Pubdate: April 30, 2008
By Erika Engel
Another piece of downtown history is disappearing two weeks after the Balfour Building collapse.
Allan Petteplace has been a business owner on King William Street for almost 40 years.
Experts now say his heavy history may literally weigh too much.
The 74 year-old has 100,000 books in a space above Thai Memory restaurant next to where the Balfour stood, demolished because of structural concerns. City inspectors and insurance engineers are worried the books might be too heavy and cause the ceiling to collapse in the Thai restaurant.
Worried, but unsure. It may be safe. The floor and structure can only be tested when the books are out of the way.
The city won't let Thai Memory reopen until the tests are done .
Petteplace must act quickly: Pat Satasuk, owner of Thai Memory, is depending on it. Petteplace's livelihood depends on it, too. This is his pension plan. He needs them all.
Those books are wall-to-wall, they creep down the stairs, up into the attic and across the floor. The history section is stacked to the ceiling. There's a few dozen banana boxes full of paperbacks. The shelves in the biography section sag.
He must move them all.
Immediately.
"It's mind boggling moving all those books," Petteplace said. "It scares me ... I don't want to move."
He would rather stay on the street he has known for 40 years. But, it's not up to him.
Today, he'll sign a new lease and pack up his books. Later, he'll find 100,000 new places for them all.
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