Siteseeing
The citywide obsession with watching other people work
Cover Story
You can’t take your eyes off the crusher. Its sliding neck can stretch into the very innards of an abandoned building. At the end of its neck, it has a metal face with a metal nose—more like a prehistoric beak. It has jaws. And its teeth are eating away at the empty and exposed second-floor shell of 65 K St. NE, the former ticket-adjudication center.
Feeding time began before 9 a.m. The second floor is just a series of concrete slabs. No match for the crusher. The machine seems to toy with it, jutting past the tangled exposed rebar that hangs in the air, helpless as dead tree branches. It then rubs its nose in the slab, spraying everything with dust. Finally, it opens wide and chomps hard into the flooring and the walls.
The action stops Robert Williams, 52, at the building’s old driveway. He stands there for a while, staring straight at the crusher. He finally moves away, heading down toward North Capitol Street. “It was something to look at,” he says. “Just something curious.”
Leaning over a wall along 1st Street NE, a man stands for a good while, gazing up at the thing and the showers of concrete. “When I look at this, I think of 9/11,” he says. “See how that fell?” Another chunk of concrete chalks the earth.
Standing next to the man is Marvin Frye, 43. He pulled up a while ago to catch the crusher. He’s dressed in work clothes. He says he’s on his way to Capitol Heights for a construction job of his own. But he had to stop. When asked why, he just looks up at the jaws. “It stopped me—you know what I’m sayin’,” he says.... Continued 
Issue of Apr. 7 - 13, 2006
News and Features
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Cover Story - Stone Cold
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Books - Culture Vultures
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