Eager tenants watch as progress on Realty Building leaps forward

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – Sparks fly as two men in a basket work Monday to bring down the steel skeleton of what had been the Realty Building. On the ground, Mayor Tito Brown has been following the work.

“From Thursday until Monday afternoon, there’s so much progress,” Brown said.

It’s been a month since demolition began on the explosion-damaged building and two months since residents in the neighboring International Towers were evacuated. Many of those residents came to watch, eager to be allowed back into their apartments.

“It’s hard to tell with the I-beams and all the scrap, the pile of debris. I don’t know how they’re going to do it and clean it up,” said William Kinnard, of Youngstown.

At this point, there’s still no firm date when it will be safe enough to re-open the rest of the downtown.

“It’s kind of a day-to-day assessment. If the contractor can get a couple of those barriers out of the way, then we can assess and see where we are,” Brown said.

As a crew with a cutting torch works to bring down the beams, which had been holding up the building for so many years, one of the next delicate tasks will be taking down the fire escape so it doesn’t hit anything else.

Once given the go-ahead, Mayor Brown believes the re-opening of both the DoubleTree Hotel and Bistro restaurant can proceed fairly quickly but moving residents back into their apartments may take more preparation.

“We’re waiting at the edge of our seats. When we can find a safe time that they an start moving back, we have a plan in place,” Brown said.

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