Demolition of the “Tombstone at Ground Zero” just a month away.

More than nine years since it was damaged beyond repair by the collapsing World Trade Center, crews are finally almost done dismantling 130 Liberty Street, the last standing remnant of Sept. 11 destruction.

Officials of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the agency that owns the former Deutsche Bank Tower, say the last three remaining floors of the building will be torn down by mid-January.

“It’s actually quite stunning how low the building’s gotten,” said Josh Rosenbloom, LMDC’s Director of City Operations, noting that the once-40-story tower has been reduced to a height of less than 40 feet.

The agency had earlier predicted that the demolition would be finished by year’s end. But a crane malfunction in late October and difficulty cutting through reinforced steel and concrete on the sixth floor cost crews several days of work time on the site. Rosenbloom said there had not been any further delays in the last month, and that the agency now says the last steel columns slated for extraction would be gone around 15 January if weather is not an impediment.

Read more here.

New video captures entire demolition process at Get Carter car park.

The demolition of the “Get Carter” car park in Gateshead is a story that we followed with considerable interest from the outset. And it seems only fitting that we should round things off with an absolutely top-notch video that captures the entire demolition process by Thompsons of Prudhoe from beginning to end.

Gateshead Car Park Demolition from Thompsons of Prudhoe on Vimeo.

JCB to auction limited edition backhoe in aid of Help for Heroes charity.

UK construction equipment giant JCB is offering someone the opportunity to own a piece of history while doing some good for one of the most important charities around.

The company is auctioning a JCB 3CX Eco Contractor backhoe loader – suitably decked out in Union Jack livery – with proceeds going towards the creation of four Personnel Recovery Centres. These provide, in partnership with the Services and other Service charities, ongoing training and support for the wounded after Headley Court.

Help for Heroes is all about ordinary people doing extraordinary things to help give wounded UK Servicemen and women the support they so greatly need and deserve. Millions of people have ‘done their bit’ since the launch in 2007, doing everything from sponsored parachute jumps to cake sales, marathons to climbing thousands of feet up some of the tallest mountains in the world. It is now the turn of JCB to give something back to the brave Servicemen and women.

The auction runs through to the 21st December 2010. More details can be found here

Louisiana reports demolition of hurricane damaged homes is behind schedule.

The Baton Rouge board charged with demolishing and disposing of hurricane-damaged homes bought by the state won’t be able to finish the work on time or within the current budget.

That’s according to Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera, who reviewed the program overseen by the Louisiana Land Trust.

The trust is in charge of dealing with more than 10,400 properties acquired through the state’s Road Home Program after hurricanes Katrina and Rita – either by demolishing them, auctioning them off or transferring them to local control.

Read more here.

Contractors queuing to undercut each other on City Hall contract that may not happen.

Fourteen contractors submitted bids to tear down the former City Hall in Troy, New York, as part of a proposed waterfront redevelopment, but it is not clear whether the demolition will even occur.

Ditonno & Sons of Albany was the apparent low bidder, with a price of $405,800, according to an aide to Mayor Harry Tutunjian. The next lowest bidder was Dan’s Hauling & Demo Inc. of Albany, at $416,000. The low bids were significantly less than the nearly $1 million the city had expected it would cost.

The highest bidder was Stamford Wrecking of Trumbull, Connecticut, $1.56 million.

The bids will be reviewed by the city engineer’s office and a recommendation sent to Tutunjian, said spokesman Jeff Pirro.

Read the full story here.

National Demolition Association to combine academy and convention in 2011

The National Demolition Association’s Demolition Academy – an intensive safety and management training event – will take place March 5-6, 2011 in Las Vegas, right before the opening of the National Demolition Association’s 38th Annual Convention at The Mirage. The decision to connect the two events was made to enable participants to take advantage of the convention, which runs March 5-8.

The Demolition Academy begins Saturday March 5 with the Demolition-Specific OSHA 10-Hour Certification. For those already holding their certification, there is concurrent in-depth training in basic industrial hygiene for the demolition industry, fall protection, and developing and utilizing a demolition engineering survey.

The Sunday March 6 session provides a continuation of the Demolition-Specific OSHA Certification of the previous day, or the option of full-day management training workshops in generational communicating, OSHA’s new crane standard, and a session called “When Disaster Strikes.”

More details here.

Organisers set provisional date for 2011 Demolition Summit & Awards.

Following on from the success of the 2010 World Demolition Awards, held as part of the 2010 World Demolition Summit, their 2011 counterparts are set to return to the Dutch city of Amsterdam, once again during the first week of November 2011.

Initial plans are for the Awards to be held on 4 November, once again at the five star Hotel Okura in the city centre, again as part of the 2011 World Demolition Summit.

Read more here.

Implosion enthusiasts set for a pre-Christmas double-whammy on 19 December.

According to legend, you wait ages for a London bus and then two come along together. Well, thanks to a quirk of timing and fate, blast watchers will enjoy a similar surfeit of riches on 19 December, with implosions scheduled to take place in both North and South America on the same day.

As we reported late last week, Fabio Bruno Pinto is currently putting the finishing touches to the planned implosion of Rio de Janeiro’s University Hospital. And we have learned this morning that the implosion of two metal buildings at the historic Imperial Sugar Company refinery in Sugar Land has been rescheduled for 7 am on the same day. The two metal buildings are located adjacent to the historic char house, an icon of Sugar Land. The char house will remain as part of the project, and the plans for the implosion remain as previously scheduled. The implosion was originally scheduled for Dec. 12.

Read more here.

Joint venture agreement sees UK demolition giant setting its sights on Russia.

A new joint venture created by St. Petersburg’s CrushMash and the U.K.’s Keltbray, a specialist in the field of demolition, aims to introduce a range of new technologies on the local market that will reduce damage to the environment and allow for greater levels of recycling.

The St. Petersburg group CrushMash began by focusing on the recycling of building waste, before expanding into demolition services. Further innovation is being introduced onto the local market through the application of Keltbray’s international experience and technology, with higher standards in safety and efficiency. New techniques and technologies enable the group to demolish sophisticated sites using new excavators with 40-metre excavators.

According to Steve Foster, the managing director of Keltbray Group, the company has plans to increase its turnover on the Russian market to about 5 to 6 billion rubles ($163 million to $195 million) per year, putting it on a level with its turnover in the U.K. Foster said, however, that the joint venture would not be seeking to win all tenders, preferring to limit itself to the most attractive.

Read the full story here.

Video captures this weekend’s demolition of Mondor towers.

We can tell you very little about this video aside from the fact that it’s in France, the contractor was hydraulic jacking specialist Ferrari Demolition, and that it took place yesterday. Lack of information aide, however, it’s a nice video of an under-utilised demolition method.