JONESBORO - The festive crowd turned anxious when a 41-year-old Arkansas State University dormitory didn't collapse at the prescribed time Sunday morning.
Controlled Demolition Inc., a Baltimore company hired to "implode" the old residencehall for $1.04 million, called for a 7 a.m. detonation. Demolition teams placed more than 1,000 small explosives in the ninestory Seminole Twin Towers earlier in the week. The nitroglycerin-based charges would explode, weakening the building's structure and causing it to fall in on itself, or "implode."
ASU officials wanted to remove the old residence hall - where thousands of students experienced their first years away from home - near the center of the Jonesboro campus for future construction.
But at 7 a.m., the 72,000-ton structure still stood.
The crowd of more than 1,000, gathered at two observa-tions points on the campus, grew impatient.
"C'mon," yelled one man. "Blow it up."
Although the event was scheduled on a holiday weekend when traffic - both vehicular and pedestrian - would be at a minimum on campus, spectators turned out in droves. By 6 a.m., motorists lined University Loop East and vied for nearby parking spaces.
Those in attendance pushed small children in strollers and carried coolers of sodas.
Others wore T-shirts with the words "Seminole Twin Towers" and the years they lived in the building.
ASU touted the spectacle as a "Knock-down, Drag-out" on visitor passes.
Hundreds stood near a police security line; their digital cameras, cell-phone cameras and video cameras all pointed at the building.
Others provided their own countdowns, hoping it would coincide with the demolition company's timing.
Jonesboro television station KAIT-TV, an ABC affiliate, broke into an early morning fishing program to air the detonation live.
Everyone waited.
Then, at 7:02 a.m. with little warning, 11 percussive "booms" quickly resounded. The 100-foot tall, H-shaped building sagged, its floors buckled and stacked upon each other. The dormitory fell into a pile of dusty rubble.
The crowd cheered.
"Do it again," another man yelled when it was finished.
In the world of instant video, his wish was almost granted. Within a few hours, the demolition was featured on www.youtube.com, an Internet Web site devoted to collecting videos submitted by viewers. More than 700 people had viewed the scene on their computers by late afternoon Sunday.
The implosion ended the Seminole Twin Towers' 41-year history at ASU.
Built in 1967 for $2.9 million, the dormitory was home to an estimated 23,600 male students through 2005-06, ASU officials said. An average of 700 students lived there each semester. The building, last used as a police training facility in 2006-07, had four residence wings. An elevator shaft connected the wings.
It was the tallest building on the ASU campus and one of the highest in Jonesboro at the time.
The dormitory was in style when Harmon Construction Inc. of Oklahoma City built it more than 40 years ago. But as architecture changed, the Seminole Twin Towers, with its drab gray concrete, resembled a tall windowed bunker.
Steven Sigsby, the owner of a Rector insurance company, was one of the first to live in the building. A band student in 1967, Sigsby moved into the Seminole Twin Towers two weeks before the fall semester began.
"We were the guinea pigs for that building," said Sigsby, who attended Sunday's demolition.
He lived on the fourth floor and quickly learned the intricacies of the building.
"The elevators had a mind of their own," he said. "There was a lot of walking up and down stairs. We found out that the [community] showers didn't have the capacity to generate enough hot water. Unless you took a 1 a.m. shower, when no one was there, most of us took cold showers.
"Also, for several hundred freshmen who were away from home the first time, there was the enjoyment of newfound freedom," he said.
There was no cable television then; students could pick up KAIT, Jonesboro's ABC affiliate, and if they lived on the east side of the building and were high enough, they could receive Memphis television stations on gooddays, he said.
"I think the university had to disconnect the fire alarms that first semester because so many false alarms were set," he added.
Sigsby's son, Marshall, lived in the residence hall in 2002.
The elevators were still acting up during his son's residency, Sigsby said.
Gary Gazaway, a professional trumpet playerwho lives in Pocahontas, remembers the antics of the sixth-floor residents when he lived on the second floor of the dormitory in 1971 and 1972.
The sixth-floor students once gathered all the building's metal trash containers, hauled them to the ninth floor and then tossed them out of windows. Gazaway said he remembered the oft-heard cacophony of cans raining fromabove.
Then there was the day the sixth-floorers flushed lit M-80 "cherry bombs" down the toilets.
"They [the "bombs"] got to the third floor and blew up," he said. "It blew out the walls and pipes."
In his dorm room one floor below, Gazaway kept a small pet alligator in a box. When the water pipes ruptured, a cascade of water filled his room.
"We were calf-deep in water," he said. "We went to get that alligator, and he was swimming around the room, hissing at everyone."
On Sunday, scores of former residents bid the building farewell at two parking lots near the dormitory. Police closed severalstreets through the campus early that morning and set a 500-foot safety perimeter, said ASU construction manager Terry Carty.
Bill Lemmons of Jonesboro sat in a folding chair on one parking lot and waited.
He didn't go to school at ASU but wanted to see the demolition.
"How many implosions do you get to see in Jonesboro?" he asked. "This is entertainment.
"I guess I'll have to stand to see over the others," Lemmons said.
"I'm sorry to see it go," said Kelly Ponder of Fordyce as he stood near a viewing line that police set up with tape stretched across barrels. "But it's progress."
Ponder spent five years in thebuilding, first as a student and later as a hall director.
"I formed friendships that have lasted [until] today," he said. "This is the crucible where all my adult relationships came together."
The building toppled quickly. Within 15 seconds of the loud booms, the building collapsed to loud cheers.
As the thick gray dust cleared, the audience cheered again.
A four-story section of the southeast stairwell still stood, almost defiantly amid the concrete, shattered glass and twisted rebar.
"ASU can still rent that out for $800 a semester," someone quipped.
The dormitory is one of hundreds Controlled Demolition Inc. has toppled in its 60-year history.
The firm has also imploded the Kingdome in Seattle, Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, the St. Louis Arena, the remainsof the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences dormitory in Little Rock.
It also provided the pyrotechnics for such movies as Independence Day and the four Lethal Weapon movies.
Jarod Wright of Jonesboro wheeled his niece back to his car in her stroller after the demolition and watched as several others picked up their folding chairs and headed home.
"We wanted to watch," he said. "I wanted my niece and nephew to see this.
"But camp chairs?" he said of the seating chosen by many. "Didn't they know that it would be over within less than 15 seconds?"
Front Section, Pages 1, 10 on 05/26/2008