push the button, Frank

My old school has a tower that is old and an eyesore. They shut it down every now and then because they can't fill it with students and it's expensive to heat. They could make a mint off the implosive destruction of that piece of shiat.

Tr0mBoNe: My old school has a tower that is old and an eyesore. They shut it down every now and then because they can't fill it with students and it's expensive to heat. They could make a mint off the implosive destruction of that piece of shiat.

yeah, i'm sure the winner of the auction to "push the button" would more than cover the costs associated with imploding a building

Megain: yeah, i'm sure the winner of the auction to "push the button" would more than cover the costs associated with imploding a building

Not even close. But you can still sell tickets to the event, sell bricks of the building, charge for beer and food, sell t-shirts, and put some cash in to the local economy at the same time.

Or get some local mountain hicks to do it for $200 and a couple cases of beer.

Tr0mBoNe: Or get some local mountain hicks to do it for $200 and a couple cases of beer.

now that, i'd pay to see. heh

No way in hell a civilian will be allowed near the actual blasting machine. The shot will done in a kind of "lip sync" with the person pressing a symbolic button.

I'm guessing the Union Carbide executives won't be in the building when it goes down, which kind of ruins the appeal.

And the residents of Bhopal begin to pool their money....

That's the old Salamie building. It was originally a department store (Salamie's). When they went out of business, Union Carbide bought it.

Apparently ucwv.edu is farked?

o5iiawah: And the residents of Bhopal begin to pool their money....

Beat me to the punch!

Just go down to the local junior high, hand out sledgehammers to all the boys, and take them there on a bus.

You'll have rubble in four hours.

wow, from the comments:
It would be quite funny to push the button. I got my hiney reamed in that building a few times and a lot of my memories are NOT good. Although, a few were!

i never thought that the type of people who say "hiney" would also talk about it getting reamed.

opportunity knocks... down buildings.

/badumpssht

Mr. Titanium: That's the old Salamie building. It was originally a department store (Salamie's). When they went out of business, Union Carbide bought it.

Uhm, no it wasn't. It was built in 1948 by Union Carbide to house their offices away from the main plant on the island during the post-war chemical boom in the Kanawha valley. Not much other than Carbide has ever existed on that stretch of MacCorkle.

For those who don't know it, the building is quite a distance from the UC campus which is located in the Kanawha city area of Charleston. It's not like demoing anything that the school ever used. Dow Chemical has been slowly selling off portions of their holdings in Charleston since their takeover in '01.

An office building? Frick that. I will personally lick Shirley Ann Jackson's tadpole if it means I can blow up that goddam EMPAC.

therhinodep: o5iiawah: And the residents of Bhopal begin to pool their money....

Beat me to the punch!

I had a chance at making this joke, but I choked it.

This is a official function of CGNU (Crazy Go Nuts University)!

studebaker hoch: No way in hell a civilian will be allowed near the actual blasting machine. The shot will done in a kind of "lip sync" with the person pressing a symbolic button.


Seriously, where does this idea even come from?

jondiced: wow, from the comments:
It would be quite funny to push the button. I got my hiney reamed in that building a few times and a lot of my memories are NOT good. Although, a few were!

i never thought that the type of people who say "hiney" would also talk about it getting reamed.

Probably the same kind of person who finds some of his memories of being reamed "good".

/Feyly?

Maybe we could find some brick thieves (Caution: Urban Legend Ahead) who would steal the bricks from the bottom, and the building would collapse on top of them.

Wow, subby! When I first looked at the headline I saw "University to auction blow up doll."

Stop messing with my head like that!

Tr0mBoNe: My old school has a tower that is old and an eyesore.

I read only that and somehow immediately knew you meant Fenwick Tower.

Blow up things....HMMMMMMM....

Tr0mBoNe: Not even close. But you can still sell tickets to the event, sell bricks of the building, charge for beer and food, sell t-shirts, and put some cash in to the local economy at the same time.

Or get some local mountain hicks to do it for $200 and a couple cases of beer.

They'd get the beer up front, right?

Other Union Carbide buildings that should be demolished...

Hold my beer and watch this!

Residents of Charleston reportedly very anxious about the whole situation.

Came in for the Bhopal jokes, leaving satisfied...

DeathByUngaBunga: Tr0mBoNe: Not even close. But you can still sell tickets to the event, sell bricks of the building, charge for beer and food, sell t-shirts, and put some cash in to the local economy at the same time.

Or get some local mountain hicks to do it for $200 and a couple cases of beer.

They'd get the beer up front, right?

Oh, HELL yeah. I'd even provide it just for the entertainment factor.

o5iiawah: And the residents of Bhopal begin to pool their money....

I came here to say this.

I knew it would already be here, so I guess I'm just jumping up and down and saying hey I thought of that too.

/Got nothing now.

I'd bid for the right to blow up a building, but only if I got to choose how I did it, and when.

And which building. And I didn't have to tell anyone in advance.

And I was allowed to wire every building on campus with demolition explosives, but only set one off.

Also, I'm going to need a high-backed chair and a fluffy white cat to stroke, and maybe a few henchmen.

In my hometown they auctioned off the opportunity to blow up a building. Here are the results...

Link (new window)

My dad worked in that UC building when I was a kid. They used to have a carnival in the parking lot once a year.

I'm confused. Why do they need to blow up the building to sell it? Isn't a building in operable condition worth more than empty space?

Something sounds a little fishy there. UC donates the building to the university, which then turns around and blows up the building, then sells the land, most likely at a tidy profit. WTF?

I get the feeling that this sequence of events isn't exactly what UC had in mind.

I guess part of the story depends on what condition the building was in. If it was dilapitated and way behind code, I could understand UC "donating" it to absolve responsibility for its demolition, and probably as a tax write-off. If in good condition, though, that's a hell of a waste of 100+ ksf of usable floor space. I'm sure they could fit a few modern laboratories and lecture halls in that much room.

Oh well, I guess my favorite of all proverbs bears repeating:

"When you see a situation that you cannot understand, look for the financial interest."

Building implosions may look cool, but remember that each one is obliterating another link to the past, and given that (Las Vegas excepted, of course) most imploded buildings are replaced either by parking lots or (gag) strip-malls, it's an especially sad and pathetic course of events.

A comment on this:
The demolition company might want to make sure they're doing this legally. A lot of states have specific requirements on who can actually set off a blast; usually you have to have a blasting license yourself.

I know of a blaster in New Jersey who let his son set off a blast to take down a smoke stack. And let the Star Ledger photograph it. When the state blasting commissioner saw this in the paper, he fined him for it.