Along with 18 years of memories of my next door neighbor, George. Ancient houses and two-flats are worth more to tear down than to sell intact. This one, in fact, probably should have been a tear down, a little frame two-flat, in a bit of disrepair, owned by an absentee landlord. Instead of a long time, somewhat eccentric tenant next door, there will be families of yuppies. And so it goes.
Progress is sometimes sad.
The Beast has a gentle mouth - it softly picks up a corner of the second floor, then gingerly turns it inward, so as not to crash on the back porch of the elderly Yugoslavian princess in the house on the other side. After it pushes the pieces down on the ground, it picks them up again and munches them and spits them out again in more bite-size pieces. It picks its teeth with a giant toothpick that used to be a beam. It keeps eating. It is a very hungry beast.