Subscribe: According to a January 8 article in the Houston Chronicle, “It took 17 seconds Sunday morning for the first skyscraper built outside of downtown Houston to turn into a pile of dust and rubble.”
The 500,000 square foot 20-story structure was surrounded by other buildings at the Texas Medical Center.
In Chicago a single rise and fall of a wrecking ball might consume 17 seconds. It takes months to level a high-rise structure, even a relatively isolated one.
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Of course. It wouldn’t be Chicago if our politicians sat by idly while dynamite steals hundreds of jobs.
I’d love to see a cost breakdown of explosives vs. wrecking ball. I imagine there’s quite a bit of cost either way. While explosives are quick, there’s a lot to the expertise, planning, police presence, emergency personnel, etc. And I wouldn’t want to breathing anywhere near that TNT cloud (containing god-knows-what in dust form).
John_D, you’re the typical redneck teabagger, always looking to blame someone without knowing the facts. Maybe you should try and find out why Chicago and Houston uses the methods that they do instead of assuming it’s political. Btw, Chicago is not the only city that uses the wrecking ball method and I rarely see anyone use TNT to demo buildings.
ron,
You’re telling someone you don’t know to do some fact-finding while calling them a “typical redneck teabagger?”
Skip the name-calling, please. Use the time you gain to search for explosive demolitions of buildings. You’ll find quite a few.
Joe, you need to direct your post to the right person. I don’t need to search for anything b/c it’s not that important to me. I wasn’t the one making baseless accusations w/o knowing the facts.
ron,
Calling someone a “typical redneck teabagger” isn’t a baseless accusation? At the very least it makes you sound like a thoroughgoing creep.
And you’re just some dumb, bipolar, old fart whose time is up and needs to hang it up.
ron,
Your time is up.
Any further name-calling on your part will simply be deleted. If you continue in that vein you’ll be banned here.
I’m sure there are all sorts of reasons _none of us knows anything about_ for picking one method over another. For “john_d” to assume it has to do with wasting tax dollars, and that this is “typical” for Chicago, is as baseless and unhelpful as “ron” calling him a “redneck teabagger.” And, here’s a thought, if you want your comments to be taken seriously, use your full, real name – don’t hide behind a screen name.
I didn’t get a chance to watch the videos but this is fascinating. Why does Chicago use the wrecking ball while Houston uses implosion? It seems in other parts of the country they go for flash in demolishing old buildings. For example they do seem to like to implode old stadiums such as the Kingdome for example.