Meet John Adamo: Demolition man

[buildingsofdetroit]

Neal Rubin, back in his Free Press days, did a real interesting look at John Adamo. I found it a fascinating look into the man who is so eager to destroy.

TAKING DOWN HUDSON'S WILL BE FRAUGHT WITH COMPLICATIONS AND DANGER - JUST THE JOB JOHN ADAMO JR. WOULD LOVE

By Neal Rubin
Detroit Free Press
March 10, 1997

Someone smashed a bottle of Wild Irish Rose in Christmas Toyland.

The pieces glimmer as John Adamo Jr. plays his flashlight across the 12th

story of J.L. Hudson's showplace. Water has buckled the floor, and the boards

come together in peaks, like a musty meringue. The flashlight catches a chunk

of plaster, and Adamo flips it aside with the toe of his work boot.

Adamo, 39, remembers visiting Santa in this room as a child, riding the

bus downtown with his grandmother to stand in line. He did his Christmas

shopping at Hudson's in 1982, the last December before it closed.

"It was the best, " he says fondly. "This huge building, with aisles and

aisles and floors upon floors of merchandise."

Adamo grew up in St. Clair Shores and lives in Troy. He understands the

importance of the Hudson's building -- the history, the symbolism, the mental

snapshots from a million lives.

He would be honored to knock it down.

Adamo Demolition punched out Dodge Main and Carmel Hall and a good chunk

of the Uniroyal factory. It's working on the crumbling towers of the Jeffries

projects, and it has a revolving contract with the city of Detroit to bulldoze

abandoned houses.

Every job has its challenges and charms, but Hudson's is special. No one

knows who will get the assignment, how long it will take or how much it will

cost, but Adamo is certain of this: "Hudson's is the most difficult job in the

Midwest in a long time."

The store grew in haphazard stages, expanding outward or upward eight

times after Joseph Lowthian Hudson started selling dry goods at Gratiot and

Farmer in 1891. Each addition had its own architect, its own engineer, its

own I-beam-and-concrete vertebrae. Each had acres of ceiling layered with

lead-based paint and miles of pipe swaddled in asbestos.

The People Mover trundles along Farmer 15 feet from the mezzanine. The

Hudson's tower, 25 stories above the pavement, looms over the track and the

branch library across the street.

A bolt falling from that height could kill. A beam could cripple the

train. One of the two hulking, 30-foot-tall water tanks that fed the sprinkler

system could dig a crater. There is no room for error and no room to work.

On the mezzanine, Adamo aims his light at a squared column. The wooden

cornice remains intact, but the marble that covered a layer of cement was

carted off years ago. Where the cement was hammered away at the base, the

light shows a rusty I-beam.

"You've got a zillion just like this, " Adamo says. "That adds another

element. If we wanted to cut the beams with a torch, first we'd have to chip

away all this concrete."

In Adamo's lexicon, an element is a complication. Four levels of basement

are an element. If the basements turn out to extend below the sidewalk on

Woodward Avenue -- meaning the sidewalk won't support a crane -- that's an

element, too.

In analytical moments, Adamo sounds like an engineer, which he is. In

practical moments, he sounds like an MBA, which he also is. The rest of the

time, he sounds like a guy who gave up softball last year to concentrate on

roller hockey.

You can talk about redevelopment, he says, and you can campaign on it,

"but if you really mean it, you have to start wrecking."

AT FIRST, Adamo wanted to put things up, not tear them down.

He majored in civil engineering at Michigan State and took a job at

MichCon in 1979, hoping to design roads and bridges. His father's company was

flattening the Crowley's building downtown and Adamo liked to wander by on his

lunch hour, but he was never tempted to grab a sledgehammer.

Then John Sr. got the Dodge Main contract, "and he put on the full-court

press." After six months of independence, John Jr. came back to the fold.

John Sr., the son of a builder, was also a builder until the mid-1960s.

Then came a down cycle, and close behind it a realization: Builders may

slump, but wreckers are always busy.

John Jr. started directing traffic at his father's job sites before he was

old enough to drive. He moved on to minimum-wage grunt work, lugging and

stacking and sweating. There was majesty to it. "You don't get crowds, " he

observes, "to watch a building go up."

His father retired last year, having taught Adamo the creative side of

destruction. Now Adamo is imparting the same lessons to his brother Richard,

26, occasionally at high volume.

"He had my dad to holler at him, " Richard says. "I've got him to holler at

me."

When thousands of tons of brick and steel are about to topple, there is no

time to consider hurt feelings. Richard understands. At 5-foot-11, his brother

stands three inches taller, but they see eye-to-eye on most things.

Both, for instance, appreciate the buildings they have laid flat.

"I try to learn some of the history, " John Adamo says. "What did they do

here? How long ago?"

At Hudson's, the debris is thick with clues.

A YELLOWED PLACARD sits atop a pile of wood and plaster. "Gigantic Downhill

Ski Package Sale!" Another poster identifies itself as a Trak Boot Conversion

Chart: A child's size 7 is a women's size 4 is a European size 36. Crumpled

sales slips, faded beyond legibility, share floor space with the jagged

remains of a fluorescent light.

In a city where copper pipe is hard currency, looters and owners can be

almost indistinguishable. Hudson's has been decimated by both.

The elevators used to have brass doors. Now they have none. Escalators,

stripped of their stainless steel steps and sides, are reduced to gruesome

skeletons.

Paint chips from the ceiling crunch underfoot like peanut shells on the

floor of a bar. Fraying sleeves of insulation sit in corners like fat white

snakes.

"Asbestos, " Adamo warns. "You don't want to touch it."

Adamo wears a hard hat, jeans and a tan Carhartt jacket, zipped high.

Outside, the sun will eventually push the temperature toward 50. Inside, with

the wind howling through shattered windows, he can see his breath.

Over several hours, traversing various levels and climbing all the way to

the roof, he will forget the cold. He will have to strain to remember the

Hudson's of his childhood.

Just beyond the main entrance, near a chandelier so caked with grime no

one has bothered to take it, is a ramp of bricks and planks. Adamo studies it

briefly, then shakes his head in disgust and admiration. "They drove a

forklift up to the mezzanine."

Most building strippers are more subtle. They take copper pipe or thick

copper wire, and leave behind liquor bottles and the plastic foam tubs that

hold Coney Islands to go. Ashes and black stains mark the spots where looters

or squatters have built fires.

Along one wall, Adamo finds a series of 6-foot-long cast- iron radiators,

broken from their moorings. "Only way to get one out is to throw it through a

window, " he says wryly. "A little obvious."

THE RADIATORS will ultimately belong to whoever knocks down the building.

Salvage rights are part of the deal. Their worth, like so much associated with

the demolition, is undetermined.

A long row of white orb light fixtures hangs unbroken on the fourth floor,

"but you'd have to find one of those nouveau art deco restaurants to sell them

to." The terra-cotta roses around the building's facade are stunning, but

saving them would cost money that might not be recouped and time that might

not be available.

Greater Downtown Partnership, the nonprofit owner of the building,

expects the demolition to cost $12 million to $15 million and take 14 to 18

months.

Adamo concurs. Figure $3 million to cart away the rubble, he says. Figure

$3 million or $4 million to remove the asbestos, a process that includes

technicians in decontamination suits rappelling down elevator shafts. That's

at least $6 million, "and you haven't wrecked the building yet."

Adamo Demolition is one of two dozen companies -- half from out of state

-- that submitted their qualifications to do the job. Greater Downtown

Partnership will choose an undetermined number of finalists, then turn them

loose to examine the building and prepare bids.

[buildingsofdetroit]

Article continued ...

The partnership hopes to get the wrecking ball rolling by summer. For now,

says president Larry Marantette, it is meeting with city planners and a

stream of city departments to work out the fine print.

SMART will need to move bus kiosks, and possibly bus routes. Lanes or

entire streets may need to close. The People Mover will not stop for

demolition, Marantette says, so any bid will have to include a structural

steel canopy over the track.

In deference to the People Mover and nearby buildings, explosives will not

be permitted. The old-fashioned store will meet an old-fashioned end.

ADAMO EXPECTED as much. Implosion makes for a great show, but 95% of

the time "you just whack away until you drop 'em."

He's spent half his life watching buildings fall, and he's still fascinated with the

process. Part of him may admire the architecture when he walks into a new building,

but a larger part is sizing it up. "I'll look around and ask myself, 'If you were going to

demolish it, where would you start?' "

He would love to march through Detroit like some wrecking- ball Godzilla,

swatting away high-rise blight. It's not that he doesn't believe in

preservation; he personally restored his 1970 Pontiac GTO, buffing and

painting every piece. But the buildings he sees are beyond hope, and in his

experience, nothing good gets started until something old gets finished.

The Book Cadillac Hotel on Washington Boulevard stands near the top of his

wish list. "It's a lot like Hudson's. It's tough, it's big." The Michigan

Central Depot, surrounded by empty lots, would be fun: "Push a button and

watch it fall."

From atop Hudson's roof, he sees another candidate -- sturdy and

populated, but also confusing, annoying and remote.

"The Renaissance Center, " he says, "would be nice. But that won't be for

awhile."

[Detroitnerd]

I like the end, where he's salivating over what buildings he'd like to destroy next.

[iheartthed]

But the buildings he sees are beyond hope, and in his

experience, nothing good gets started until something old gets finished.

The Book Cadillac Hotel on Washington Boulevard stands near the top of his

wish list. "It's a lot like Hudson's. It's tough, it's big." The Michigan

Central Depot, surrounded by empty lots, would be fun: "Push a button and

watch it fall."

Imagine what Detroit would look like if he got his way with the Book Cadillac. Imagine what it will look like if he gets his way with Michigan Central.

[Bearinabox]

Imagine what Detroit would look like if he got his way with the Book Cadillac. Imagine what it will look like if he gets his way with Michigan Central.

[eastland]

John Adamo is a class guy who's company puts quality and safety first. Don't zing him because his firm demolishes buildings.

[mikeg19]

I do like the point made in the story : "builders can get slow, but wreckers are always busy". Might have to consider that once I'm done with my civil engineering degree.


Can't blame the guy for liking what he does. But I hope he stays away from downtown. Too much there he'd like to bulldoze that city council would probably like to do as well.

[buildingsofdetroit]

John Adamo is a class guy who's company puts quality and safety first. Don't zing him because his firm demolishes buildings.

That wasn't the point of posting this. I think it's a fascinating look at the guy. And he's right on many points: "You don't get crowds, " he observes, "to watch a building go up."

[reddog289]

I remember that article. At that time I was less interested in preserving buildings then I am now. I just look at his company as the messenger of bad news to some folks.
I do find the whole demolition business kinda facinating myself, Taking down a building is a complicated process.

[Sandhouse]

Stories like this always remind me of a skit on the old Red Green TV show, where Harold interviews the dynamite-loving demolition man, and chides him for doing something so destructive. "Why don't you do something creative?"

"I do. I create space."

I still remember the wood floor on Hudson's 12th floor, next to the hot-dog stand. Dang, another nostalgia attack . . .

[sirrealone]

The People Mover will not stop for

demolition, Marantette says, so any bid will have to include a structural

steel canopy over the track.

In deference to the People Mover and nearby buildings, explosives will not

be permitted. The old-fashioned store will meet an old-fashioned end.

ADAMO EXPECTED as much. Implosion makes for a great show, but 95% of

the time "you just whack away until you drop 'em."

Hmmmm.......I seem to remember quite well that the building was imploded and I don't recall any type of canopy going over the People Mover, which of course was damaged as a result.

[Fury13]

I can appreciate Adamo's vision of demolishing the Renaissance Center.

[Detroitnerd]

SATIRE WARNING

Legacy of Racism Ends with Demolition
Thousands cheer the destruction of the last 'ugly reminder'

Detroit, 2021: Assembling civic luminaries for the demolition of the last pre-1930 structure in downtown Detroit, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick thanked a crowd of adoring supporters and the dozens of political, business and religious leaders for their attendance.

"We all know," Mayor Kilpatrick said, "that downtown Detroit was always an awful place for African-American Detroiters. We were discriminated against at Hudson's, barred from the DAC, perhaps allowed to get into a building if we had a job as a barber's assistant or bootblack in there. Now, with the implosion of the last holdout, the Penobscot Building, we are getting rid of these ugly reminders of yesterday's painful racism."

At the end of the prepared statement, and after tremendous applause, the president of Adamo Demolition Company, based in outstate White Homes [[formerly Macomb Township) pushed the plunger, bringing the last of the old buildings down.

Talking to reporters after the implosion, Adamo laughed and said he hadn't had so much fun [[or made so much money) since destroying the Renaissance Center in 2016. Before stepping into his personal helicopter to travel back to White Homes [[which is 99 percent caucasian), Adamo let off this zinger with a chuckle: "Erasing the legacy of racism was never so profitable."

END SATIRE

[buildingsofdetroit]

Hmmmm.......I seem to remember quite well that the building was imploded and I don't recall any type of canopy going over the People Mover, which of course was damaged as a result.

This story was written before the implosion contract was awarded.

This story is Adamo talking about he'd LIKE to rip into it.

[Detroitdave]

John Adamo is a class guy who's company puts quality and safety first. Don't zing him because his firm demolishes buildings.

I'd love to hear reviews of Adamos work. I hear first hand what a crappy job they do everyday !
If it was up to him some of the building that have been saved since the Hudson implosion would be gone and downtown would look much worse.
The difference between him and Dan Gilbert are night and day.
You decide who's better for Detroit .
Adamo jobs is to tear down as much as possible, to line his pockets.
He has zero interest in saving any buildings downtown, if he had his way, we would be without several downtown jewels.
but hey it's all in a days work

[canuck]

SATIRE WARNING

Legacy of Racism Ends with Demolition
Thousands cheer the destruction of the last 'ugly reminder'

Detroit, 2021: Assembling civic luminaries for the demolition of the last pre-1930 structure in downtown Detroit, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick thanked a crowd of adoring supporters and the dozens of political, business and religious leaders for their attendance.

"We all know," Mayor Kilpatrick said, "that downtown Detroit was always an awful place for African-American Detroiters. We were discriminated against at Hudson's, barred from the DAC, perhaps allowed to get into a building if we had a job as a barber's assistant or bootblack in there. Now, with the implosion of the last holdout, the Penobscot Building, we are getting rid of these ugly reminders of yesterday's painful racism."

At the end of the prepared statement, and after tremendous applause, the president of Adamo Demolition Company, based in outstate White Homes [[formerly Macomb Township) pushed the plunger, bringing the last of the old buildings down.

Talking to reporters after the implosion, Adamo laughed and said he hadn't had so much fun [[or made so much money) since destroying the Renaissance Center in 2016. Before stepping into his personal helicopter to travel back to White Homes [[which is 99 percent caucasian), Adamo let off this zinger with a chuckle: "Erasing the legacy of racism was never so profitable."

END SATIRE

Good satire can be four years old and still be relevant. As long as nobody erases it. Thanks for the chuckles.

[Detroitdave]

The more things change the more they stay the same.
Goes to show Detroit is a huge city and Adamo has been allow to demo as much as legally possible.
Hopefully we are learning and saving as much as possible.
Just think of downtown without the Book Cadillac, the David Whitney,the David Broderick, The Ashley, ect. I'm sure he was licking his chops to get at those, thinking "damn they got away"
Today we show off these beauties to tourist ,family and friends , who, no doubly are impressed.
You will NEVER ! see anything like those anywhere in the burbs

[SaintMe]

Adamo president John T. Adamo Jr. dies in accident

http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...dent/76672620/