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Tower Implosion Makes Way For Mountains on Governors Island

Tower Implosion Makes Way For Mountains on Governors Island


It took only a few seconds for Building 877 on Governors Island—dynamited at various key points—to come crashing down in a pile of sand-colored dust (hopefully with no asbestos)! A group of about 150 lucky New Yorkers, including Raymond Gastil (heading back to his home in Seattle), Margaret Sullivan (H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture), Jonathan Marvel (Rogers Marvel Architects and one of the architect’s of the new Governors Island), Lance Brown, and The Guy Nordenson family, were invited to witness the “implosion” at 6:37a.m. on Sunday, June 9.

Leslie Koch, President of The Trust for Governors Island pushed plunger down and the explosion (which could be felt in the stomach of everyone on the island) brought the building down in a dramatic flash and applause. The scrubbed remnants of the structure will become the base for a tall rise in the center of the West 8 designed park that Marvel claims wil be over 135 feet in height. Renderings of the new hill by West 8 (see below) show a wooded hill through which an open cut creates a dramatic frame for the The Statue of Liberty.

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