Viewfinder: Hotel Shell Is Stark Scene Above Woodward

Two months of ground-pounding destruction have reshaped the skyline at Birmingham’s busiest intersection, Woodward and Maple, where a five-story building is nearly a spindly skeleton.

The was by removal of its concrete façade, windows and interior walls. A mechanical yellow beast with one long arm, two metal tread tracks and a giant steel jaw turned rooms to rubble. This gallery tracks progress during recent weeks as the building was gutted, leaving just two stairwells and an elevator shaft.

Workers from Blue Star, Inc. of Warren soon begin the final phase,  ripping down iron girders erected in 1958 as the building’s bones. After the last debris is trucked to a dump or recycler, topsoil and grass seed will be spread, as required by a city demolition regulation.

TCF Bank, owner of the foreclosed site, is reviewing undisclosed development proposals for the prime location passed by thousands of drivers daily.