[font=Verdana]A $4.1 million cleanup and demolition of the notorious former Globe Building Materials plant is set to begin, including the removal of 120,000 gallons of gooey tar.[/font]

[font=Verdana]The tar is just one of the challenges facing workers who will clean up the 6-acre site. In the 1800s, it was a blacksmith shop, and just after the turn of the century, a pickle and vinegar manufacturer took it over. The city subsequently used it to repair streetcars.[/font]

[font=Verdana]"There certainly are some legacies we're dealing with," said Monte Hilleman, vice president for redevelopment at the St. Paul Port Authority, which now owns the site.[/font]

[font=Verdana]Asbestos covers piping and boilers. Storage tanks still hold diesel fuel. And then there is the pervasiveness of tar, which congealed onto the walls and turned them black with pitch.[/font]

[font=Verdana]"It looks like the walls are bleeding tar," Hilleman said.[/font]

[font=Verdana]Buried in the ground are three concrete vaults that together once held 400,000 gallons of the thick, black goo, which was used in the manufacturing of asphalt shingles. Almost a third of that is still there, and engineers have been studying the problem of how to get it out.[/font]

[font=Verdana]Engineers considered heating it up to make it easier to move but eventually settled on old-fashioned brute force