Demolition of ladders, catwalks underway at Seattle's Gas Works Park

With a flurry of sparks and clatter of falling steel, crews working Monday at Seattle's Gas Works Park stripped ladders and walkways from the structure's cracking towers.

Noontime sunbathers lying just outside a fence surrounding the towers didn't seem to mind the hum of cutting torches and a half-dozen workers yanking strips of steel from the towers' facades and tossing them onto piles below. The 19-acre property on the northern shore of Lake Union was once the site of a coal gasification plant. It reopened in 1976 as a public park.

The partial demolition of one of the city's most historic landmarks started last month, but was nearly eight months in the making. Between September and March, Seattle Parks and Recreation was locked in a stalemate with the city's Landmarks Preservation Board, which twice rejected parks officials' requests to remove climbable features from the park.

The changes were necessary to prevent accidental falls at the park, like one that killed a 15-year-old Ballard High School student last July, parks officials argued. At least two others have died and 11 more have been seriously injured in climbing accidents at the park since 2012, according to the parks department.

The preservation board denied parks officials' requests in September and January, expressing concerns over permanently changing the landmark's appearance.

Parks officials were finally able to sidestep the preservation board on March 30, when the Department of Construction and Inspections unexpectedly issued the parks department a hazard correction order. The order demanded the agency remove "hazard conditions" - identified as "unsafe" ladders, piping and catwalks - by May 15.

Under Seattle's municipal code, designated landmarks cannot be altered without the preservation board's approval. There is an exemption for structures deemed unsafe, however, allowing the Department of Construction and Inspections to authorize such changes without the board's approval.

The parks department applied for a construction permit on March 31, and the Department of Construction and Inspections approved it two weeks later.

The partial demolition was underway on Monday. Several people got off their bikes to watch, and some park visitors stopped to take pictures of the site on their cellphones.

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