Videography By Martin Kaufman
Another piece of the former Kodak Park, now called Eastman Business Park is gone. Part of Building 53, which used to make acetate film base, was taken down through an implosion
Even hundreds of yards away from the demolition, spectators could not only hear but feel the concussive impact of all of those dynamite charges that went off exactly at 8 a.m. on Saturday.
They brought down several smokestacks and the roof of that building. The rest of it will be taken down by conventional means. The building, more than 80 years old, was last used in 2013.
Just a handful of people were allowed into the viewing area to watch the implosion. One of them was Robert Shanebrook, a retired Kodaker, who worked for the company for 35 years.
"Everyone I think that worked here looks back at this with a tear in their eye, it's something that's happening, what are you going to do about it, the business has changed tremendously and Kodak's responded very well. "
Graesson Holland, project manager for Moses B. Glick, the salvage company that purchased Building 53, says a lot of precautions were taken to ensure the safety of the people in the neighborhood as well as the crew doing the demolition.
"We have air monitoring on site, we have seismology guys on site, we have empirical data for all of that to show before implosion, during the event and after."
The site where the building stood is being re-purposed for the kinds of bio-materials start-up companies that the Eastman Business Park has been focusing on attracting.
