On a brisk autumn morning earlier this week, the driver of the orange and gray Hitachi excavator moved the heavy piece of construction equipment across the parking lot just off Central Avenue and toward the former Ship Bottom town hall before making contact as a chunk of the building crumbled. Just beyond the pile of rumble, the new two-story structure loomed in the background.

Quick work was made of the north side of the old building, which once housed the U.S.