Piece by piece

Good morning everyone and welcome to another Monday!  I hope that you all enjoyed your St. Patrick’s Day!  The weather here in Pittsburgh was just beautiful for it, which made it that much more enjoyable.

I spent my afternoon yesterday wandering around the Civic Arena, or at least what is left of it.  I know lately I’ve been posting quite a few shots of the old home of the Pittsburgh Penguins, with only a few shorts months left, time is running out to take pictures of it.  This is somewhat of a unique situation, the deconstruction of the Civic Arena.  Usually when you think of taking pictures of a building, you may want to capture it from a few different angles at a couple of different times of days, but other than that, there aren’t a whole lot of shots to get.  With the Igloo however, that’s not the case.

 

The landscape of the Arena changes every few days.  Not just because they are bring down more pieces of the roof.  But they are hauling all the steel out from inside.  Like a pumpkin at Halloween, more and more of the “guts” are being stripped and stacked all along the outdoor concourses where BBQs used to be roaring and bands rocking before Penguin games.  Every time you go down the scene is just a little different and I’ve been doing the best that I can to capture the various stages of its collapse.

 

While I did take quite a few pictures yesterday, I found myself stopping every now and again to peer through the various holes that people had cut in the fence to get a better look at what is going on inside.  You are able to see all the way inside now, all the way to where the ice used to be.  I think back to all the events I saw there, not just the hockey games, but the circus with my family, WWF wrestling matches with my father, one of the hockey games from the movie “Sudden Death”.  It’s hard to imagine that the place where those memories were made is almost completely gone.

 

It will certainly be difficult to watch when the final pieces of the iconic Pittsburgh structure come tumbling down.  But I think that change is good and that even though the skyline will be without one of its most notable landmarks, those memories will remain for the millions of people who have passed through the doors over the years.

Thanks for stopping by today folks.  I have a few more from around the arena that I’ll be posting over the next couple of days, so make sure to check back!