but were merely the ... wait for it... icing on the cake.
;-) :-)

Apparently this winter the city has been using drones to survey the conditions of roofs of their older buildings.

[ron_newman]

Seems like it's past time to demolish it, then? Wonder why the city hasn't already done so.

(by "Historical Society" do you mean Historic Somerville, a private non-profit, or the Historic Preservation Commission, an official city commission?)

[ron_newman]

Here's a Wicked Local Somerville Journal article about all this.