Thousands of spectators, including Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell and Braves executives, watched the end of an era this morning as the concrete walls of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium tumbled down.

It took only 27 seconds for the 1,600 pounds of explosives in a series of 1,200 successive loud detonations to turn the 31-year-old stadium into a pile of rubble and dust.

 

The implosion went off at 8:04 a.m., four minutes later than scheduled, but everything else went exactly as planned, officials said. "It was excellent, real good. Everything went off perfectly just as we expected," said Steve Pettigrew, president of Franklin, Tenn.-based Demolition Dynamics inc.

 

Workers in hard hats watching from across Turner Field high fived each other as the stadium's support columns collapsed like dominoes under clear blue skies. About 1,000 officials, including Campbell, watched from Turner Field.

Others watched from the Fulton County Juvenile Court parking lot on the north end of the 800-foot buffer zone that was erected around the stadium an hour before the implosion.
The entire crowd was estimated at about 30,000 by police.

It was the second Atlanta landmark to go out with a big bang in a week. The Omni, home of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks, was leveled last weekend to make way for a new basketball and hockey arena.

"I don't think of Atlanta Stadium going away. I don't think of The Omni as going away," said Stan Kasten, president of both the Atlanta Hawks and the Braves. "I just think we're improving each one and they will be newer and better ones.

The old baseball stadium saw some historic moments, including Hank Aaron's famous 715th home run in 1974. The former home of the Braves brought major-league baseball to Atlanta in 1966 and Atlanta Falcons also made their debut there later that year and used it as a home field for 26 years.

"I came here to see history," said David Sterling of Atlanta, holding a red sponge tomahawk. "I came for the final chop at the chop shop."

The Braves moved to Turner Field, formerly Atlanta's Olympic Stadium, at the beginning of this baseball season. To prepare for the demolition, the inside of the stadium was piled with rubble, wires and pipes. The seats where thousands of fans sat for 31 years were auctioned off at an earlier date.