To Dust At Dawn

The Hotel Rochester as it stood seconds before the implosion at 8:00 AM.

The beginning of the end, as the second wave of blasts go off.

By mid-collapse, the remains of the hotel are already beginning to be obscured by dust and debris...

... which billow forth in all directions throughout downtown Rochester...

... until the whole area is shrouded in a thick blanket of dust.

Later that afternoon, once the dust had settled and the streets were made passable, I took these pictures of the remains of the hotel. This one from approximately the same vantage point as the previous series...

...and this one a little closer to the site. Road Scholars take note of the bright orange sign assembly in the middle.

Here's a closer view. Of course, it's our favorite little vest-pocket expressway, the Inner Loop. Plymouth Avenue (the street in the pictures above) parallels a good chunk of the I-490 part of the Inner Loop, and thus is often used as a detour route.

To the great relief of all concerned, the nearby historic buildings, St. Luke and St. Simon Cyrene Church and (behind it in this picture) the Pioneer School, came through apparently unscathed.