For Whom The Ball Tolls.....

The 5000 pound ball (I checked) continues to pound away at the midtown grain elevator with less than a week to go before it exists no more.  I must admit I was torn on the issue of demolition for the elevator.  My nostalgic side would love to have seen it preserved.  When the kind worker gave me a glimpse of the inside, I'm wasn't so sure.  While I may have great respect for buildings of legacy, I cannot imagine a reasonable repurpose for the grain elevator.  Either in cost or use, this structure was not going to be a place where a restaurant, an observation tower or anything else again, reasonable, would be located.  For those that doubt, looking up that deteriorating steel ladder inside would convince you. No one's going to make that climb and there simply wasn't the space to change the manner of access.  Eventually something had to be done or it would become a money pit or worse, a safety hazard and an eyesore.  It's time had come.  The positive that has come out of it has been the discussion.  Here's hoping that the last legacy the grain elevator leaves us is the need to look hard at each place like this in our community in the future and have the debate.  They're not all going to get kept....but at least we can appreciate and work through whether they actually can be.  
Greg Cooper, Carmel Grain Elevator, Carmel Indiana homes for sale, real estate blog