The historic Crum & Forster building’s rear portion is gone

• Thomas Wheatley’s Award-Winning iPhone
• Georgia Tech Foundation plans to build state-of-the-art computing center on property, which might include historic building’s front portion

On Labor Day, while you were most likely out of town or enjoying one of the myriad events taking place throughout Atlanta, demolition crews arrived at Midtown’s historic Crum & Forster building and started dismantling the building’s rear portion. Two-thirds of the circa 1926 building, which was designed by local firm Ivey and Crook and New York City’s Helme, Corbett & Harrison, are being razed by the Georgia Tech Foundation to make way for a mid-rise “High Performance Computing Center.” Local preservationists fought long and hard to save the Tech Square building - or at least some of it. The front one-third is expected to be included as part of the new building’s design.

When we dropped by 771 Spring St. yesterday afternoon around lunch, crews were hosing down the rubble in front of cameras they set up to document the property’s transformation. Terry Kearns of the excellent Architecture Tourist blog was also on hand, snapping photos and recording some of the process. He’s got a solid round-up of the prep work that went into demolishing the bulk of the three-story building - crews actually split it in two pieces before knocking down the roofs and walls - and close-ups of what remains. And here’s a video he shot of the demolition.

Kearns says on Facebook that the building’s “new backside” will get a fix-up. The recently demolished areas will be lawned and used for parking until Georgia Tech decides to move forward with its the proposed center. (We’ve reached out to Foundation President Al Trujillo for information about the project and updates; we’ll update if we hear back.)