The final show at Astor Cinema took place at 11:56 am yesterday, as the gutted shell was pulled to the ground by a demolition crew, overseen by the City.
An excavator, with a pulling rope attached from its arm to the top of the southern side, reversing on Church Street in an eastern direction, brought the leaning building down in a cloud of dust. The two iron H beam uprights, supporting the steel gridiron which extended across the building in a north/south direction, snapped at their bases and the building fell onto Waterloo Street.
The only notable damage was to the building to the immediate north, which houses PAS Cargo Service. A section of the frame of the northern wall fell on the building, breaking a window and a sewage pipe.
The workers were quickly able to remove the huge pile of debris from the street, and traffic was able to resume within two hours.
During the final teardown, Waterloo Street was closed at Quamina Street for the southbound flow, and traffic on Church Street had to divert north into Waterloo Street, or south into Wellington Street.
Photos below show in chronological order what happened.
