Tower Takedown: Days 1 & 2, Aug, 12–13
The exciting work to remove the damaged top sections of the First Parish Church Meetinghouse tower began on Wednesday with the preparation of staging to allow safe access to the structure.
Seacoast Scaffold & Equipment Corporation's crew arrived early, and parked as close as they could get to unload the large load of scaffolding elements. Hand carrying the heavy pieces from Cemetery Rd. to the base of the tower took two or three hours, while the foreman measured and for the exact location of the staging and prepared a solid base.
Building the staging then proceeded pretty quickly, reaching about the halfway point by day's end.
Thursday morning the scaffold crew returned and put in a hard long day, completing the staging a day earlier than anticipated.
Also on Thursday members of the FPC Building Advisory Committee* met with Preservation Timber Frame's president Arron Sturgis and our project foreman Ed Bell to plan remaining details for the takedown. Joining in the planning session were Pastor Deborah Roof, and volunteers Paul Dionne (tower clock guardian) and Harry Carter (master craftsman and electrician).
Everything was then ready for the PTF's rigging and preparatory work next week.
* The FPC Building Advisory Committee (BAC) is Paul Ambler (chair), Nancy Heywood, Larry Krantz, Paul Lindemann, and Bill Mann.
