Posted on 06/29/2006 11:14:04 AM PDT by neverdem
NEWARK, June 26 — For many who gathered here on Monday, the day marked the passing of yet one more piece of New Jersey lore, an urban monument for drivers on the Garden State Parkway. It had been the subject of a popular song and even had a role in a recent episode of "The Sopranos."
It was the toast of a town whose bustling industrial past was awash in breweries, from Ballantine and Krueger to Hensler and Feigenspan.
It was the 60-foot-tall Pabst beer bottle, which had loomed 185 feet above Newark for 75 years, serving as a guidepost for countless weary drivers.
But on Monday, after a lengthy struggle, the rusted bottle — which was actually a 55,000-gallon water tank — came down piece by piece over seven hours. For now it is five enormous pieces of steel and copper plate three-eighths of an inch thick, and its fate is far from settled.
Ted Fiore, whose company has been demolishing the 10-acre site of the former Pabst brewery for two years, said he planned to restore the bottle at his warehouse in Newark and then give it a new home.
So far, Mr. Fiore said, "several alcoholic-beverage companies" have expressed interest. It might end up in Newark, he said, or perhaps along the Jersey Shore in Dover Township, where a nightclub could take it.
The tank was built for Hoffman Pale Dry Ginger Ale in the early 1930's, and when Pabst bought the plant in 1945, it changed the label and painted the bottle blue. Later it turned reddish, either from paint or rust.
When the plans to demolish the plant and bottle were announced in 2004, local preservation groups tried to have the bottle designated a landmark, but removing the bottle from its original site would have...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Dith Pran/The New York Times
Work on demolishing the buildings and clearing the 10-acre Pabst site started in 2004 and is expected to be finished by year's end.
Let me guess. A federal housing project.
Nah. Then they'd be living IN that bottle, instead of demolishing it.
130,000-square-foot shopping complex
For me the best landmark will always be the A for Anheuser Bush. It's still there if I am not mistaken.
>> But on Monday, after a lengthy struggle, the rusted bottle — which was actually a 55,000-gallon water tank <<
O come on, Pabst isn't that bad... It's not like it is Coors Lite.
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