Last weekend, a scattering of fireworks lit up the sky above the Imperial County city of Brawley as dozens of people gathered for a final dance beneath the city’s historic water tower.
Construction crews are slated to begin demolishing the Brawley Water Tower — also known affectionately as “El Tanke” — this week over concerns that the deteriorating structure could be a public safety risk. The 90-year-old tower is located on the north side of Hinojosa Park and overlooks a baseball field, a playground and a number of homes.
The move is the culmination of more than two years of debate over the iconic tower’s future. City officials considered turning it into a historic landmark but ultimately decided to move forward with demolition.
The news has released a flood of memories from residents who grew up or lived in the tower’s shadow.
“Whether you played at the park as a kid, passed by it on your way to school, or just looked up and felt home, this tower means something,” Jesus Enriquez wrote in a Facebook post. “It’s part of Brawley’s story.”
Brawley’s water tower dates back to the New Deal. In the 1930s, the package of federal legislation funded water towers nationwide to serve growing cities and towns and provide consistent water-pressure during fires.
The tower in Brawley was built in 1935 and served as the city’s water supply for decades. But it was decommissioned in 2001, and city officials said the structure has continued to deteriorate.
Brawley Mayor Gil Rebollar said city leaders didn’t take the decision to remove the landmark lightly. But he said it was necessary to prevent the tower from collapsing and potentially hurting people.
Rebollar said the city is already thinking about how to replace the tower with a new project that would make better use of the space.
“We're not going to remove the tower and just leave it,” Rebollar said in a video on Instagram. “We are going to replace it with something that can create even more memories.”
Growing up in Brawley, Max Reyes, 67, used to stare out the window of his classroom, imagining the tower was a giant robot sentinel from the cartoons he used to watch.
“As I would walk to school, I always used to think that "El Tanke" was Gigantor — that it was looking over me, protecting me,” he said in a video posted to Facebook.
Reyes said he understood that the tower had become unsafe and that it needed to be demolished. He said he would mourn it like an old friend whose time had come.
