Final step: Old Eastern auditorium demolition under way

An excavator tears apart the Jon Young Auditorium of old Eastern High School, the last phase of demolition by University of Michigan Health-Sparrow to make room for expansion on its eastside Lansing campus. The auditorium stood on Eastern’s south end on Jerome Street, a block north of Michigan Avenue. – Leo V. Kaplan/City Pulse

A bulldozer piled rubble in front of the entrance to old Eastern’s auditorium. – Leo V. Kapan/City Pulse

This undated photo taken from the stage of the auditorium was included in a history of Eastern in 1978 marking the school’s 50th anniversary.

Lansing photographer Raymond Holt took this photo of the auditorium last year. Hanging from the ceiling are the 16 chandeliers Lansing Mayor Andy Schor tried but failed to save today. – Raymond Holt for Ciy Pulse

West wing is gone; cleanup remains

(City Pulse will continue to follow this developing story.)

FRIDAY, March 28 — All but a small part of old Eastern High School remained this afternoon.

Photos show what was left as of 2 p.m. of the Jon Young Auditorium on what was once the south end of the 1928 school’s west wing.

A last-ditch effort today by Lansing Mayor Andy Schor to save 16 chandeliers in the auditorium failed. Schor said he had asked Ed MacKenzie, of E.T. MacKenzie Co. of Grand Ledge, which has the demolition contract, if it would still be possible to save the chandeliers from the 1920s. MacKenzie said it was too unsafe, Schor said.

University of Michigan Health-Sparrow decided to tear down old Eastern last year to make room for expansion onto the closed school’s campus on the east side of Pennsylvania Avenue between Jerome Street and the eastern end of Shiawassee Street. UM-Sparrow acquired the school property as part of its takeover of Sparrow Health System two years ago. Sparrow had purchased the school in 2016 from the Lansing School District, which closed it three years later.

Old Eastern neared its end on a rainy day. No bystanders were at the scene.

(For more on this story, see:

Videos raise questions on effort to save cupola

Old Eastern’s iconic cupola destroyed despite assurances otherwise

UM-Sparrow to save cupola, but other artifcats’ fate uncertain