Load-Bearing Hope on Banning Street

There’s a brick two-story on Banning Street that the city has been trying to bulldoze since 2011. It caught fire twice.

Once from bad basement wiring, and once from a guy named 'Toeless' Terry trying to deep-fry a frozen turkey in the basement.

After the second fire, the roof sagged and the pigeons moved in. By last November, there was more guano in there than R-12 insulation. It was a structural nightmare. Pure hazard pay.

So when I saw a couple of twenty-somethings pull up with a flatbed of lumber and a crowbar, I had to stop my truck. I walked right onto the property, ready to tell them to save their time and just order the wrecking ball.

They didn't flinch. They just handed me a dust mask and fired up a leaf blower to evict the pigeons. Then they shoveled out a literal ton of black ash.

I stood on the frozen Banning Street sidewalk for four days straight just watching them work. When they opened up the ceiling and I saw them properly sistering the sagging second-floor joists, I actually teared up. You don't see that kind of respect for load paths in this generation.

They even found a gold cornicello tucked in the basement ductwork. Probably planted by the original Italian bricklayer in '54. I told them that means the foundation is blessed against the evil eye and frost heaves.

I wrote down some thoughts about watching them spark the pilot light behind the basement glass, bringing that old rotting frame back to life.

My grandson Massimo read my notes. He told me the themes of urban decay, drug houses, and flipping real estate meant I should be rapping this material.

I took his iPad away for the afternoon. You can’t rap about sistered joists. Country music is the only genre structurally sound enough to carry the weight of a Banning Street remodel.