Videos raise questions about efforts to save old Eastern’s cupola

FRIDAY, March 28 — Videos of the demolition of old Eastern High School depict what appears to be a haphazard and improvised effort yesterday to save the cupola atop the landmark building.

The videos show an attempt to scoop the cupola into the bucket of an excavator, which backfired. The cupola quickly fell apart.

“I’m not really going to get into the specifics of the demolition,” University of Michigan Health-Sparrow spokesperson John Foren said today in an email when asked questions about what planning went into saving the cupola.

He added that UM-Sparrow had been “committed to trying to save the cupola.”

Foren said UM-Sparrow and demolitionists “took special steps as we tried to retrieve it.”

“It basically shattered as soon as we tried,” Foren added.

“The wood framing was rotted, and the cupola was made of small sections rather than one large piece,” he said. “That made it more fragile.”

UM-Sparrow is demolishing old Eastern, which it owns, to make room for expansion next to its eastside Lansing hospital complex on Michigan Avenue. Preservation efforts had been focused on saving the west wing, around the corner on Pennsylvania Avenue, and the auditorium, on the west wing’s south end facing Jerome Street, across the street from UM-Sparrow’s parking ramp.

The cupola was on top of the west wing when the school opened in 1928.  It came down in pieces in the third week of demolition conducted E.T. MacKenzie Co. of Grand Ledge under contract to UM-Sparrow.

West wing demolition started Tuesday. The cupola remained intact through Wednesday as demolition proceeded from the west wing’s north end. The cupola met its demise between 7 and 8 a.m. yesterday.

Here are three videos taken by Lansing resident Randy Eberbach yesterday that show an excavator approaching the cupola, the effort to save the cupola and its destruction.

An excavator tore into the building’s roof, collapsing the building’s structure and leaving the cupola hanging. It is unclear whether this was deliberate.

“They hit it in such a way that the triangle of slate cascaded down from the cupola, came sliding down and crashed in a big cloud of dust,” onlooker Chris O’Jibway said.

“After that happened, the cupola was just hanging there at a 45-degree angle,” she added.

O’Jibway said the cupola first fell at an angle at 7:12 a.m. yesterday.

After the cupola was knocked loose, the demolition crew made an attempt to scoop it up with an excavator. But the attempt went awry and the excavator tore the cupola apart.

Multiple attempts were made to scoop the cupola  up, with each successive attempt damaging it further.

Foren said the wood framing inside the copper structure was rotted, leading to the collapse.

“It basically shattered as soon as we tried to retrieve it,” Foren said over text. “The wood framing was rotted and the cupola was made of small sections rather than one large piece.”

“It was in much worse shape than expected,” he added.

O’Jibway said she did not believe Foren’s account.

“It was perfectly intact this morning,” she said. “It got to be in bad condition when they started clawing at it.

After repeated attempts to scoop the cupola up only damaged it further, the demolition crew tore it down into the rubble.

Afterward, the cupola’s metal cage was also scraped into the rubble. The cupola was eventually lifted up and disposed of. No effort was made to preserve it, though it had already been heavily damaged.

O’Jibway said the cupola came down at 7:36 a.m.

O’Jibway’s sister, Therese Ojibway, posted on Facebook last week details of a conversation she said she had with the demolition project’s site manager.

“The site manager said they hadn't sent anyone up to the cupola because the roof was ‘too steep’ and was ‘too dangerous.’ He said they don't know what it is made of, how it is attached or how heavy it is. He said they were going to ‘try’ to salvage it but ‘can't make any guarantees.’ He said he has seen things like that shatter when they are taken down.”

Ojibway commented in her post, “It sounds as though there was never even an assessment of the cupola to determine how to salvage it.”

Efforts to reach the site manager for comment yesterday were unsuccessful. A receptionist for McKenzie Co. said no one was immediately available for comment  because “they are all on site.”