UpFront Walls coming down at old New West secondary

TheresaMcManus

tmcmanus@newwestrecord ca

On Day 218 of the New Westminster Secondary School demolition pro–ject, the exterior walls started slowly tumbling down.

A demolition excavator took down the first exterior walls of the old school on June 7, starting with a section in the Pearson wing, in an area near the gymnasium and cafeteria Until lastWednesday, demolition work had focused on the interior of the Pearson wing, including the removal of hazardous waste (as- bestos) and interior walls.

A night before the exterior demolition got underway, the NewWestminster school board received a report and update from staff about the NWSS hazardous materials abatement, demolition and restorative works at its operations committee meeting.

Dave Crowe, the district’s director of capital projects, said demolition of the school was 55 to 60 per cent complete at that time.

Demolition of the Pearson wing (the part closest to 10th Avenue) is expect- ed to take a few weeks. As the building is demolished, materials will be sorted into different categories, including metal and wood (which will be recycled) and general waste.

All wood will be salvaged for reuse where possible; any wood that can’t be reused will be disposed of at wood recycling facilities for repurposing

One of the major reclamation projects will involve MasseyTheatre

The theatre society has made an agreement to acquire timbers from the old school for construction of a new welcome centre at the front of the theatre

Along with demolition of the Pearson wing, hazmat abatement is also continuing in the Massey wing of the old NewWestminster Secondary School.

The demolition project is on track to be completed by the end of 2023.

Eventually, the site will be home to a memorial park.

That park, which is planned to be built in phases over the next three years, will include greenery, pathways and a number of tributes by way of art and signage to the original uses of the land.

The old school, which opened in 1949, sits on a cemetery that was used between 1860 and 1920 as a potter’s field where bodies of the poor, prisoners, stillborn babies and patients fromWoodlands and Essondale (which later became Riverview) were buried The land was also used as burial grounds for the Chinese, Sikh and Indigenous communities – with files from Julie MacLellan