11,000 ton building rotated 90° while all 600 employees continued to work inside
Topics: Good News, Phones, US News, World News, Weird
Poppy Bilderbeck
Featured Image Credit: William H. Bass Photo Company/ Getty stock
Topics: Good News, Phones, US News, World News, Weird
An 11,000-ton building in Indiana was rotated 90 degrees while employees were still working inside.
You may find it distracting when someone lobs on the music a bit too loud in the office, or when a dog is brought in, but if 600 employees can keep up their work while their entire office building is being picked up and rotated 90 degrees... Well, you have no excuse.
From 12 October to 14 November, 1930, a building in Indianapolis, Indiana was moved 90 degrees flawlessly without any interruptions to its gas, heat, electricity, water, sewage or phone lines.
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Yes, phone lines, and that part is actually pretty important considering the Indiana Bell building was home to the Indiana Bell Telephone Company.
The building was initially designed and built in 1907 for the Central Union Telephone Company, however, it later became the headquarters and manual call center for the Indiana Bell Telephone Company.
When it was proposed the building needed an upgrade in size, original architect Bernard Vonnegut I's son, Kurt Vonnegut Senior, suggested the building simply be moved instead to give space for a larger building.
But why move it and not just demolish it to rebuild a bigger building instead?
Well, home to the Indiana Bell Telephone Company, demolishing the building would've resulted in interrupting the company's services - which were crucial to the city being able to operate.
So, the decision to simply move the building was made, but the question remained of how to do it - especially with all 600 employees still working away inside.
Oh, and did I forget to mention the building weighed a whopping 11,000-tons of steel frame and brick? And was eight stories, measuring roughly 100 by 135 feet in size?
To ensure Indiana Bell Telephone Company's workers could continue operating the phone lines and keep the city running, the building's utility pipes and cables were lengthened and made more flexible.
The building was lifted by jacks and placed onto rollers, before being slowly shifted 16 meters south, rotated 30 degrees and then moved 30 meters west - this was repeated until it had been turned a total of 90 degrees and was facing downtown Meridian street.
If you're wondering if someone built like the world's current strongest man Mitchell Hooper did all the pushing and pulling then fear not, because the workers had the help of hydraulic jacks, the rollers and a steam engine helping to power the jacks too.
The move took four weeks to complete and is still viewed as a monumental success - not one day in the whole four-week operation saw the telephone services go down or result in the workers having to put their job on pause.
Sadly, the building has since been demolished, but hey, it's still an applause-worthy feat, and a golden nugget of historic information you can hang onto for your next bar trivia.