Glass everywhere

AHHH, THE JOYS of owning a historic building. Notice I use "historic" instead of "old." Unfortunately, they are the same thing.

We constantly battle broken windows on all five floors. I suspect it's because much of the glass is original to the building. Since it was constructed in 1896, that makes it 120 years old. We'd love to fix all the window sills and replace it with glass, but it's tough enough to pay the mortgage and property taxes, and keep the first and second floors in shape.

Yesterday it got warm and a wind came bellowing out of the northwest. We sit high on a bluff five blocks from the Mississippi River, and since the WCU building is across the street, it forms a wind tunnel of sorts.

Anybody got a broom?

As soon as it started blowing I knew were were in trouble. Sure enough, three windows on the far east end of the second floor broke, and glass scattered everywhere on the street and sidewalk. Then two big plates of glass from a fourth-floor window gave out and came crashing down on the street.

Steve Rees and I cleaned up what we could. Sheryl called the city to ask for a street sweeper to help out. This morning Sheryl and I got more glass swept up from the middle of the street and under cars parked along the street. We call it a "Good faith effort" and the glass is blowing in the wind, down to the river and out into Missouri today.

In all, five windows need the glass to be replaced. There goes another big chunk of change. Oh well .... it's all part of the historic, er, old, building thing.