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Check out this amazing time lapse of the Mackenzie House move

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It took four days to move the 600-ton building one block

By Aaron Mondry
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Photo by Michelle Gerard

Moving a building is an amazing feat of engineering. Wayne State University captured the multi-day journey of the David Mackenzie House is an impressive time-lapse video which was shared on Show Me Detroit Tours’s Facebook page.

The Mackenzie House is a historic Queen Anne built in the late 1800s and owned by Wayne State University. In order to accommodate construction of the university’s new $65 million Hilberry Gateway Performance Complex while also preserving the house, it had to be moved about a city block at a cost of $750,000.

On the day of the move, The Detroit News wrote, “The house is being moved on four layers of beams sitting on hydraulic-powered dollies. … A power pack pumps hydraulic fluid through lines into 16 to 18 jacks to lift the structure. The jacks are placed in specific locations accounting for heavier parts of the building.”

The whole apparatus sat on 12 sets of wheels.

Moving the 600-ton house began April 1 and finished April 4. We photographed the move on its first day.

Check out the full three-minute time-lapse video:

Mackenzie House Move 2019

MACKENZIE HOUSE MOVE 2019 Wayne State University’s historic David Mackenzie House has been moved from its location on Cass Avenue next to the Hillberry Theater in Midtown Detroit one block away the northeast corner of Forest Avenue at Second Boulevard. This time-lapse video documents the March 29 - April 4 move that was handled by Buffalo, N.Y.-based International Chimney Corp., the same firm that in 1997 moved the historic Gem Theatre in Downtown to make way for Comerica Park. The move of the house was needed to make room for the new $65 million Hilberry Gateway Performance Complex that will include the Gretchen Valade Jazz Center. The future use of the house has not yet been determined and is being considered within the larger context of the university’s master plan. ---------------------------------------------------------------- LIKE US: www.facebook.com/ShowMeDetroit FOLLOW US: www.twitter.com/ShowMeDetroit TRIPADVISOR REVIEWS: http://bit.ly/1kgaCRF TOUR WITH US: www.ShowMeDetroitTours.com313.444.2120

Posted by Show Me Detroit Tours on Friday, May 10, 2019
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Mackenzie House

4735 Cass Ave., Detroit, MI 48202

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