Demolition Derby

A lyric from the score of The Unsinkable Molly Brown--"Nobody wants me down like I wants me up"--had special meaning last week along the waterfront in Mobile, Ala. To make way for a $15 million port expansion, the city fathers decided to demolish a five-story riverfront warehouse. A TV crew was invited to watch the fun as engineers planted 150 Ibs. of dynamite around the foundation. Then a mighty roar and a cloud of dust--but only the first floor was blown out. The rest dropped onto the foundation intact. The next day workmen tried again. And again and again and again. BUILDING 5, DOCKS 0 was the headline in the Mobile Register. And no wonder: constructed by the WPA in the 1930s, the building, all 1 million bricks of it, boasted such features as walls up to 20-in. thick and 72 support pillars of reinforced steel. The frustrated wreckers swore that they could blow the building clear across the Mobile River if they could use heavier explosive charges; city officials replied that they might take half the town with it.

Finally, a 3,000-lb. wrecking ball was brought in. To attack those sturdy pillars, it was fitted out with protruding steel blades. It succeeded in knocking down two walls but lost its blades and snapped a cable in the process. At one point, falling debris pushed the ball into the crane boom and banged up the cab. The Mobile Press headline: HERO HOUSE CAPITULATES TO STEEL BALL. But not without a fight.

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