Friday Funny: City Hopes Implosion Will Spark Interest

The City of Raleigh made a P.T. Barnum-like effort to draw attention to the demolition of its old civic center -- and it worked.

1 minute read

March 3, 2006, 2:00 PM PST

By David Gest


"All this talk of 'implosion' has delivered me on 6:30 Sunday morning, fresh out of the hospital, up two ladders and on top of a downtown roof. It is 23 degrees. The implosion of the universally hated Civic Center had better be good. I'm a big fan of controlled demolition and a devotee of legendary Controlled Demolition Inc. and its president, equally legendary Mark Loizeaux.

At 7:05 a.m., the happy-news choppers hover poised for the end of a commercial break. There is a police siren and then the distinctive boomp boomp boomp boomp of detonating explosives placed in points in the four columns holding up the space-frame roof system."

Wednesday, February 22, 2006 in The Raleigh-Durham Independent Weekly

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