Historic Detroit Building Goes Boom

Ignoring pleas from preservationists, Detroit officials reduced the city’s landmark J.L. Hudson department store to a pile of rubble in an implosion that covered downtown in a billowing cloud of dust. More than 2,700 pounds of explosives took less than 30 seconds to bring down the historic building, which opened in 1911 and became the tallest steel structure in the world to be imploded. The Hudson building symbolized a golden era for the city’s fading downtown.