Past and future milestones of the Brown Block site

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/11/2011 (5147 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The saga of the infamous Brown Block appears to finally be nearing its end.

On Monday afternoon, the building was turned into a pile of rubble — after months of delays, infighting and finger-pointing.

According to the city, the 100-block of 10th Street will remain closed until Monday, Dec. 5, as the site and street are cleaned up.

The original collapse, which precipitated this whole thing, was early in the morning of March 15, so by the time the street is open again, it will have taken 265 days — a solid three-quarters of a year.

After getting some good feedback from my timeline looking at milestones of the BU faculty strike, I thought I would put together something similar for the Brown Block.

So here we go:

Past and future milestones of the Brown Block site

• 
  March 17 was 2 days after collapse, and the headline in the Brandon Sun read, "Street closure could last two or three weeks: Snure". Two or three weeks — ha!
   
• March 29 was 14 days, which is the standard minimum for a year’s vacation — or notice of quitting.
   
• 
  April 15 was 31 days, which is long enough for a common fruit fly to be born, live out its full lifespan, and die of old age.
   
• 
  April 24 was 40 days (and 40 nights), which was the length of time it rained during the Biblical flood.
   
• 
  April 26 was 42 days, which was the length of the Falklands War between Argentina and the UK in 1982
   
• May 27 was 73 days, and the headline in the Brandon Sun was "10th St. cleanup to start ‘right away’"
   
• 
  June 3 was 80 days, which is as long as it took Phileas Fogg and Passepartout to go around the world in that Jules Verne novel.
   
• June 10 was 87 days. The headline in the Brandon Sun read, "Crews expected to start Brown Block cleanup on Monday."
   
• 
  June 22 was 99 days, which is exactly how long it took Roald Amundsen’s expedition to be first to make it to the South Pole and also to return to base camp.
   
• 
  June 28 was 105 days, which is how long it took the space probe Venera 3 to reach the surface of Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to reach another planet.
   
• July 20 was 125 days. The headline in the Brandon Sun read, "City issues ultimatum on Brown Block."
   
• July 24 was 129 days, exactly half-way between collapse and demolition. If you had said "We’re only half-way there," at the end of July, would anyone have believed you?
   
• 
  July 25 was 132 days, which is longer than the amount of time between the launch of the first manned landing on the moon (Apollo 11) and the splashdown return of the SECOND manned landing on the moon (Apollo 12). It’s also exactly as long as Kim Campbell was Prime Minister.
   
• 
  July 27 was 134 days, which is how long male emperor penguins go without food while they incubate their eggs.
   
• August 6 was 144 days. The headline in the Brandon Sun read, "Winnipeg company must begin demolition on Brown Block Aug. 16 or city takes over"
   
• 
  August 12 was 150 days, longer than the winning times of the last 15 years of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, all put together. Maybe someone should have told the Brown Block demolition crews to "mush!"
   
• 
  August 26 was 164 days, meaning the Brown Block had been collapsed longer than the Battle of Stalingrad, during the Second World War. I couldn’t find any data on how long it took them to knock down or rebuild the rest of the city after the battle collapsed it.
   
• 
  September 7 was 176 days, which is longer than it took the United States Army Air Service, in 1924, to complete the first aerial circumnavigation of the world. Using biplanes.
   
• 
  September 8 was 177 days. If you walked just 3 mph for just eight hours a day, and had headed south from Brandon on the day the Brown Block collapsed, on this day you would have reached the Panama Canal.
   
• 
  September 11 was 180 days, which is about how long it takes a pineapple to go from a flower to a ripe fruit.
   
• 
  September 17 was 186 days, which is about how long it took ‘Wedginald,’ a round of Cheddar cheese, to reach maturation while being broadcast live online.
   
• 
  October 1 was 200 days, which is longer than James Garfield was president of the United States before being assassinated.
   
• 
  October 12 was 211 days, longer than the first Gulf War.
   
• 
  October 25 was 224 days, which is exactly how long it took Christopher Columbus to leave Spain, discover North America, and return back to Spain.
   
• November 1 was 231 days, and the headline in the Brandon Sun read "Work at Brown Block site likely done by end of Nov."
   
• 
  November 9 was 239 days, which is longer than it took Francis Ford Coppola to shoot "Apocalypse Now." The horror! The horror!
   
• 
  November 21 was 251 days, which is the length of time of O.J. Simpson’s murder trial.
   
• 
  November 28 it finally came down. That’s 258 days, which is the length of time it took the "first fleet" of convicts to arrive in Australia after leaving Britain. Also, you’re half-way home from your walk to the Panama Canal.
   

UPCOMING:

• 
  November 30 would have been 260 days, which is the standard number of weekdays in an entire year. It’s also the length of a Mayan Ritual Year.
   
• 
  December 6 would have been 266 days, which is the average length of time between conception and birth for humans.
   
• 
  December 15 would have been 275 days, which is the amount of time it took the United States to launch and return Apollo 11, Apollo 12 and Apollo 13. That’s three missions to the moon, but only one Brown Block.
   
• 
  December 19 would have been 279 days, which is enough time to watch all six of the Star Wars movies, back-to-back-to-back, more than 500 times. The Brown Block saga, long and horrifying as it is, has nothing on the prequels.
   
• 
  February 6 would have been 328 days. That’s how long it took to conceive of, negotiate and implement the full reunification of East and West Germany — both politically and economically — after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
   
• 
  And, of course, March 15, 2012 would have been exactly one year. Happy birthday!
  

Remember when they said it would take too long, and too much money, to fix it up? Anyone want to lay bets on how long it’ll take before something new is built there?