Century-old fish house falls into Saint John Harbour
CBC News | Posted: November 14, 2012 6:56 PM | Last Updated: November 14, 2012
An abandoned, century-old fish house on Saint John’s lower west side has fallen into the Saint John Harbour.
The well-known eyesore and a piece of Saint John's fishing history has been the centre of an ongoing dispute between the city and the owner.
The city's heritage officer said in October the building is unsalvageable and the owners were ordered to deal with it.
The city estimated the cost of tearing down the building would be about $35,000.
Nothing was done and the building fell into further disrepair
Many city residents had been expecting to see the historic, but derelict, fishing structure crumble into the river for several months.
Gerald Martin, who lives next door to the building, said the end came quickly for the dilapidated structure.
"It was still upright yesterday so either during the night or this morning that happened," he said.
The house was part of a century-old fishing community on the riverbank, just below the Reversing Falls.
But in 2011, the building suffered a serious structural failure, which started a year-long discussion over what to do.
Three weeks ago, the house looked like it could fall into the river but the city claimed to be on top of the problem.
Coun. Donnie Snook said in October that city hall's top people were working to fix the situation.
"We certainly don't want a structurally unsound building not attended to in the appropriate way," Snook said in October.
"Certainly you don't want it falling into the harbour either and certainly there is some risk of that so certainly the right people with the right credentials are looking at it and making sure the appropriate action is taken."
The city did, however, show up on Wednesday when the house was in the water and pieces of it breaking free and moving upriver. A city inspector was on the scene to take some pictures.
Meanwhile, Angela Harris, who spent much of the day taking her own pictures of the collapsed building, said she expected the city to do a lot more.
"I'm surprised nobody's here now trying to stabilize [the building] from going down, but there's nothing," she said.
When the tide went out on Wednesday, the house collapsed on the riverbank, completely torn off its foundation.