Blighted 16-story Queen Lane Apts. imploded in Germantown

In less than 10 seconds, the 16-story Queen Lane Apartments public housing building was imploded Saturday morning in Germantown, to the delight of many residents and neighborhood advocates happy to see the relic from a bygone era fall.

Long a symbol of blight and urban ills, the 1950s-era Philadelphia Housing Authority building fell after a series of precisely timed explosions buckled its bones and rendered it into dust.

A huge, gray-brown cloud billowed from the site, scattering debris, family memories, and any ghosts that may have haunted the nearly 60-year-old building.

After the dust settled onto nearby houses, cars, and cheering onlookers, a three-story pile of gray rubble remained.

"My whole life flashed before my eyes," said Kanessa Wideman, 31, who lived in one of the building's 115 apartments for more than 20 years. She shook with emotion when the structure collapsed.

"Everything I learned, all my old friends, were in there," she said. "We thought of the building itself as its own neighborhood. Good or bad, we were always together.

"It's just bittersweet to see it go."

Before the 7:15 a.m. implosion, advocates held an African ceremony to honor those who had been buried in an 18th-century potter's field for African Americans beneath the 2-acre site on which the high-rise stood.

Initially, the PHA planned to build new housing on the burial site once the old building was razed.

But advocates persuaded the PHA to respect the sacred ground, even though an archaeological dig on the site found no human remains. They may have been exhumed to make way for the original high-rise, said Michael Johns, PHA senior executive vice president.

The PHA will build 55 two- and three-story housing units around, rather than on top of, the burial site.

Ronald McCoy, president of the Mid-Atlantic Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations, sprinkled water onto a plant to honor forebears.

"I'm going to pour libations for the ancestors," he said. "We don't know who's here, but we know they're ours."

Pastor Alyn Waller of nearby Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, said he welcomed the implosion: "Stacking low-income people on top of each other in a high-rise is an old, unworkable approach.

"The new project is a more humane way to build."

Belinda Thrower, a lifelong resident of the neighborhood who declined to give her age, declared the $1.8 million demolition "awesome," as though she had witnessed a piece of meticulously calculated street performance art.

"It was a little scary to hear the sound," she said, referring to the series of sternum-shaking explosions from charges set on the first, fourth, and 10th floors by Controlled Demolition Inc. of Phoenix, Md., that cracked and pancaked the structure. "But people always wished they could tear that place down."

She added, "I never wanted to go in there," saying the building was "foreboding and crime-ridden."

Workers will begin to remove debris from the site Monday, and will be expected to finish in six weeks, Johns said.

Around 4 a.m. Saturday, residents in the blast zone were evacuated to Cook-Wissahickon Elementary School, about 2 miles away in East Falls.

Most were allowed to return to their homes by 11:30 a.m. Saturday, Johns said.

Everyone had been well-prepared, and there were no problems moving out for a few hours, even at that time of day, said Brenda Jessie, 61, whose Pulaski Avenue home was within a block of the implosion.

"I consider this a total success," Jessie, a retired home health aide, said at the school, where she and dozens of other evacuees ate breakfast and lunch prepared for them.

Then, offering her view of what she called a historic event, Jessie said succinctly, "The whole thing was beautiful."