SEATTLE -- It was once home to Rosie the Riveter, but the old Boeing Plant 2 will soon be gone.
Demolition has already started to tear the plant down along Seattle's Duwamish Waterway, and work is ready to be done to create a half-mile stretch of natural riverbank once again.
The Duwamish River doesn't just go by Boeing's old Plant 2, it goes under it. The factory extends 150 feet out onto the river on 500 old pilings. They could do things like that back in the 1930's when construction was underway.
The first stages of demolition include carefully removing siding that contains asbestos and screening off scafolding to keep it out of the water. It's taken years to get to this point.
Steven Tochko is one of Boeing's senior environmental remediation managers. He said the company is not "...only dealing with an old facility, but the demolition, the cleanup of the waterway. the habitat restoration...combining all those things into one big program."
During World War II, Plant 2 couldn't be seen from the air. If enemy planes ever made it this far, they would have spotted a residential neighborhood with trees streets and houses. It was camoflage, chicken wire trees and phony homes shielded the fact that Rosie the Riveter was busy underneath knocking out some 300 B-17 bombers every month.
When the war ended, the camo came off and later the plant produced hundreds of B-52's, and even the first few 737's.
"It's been decades since the company has done any business in there," said Mike Lombardi, Boeing's corporate historian. He said during the 70's and 80's there were some special projects, but the sprawling plant of nearly two million square feet was primarily used for storage. More recently it was housing some planes for the Museum of Flight. Part of the plant was torn down about a decade ago along East Marginal Way.
Lombardi says the plant is falling apart, with parts of it now 74 years old. There are holes in the roof, rotting pilings underneath. Other executives say if the plant were fixed up, it would require expensive seismic upgrades to make it resistant to earthquakes. It's ceiling is so low, even during the B-52 era during the early 1950's, the vertical tails had to be attached while laying on their sides, and moved upright once the plane left the factory.
But Lombardi says part of the plant will live.
"We're letting the museums come in and select whatever they need from the building to help tell the story," said Lombardi.
He's been talking with the Museum of Flight, the Museum of History and Industry, the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma and others to put doors, columns, signs and other pieces of the plant in places where the public can see them.
If you would like to give your input on the project, visit the Lower Duwamish Waterway Group's website http://www.ldwg.org/
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