Sears Lincoln Park During Interior Demolition
Documented April 12th to August 1st 2024
As documented in Sears Lincoln Park the former Sears Lot was home to one of the best abandoned buildings to explore in my judgement, here is some shots of those times before the demolition began on April 12th, 2024
Most things to start demolition wise was centered around the outside of the building including the Guardrails in Parking Lot, but in Early May the Auto Center and the Massive Warehouse were cut into, from there the Sears would never be the same as the building slowly but surely fell to the Demolition Crew
The Mistake the Demolition Crew made was not properly securing entrances, and as once interior entrances became Exterior Entrances and no boards or proper maintenance was preformed on the fences holes began to form from people trying to get in, this fence shot was the way we would get in until the end of the Sears in September, as it would never be fixed, also fences would fall over due to weather conditions, and would also rarely be fixed
Footage filmed May 20th, 2024 shows the Progress of the Demolition as above mentioned Exterior Walls were Demolished exposing interior entrances to the open
On May 21th, 2024 we ventured inside and we were blown away by the shear difference this Demolition Crew had done to this once Marvel of a Building pictured is some of the more notable pictures
For this Next Section it will be a overview of what we saw exactly on that first trip in since the Demolition began
Caution tape was present as soon as we walked in showing us that work had been done behind the scenes
you'll notice the biggest change was the absence of the light fixtures that once lit up under the right flashlight
The Floors also shined much more then before
The Escalator had been Tarped off
The Tarp on top of the Escalators one of the first things to be tarped off inside the store
The Escalator from a far looked to be the same but a change would become more noticeable upon getting closer
throughout the whole store every light fixture had been removed one by one
and the other side was completely tarped off from the bottom
You might be wondering where they stacked these Light Fixtures well take a look at the pillars
The Store yet Damaged, and open to the elements hadn't seen the worse to come just yet
also upon further exploring we found the lifts used to removed all these light fixtures
a pile of trash from the interior clean up
The Stairs were the main way for us to traverse the Sears
even up on the second floor light fixtures had been removed
Bags full of Abestos inside
close up of removed Light Fixtures
Office Windows had been tarped off
once the drivers ed room
once the lawn care section
Clean up on the second floor wasn't as important on the second floor for whatever reason
a abyss of mounds of rubble
certain sections of the store got hit hard by vandals making their way into the store
Due to the exposed nature of the store certain areas were hit hard
looking towards the entrance of the back entrance to the open store
until the end this Holiday blowout signs would remain in this room we nicknamed the "Banner Room" all these signs would be waterlogged and turned into a slippery mess
waterlogging started in this room but would be far from the last room
certain sections were cleaned very well prior to asbestos abatement
the Sears Watertower looms in the background of the Rubble it's once store is in
Metal Support Beams
for a while this very unique architecture would remain but would later be removed
some entrances remained untouched during our first trip since the demolition started
A door like hole in the fence the way we got in till the end
Between May 31st and June 1st we ventured inside again this time the scene was completely different, both from the outside and inside
During the short trip we made inside the Sears on June 1st we found that Asbestos Abatement had began, and many walls had been taken out leaving a creepy yet more open store then before, the walls not gone were tarped off similar to the Escalator
Only 4 days later on June 4th we would find ourselves back at the Sears, this time work had progressed a ton, this was one of the last times you could see the sears in most of its full glory before one of the most major events happened in the project, this is what we saw on our longer June 4th Trip
Light Fixtures hang creepily in one of the hallways of the Sears
Door had been left open by the Demolition crew on this day allowing for a unique shot
once the entrance to the auto center
Tarp on the walls surrounded the 2nd floors, and asbestos bags were hard not to spot
The Tarps surrounded the area on the 2nd floor
more of those walls
Tarped off stairs
small remaining office space
nearby to the employee break room
Tarp had been removed by someone
the office space still remaining, along with the Employee Break room
Next section of the Office Space
looking back towards the Employee Break Room
That same June 4th Trip looked like this from the Outside
By June 21st the salesfloor part of the Store was being demolished from the outside and this is what it looked like
By June 25th the Support of the building had been broken causing much of the building to Collapse in a major change in landscape on the Sears lot
Date Recorded: 6/25/24
We would not venture inside the at this point very unsafe structure, due to the questioning of Structural Stability, but after over a month of the demolition crew not touching the remaining part of the building we decided to venture inside again on August 1st, these are some of the sights we saw
Watch the Video here
on the 2nd floor little remains of the once massive seemly never ending salesfloor
the Frog Memes Graffiti was there all the way to the end
a close up look at the edge of the collapsed vs the standing
facing Southfield Rd. the pillars still stand barely
the back section of the 2nd floor facing northwest
as mentioned before the building as it was demolished was left wide open and that allowed water to get in further damaging the building
"entrance" to a backrooms section
pile of debris
on the 1st floor a picture like no other shows what the collapse truly did
scrap metal laid across the debris field
back on the second floor light from the open air allows a nice but sad shot of the Sears
looking out my open windows
the back of the store with now open air windows
that same field with debris mostly cleared from the original backrooms part 1 demolition
the remaining backrooms sections on the 2nd floor
1st floor backroom section