photo/Chris Busby

Another dump bites the dust.

We normally don’t devote this feature to updates on dumps profiled in the past. God knows there’s no shortage of eyesores around. But the abandoned Mobil station at the intersection of Brighton Avenue and Riverside Street is an exception.

Original dump hunter Patrick Banks wrote about this property in the summer of 2008. After a decade of abandonment, it was bought that year for a quarter-million dollars by Kamlesh Patel, whose company, Portland Hotels Realty Inc., also operates the Travelodge behind it.

Patel told Banks that he was in the process of getting a demolition permit for the gas station, but not to expect anything to happen anytime soon. “The economy is slow, so people move slow,” he said.

Glacially slow, apparently. Three years passed, and the only noticeable change was the addition of a four-letter word spray painted on the building beneath the canopy. The property’s highly visible location, just off what was formerly Exit 8 of the Maine Turnpike, made this a particularly frustrating dump to city officials in Westbrook and Portland, one of whom even called us looking for an update.

A subsequent call from a reader wondering the same prompted me to revisit the property in late May. To my surprise, a demo crew of three guys was there, emptying out the inside of the structure. Inside the hotel, I found Patel, who said he’s finally gotten the permit he’d been seeking.

Sure enough, over the coming days, the crew tore down the sheet-metal structure and carted it off. I watched as the backhoe pecked away at the metal framing like a clumsy metal crane.

Patel doesn’t have plans or a tenant for the property yet, but it may be on the market soon.

After all this time, it almost felt sad to watch this dump get destroyed. It’d become a landmark of sorts. “When something nice gets built you won’t miss it so much,” a woman on the demo crew remarked to me.

I’ll believe that when I see it.

— Chris Busby