Write about an apartment building being demolished.

Posted in Sad on Nov 1, 2022

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✍️ 42 stories

“Did Anybody Really Live Here, by Gary Wells” by Gary Wells

Submitted to Contest #148

“Okay, Sal – time to earn those big bucks!” Sal looked down from his cab on the demolition crane. His partner, Ernie, was looking up at him with a broad smile and a pair of thumbs up. Sal gave a brief salute, then reached down and began to gently maneuver the lever that would send a 4-ton wrecking ball into the ghostly remains of the Pearlson Apartment building. A ten-story structure which had housed more than 500 people at its peak, the Pearlson was the last of four nearly identical housing units to be torn down. The first swing came aw...

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“The 22nd Floor” by Lynette Pierce

Submitted to Contest #148

The 22nd Floor I really hated to see it go. My old apartment building was so beautiful. At one time, it was the most stunning piece of architecture in the city. Tourists traveled here just to see this building. I've lived here my whole life. Thirty-nine years in the same location. I was actually born in the elevator. My mom went into labor in our apartment on the 22nd floor, and she’d only made it down to the 14th floor when I was born. It was always a joke in my family that I couldn’t wait to enter the world and that the elevator in the ...

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“The Rosewood” by Mark Paxson

Submitted to Contest #148

They came from all over and lived for a time at 214 Olive Street. Some lived there for decades. Others only for a few years. They all called it home. At least for a time. The complex, built in the 1950s, was small by modern standards. Just three buildings, two floors each, one unit on top and one on bottom. Arranged in an odd triangle that created an even odder courtyard in the middle. All angles and straight lines, nooks and crannies, caused by the three buildings. Every unit, the same floor plan. A bedroom, a living area, kitchen...

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“Shady Maples” by M B

Submitted to Contest #148

I don’t know what urge sent me there that evening, but I’m glad I went. They were tearing down Shady Maple Apartments - my first apartment. I pulled over to the side just to see the old building one more time and reminisce. The property was sealed off by a chain-link fence where construction - or rather demolition - workers, along with their bulldozers and backhoes, were all about the building complex. Already the car port was collapsed and the parking lot was being torn apart. Dust drifted into the air along with sounds of the ongoing d...

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“The Soul Within” by J. K. Williams

Submitted to Contest #148

I have stood on this stone foundation for as long as I can remember. I remember the men and women who brought me to life all those years ago with hammers and nails, cement and brick, paint and gold filigree. They built me over long nights and days, one wall at a time. They painted my walls and ceiling, filled me with religion and children, singing and knowledge. I have been home to many things over the years, gutted and rebuilt to make room for something different. I was a marvel for years, evident in the stares of those who would stop on th...

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“Razing the Franklin Apartments” by George Georgerfrost@gmail.com

Submitted to Contest #148

The bulldozers pulled up early in the morning in front of the Franklin Apartments. By the end of the workday, the once famous apartments were gone. Nothing, but a hole in the ground. As the work crew cleared the area for the demolition at one in the afternoon, no one noticed the old man in the wheelchair and a much younger man escorting him. As the foreman signaled an "all-clear" to his crew, those gathered to watch the razing of the Franklin Apartments were awed by the flash and ancient walls as the building crumble...

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“The Lost Lady of Darcy House” by Lucy Hutt

Submitted to Contest #148

Write about an apartment building being demolished Darcy House has been known as a great many things. A grand estate, an orphanage, temporary war barracks, contemporary apartments, and, most recently, a hazard. Or so says the yellow paper haphazardly stapled to the door: unstable foundations and damp. In the words of the inspector, the house was collapsing from within. It was a somewhat unreasonable response I thought at the time and my temperament towards the topic has only worsened. Blatant disrespect to the Darcy name, ignorance of th...

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“Casa Del Mal” by Annette C

Submitted to Contest #148

I needed this apartment, not for me, but for my mind. I didn’t push her, she fell. The demolishing was said to start at 1030 on the dot so I decided to miss work to witness its demise. Actually, I haven’t been to work in over five years. At 4 am I arose from a restless night. Unable to sleep I decided to start my day, washes of memory flood my mind and drench me with mortification. She wanted to die. When I was growing up, I always wanted to live across the street in the beautiful “Casa del Mar”, but more so after the incident. She d...

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“Eighty Years” by Bianca Vorster

Submitted to Contest #148

An old man sat on a bench. A red scarf wrapped around his neck. The jacket hung loose around a body thin and weak from age. The wrinkles on his face lined the tired eyes that stared across the park at an empty apartment building. All around him people walked by. People of much younger years yet equally tired eyes. Time already taking its toll on those who’ve not yet seen half a life. The old man shook his head as he watched the worn faces walking on towards places where he hoped they would be happier at then where they had been. Such a pity....

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“My Home, Saying Goodbye. ” by Crystal Glisson

Submitted to Contest #148

The old apartment building stands before me, a place of memories soon to be gone. I watch the hustle and bustle of the people going by, not paying any mind to me. This once apartment building full of families, is now deemed unfit to live in. I let out a sigh, and gathered my few sparse items. I made my way to an abandoned building, a few blocks from the apartments. This area was known as the filth row. A place where the homeless go to set up shop. It’s sad that at the age of thirty, I am not even the youngest here. I give a small smi...

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“Excaveat Emptor” by Michael Brown

Submitted to Contest #148

It began with letters mailed to each resident, and papers posted on the bulletin board of the foyer, then signs on the front door. A coming day that would mark the end. Not exactly a doomsday, but an inconvenience, to be sure. The challenge of finding a new place to live. For this building and the ground it stood upon was now owned by a development company with grand dreams of a new shopping mall. The location was perfect, they had gushed. Citing the statistics of growth in the area, and supporting infrastructure already in place. Th...

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“Notes of Conversion” by Karen Leidy

Submitted to Contest #148

Notes of Conversion Erwinn Metzger climbed out of his car on Central Avenue in Dothington this blustery March afternoon, stared plaintively at the empty rubicund brick high-rise in which he and his deceased mother used to live. Their flat had been situated on the top floor at the end of the hallway, one which had afforded them a picturesque, panoramic view of the once-bustling city. As a young boy, Erwinn sat on the window seat every night and gazed wistfully at the lights in the distance, envisioning being the headline trumpeter in major ...

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“Happiness: A Creation, Not a Discovery” by Cydney Rose

Submitted to Contest #148

I try to brush the wrinkles from my bright orange blouse, creased with lines from its eight-hour shift spent balled up and thrown into my designated locker in the changing room shared by five of us. Since moving back to New York City, I’ve been cast in my very first movie for the role of a character so insignificant I often feel like a much less fictitious, much more pitiful Joey Tribbiani from Friends. Of course, this ego-crushing initiation into the acting world would all be worth it if, for instance, I actually enjoyed acting. And ...

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“These Walls Can Talk” by J L Jones

Submitted to Contest #148

I suppose I should have seen it coming. My occupants steadily left their spaces one by one a while ago now, leaving me empty and very alone. My hollow insides long for something to fill the void, something to breathe life into these old lungs. I am one of the last buildings left standing. I have watched several others in the area disappear over the last year or so. I didn’t understand why I felt increasingly anxious with every explosion and subsequent cloud of dust, smoke, and debris. But as each building succumbed to the blasts, my anxiet...

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“Demoliotin Doesn't Erase Memories” by Valerie Preston

Submitted to Contest #148

The noise was deafening. Dust rose into the air, huge clouds as if suspended by invisible string, gradually dispersing high above the trees and houses dotted sparsely along the road. The area was cordoned off with steel mesh fences but you could still peer through the gaps - enough to see what was going on. She had parked her car across the other side of the road to watch the building being taken apart by the demolition crew. She knew it would take more than a day to tear down the monstrosity – fifteen stories to be exact. Workmen in fluore...

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Write about an apartment building being demolished.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 42 stories

“Did Anybody Really Live Here, by Gary Wells” by Gary Wells

“The 22nd Floor” by Lynette Pierce

“The Rosewood” by Mark Paxson

“Shady Maples” by M B

“The Soul Within” by J. K. Williams

“Razing the Franklin Apartments” by George Georgerfrost@gmail.com

“The Lost Lady of Darcy House” by Lucy Hutt

“Casa Del Mal” by Annette C

“Eighty Years” by Bianca Vorster

“My Home, Saying Goodbye. ” by Crystal Glisson

“Excaveat Emptor” by Michael Brown

“Notes of Conversion” by Karen Leidy

“Happiness: A Creation, Not a Discovery” by Cydney Rose

“These Walls Can Talk” by J L Jones

“Demoliotin Doesn't Erase Memories” by Valerie Preston

🌟 Similar prompts

Write about two neighbors who cannot stand each other.

Write a story involving a noise complaint.

Include a character in your story that is often in an apartment building, but doesn’t actually live there.

Write about a couple touring an empty apartment they might rent.

Contest #148

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

195

Contest entries

90

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: