Daily News from New York, New York • 341

gjFT -V Ml, MIOSES Set News Bureau (718) 875-4455 Fax (718) 875-7795 Home Delivery 1-800-692-NEWS For information on civic groups, and entertainment see the BULLETIN BOARD PAGE 4 dQDibiD cQd; Ijt By MICHAEL O. ALLEN Daily News Staff writer It was a beautiful day for a demolition. A golden sun adorned the early morning sky yesterday as some 300 spectators many sipping champagne and mimosas and eating bagel The Bush Terminal structure, built in 1917, before demolition. ist wiPWibK cloud of dust dissipated, a block-long pile of rubble about 25 feet high was the only evidence remaining of the 160 foot wide, 500 foot long and 100 foot high building that once occupied the block between 29th and 30th Sts. and three quarters of the block between Second and Third Aves.

Fortunately, it was an industrial area and the crew did not have to evacuate anyone, said Shelly Lipsett, vice president of Cleveland Wrecking Co. The firm chose 7 a.m. on a Sunday to do the work because it expected no one to be working in the area at that time. Precautions still were taken: Six-block areas to the north and south of the building were closed off to all traffic. New York Bay is to the west and the Gowanus Expressway, where traffic was also halted during the implosion, is to the east Patrick said the bureau wanted to build the detention center closer, if not adjacent to the Cadman Plaza Federal Courthouse, but no suitable sites could be found.

Federal offices Several federal agencies have had offices and operations in the compound, including a Navy purchasing office, a post office and Brooklyn branches of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Internal Revenue Service. Most recently, the demolished building had been occupied by a Coast Guard unit that is relocating to Baltimore. The new facility is sorely needed, Patrick said, because the Eastern District is one of the few in the federal court system without its own detention center or prison. Its detainees are currently held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. While the center is being built, prisoners will be housed in an adjacent building recently renovated as "interim detention center" with 400 double-bunk beds at a cost of $20 million.

Patrick said the interim facility will begin taking detainees in 90 days. It was the first time a structure of this magnitude has been imploded within the city limits, says Mike Schiller, a a spokesman for Cleveland Wrecking the local company handling the project. Demolition by implosion was chosen as opposed to conventional demolition techniques in order to accelerate the new construction. The 50.000 cubic yards of concrete, brick and other materials resulting from the demolition will be recycled for use in landfills and mills and to make more bricks. and lox watched a wrecking crew demolish a recently vacated federal building on the Brooklyn waterfront Plans call for the federal Bureau of Prisons to break ground in about two months for a permanent, $50 million, 10-story facility with 1,000 double-bunk beds, to be called the Metropolitan Detention Center, agency administrator Bill Patrick said.

The center will serve federal courts in the Eastern District of New York, including Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island, holding prisoners awaiting trial, arraignment and sentencing, he said, adding that it could also serve the Southern District, including Manhattan, the Bronx, Westchester and five upstate New York counties. The average stay of a detainee in the Metropolitan Detention Center will be 90 to 120 days, he added. Built in 1917 But, for the spectators, it was just a show. Superlatives flew as the block-long, eight-story structure, built in 1917 as a federal warehouse in Bush Terminal at 29th St and Second Sunset Park, folded into a cloud of dust that soon coated every blade of grass, window pane and car in the vicinity, including some parked as far as two football-field lengths away. "Wow! Did you see that? Oh, man," Sal Quagliariello said, turning to his daughter.

Donna, 10. Romona Kelly, there with grandson Ricardo Rivera, 11, stamped her feet on the chair she had climbed on. "Do it again; I wanna see that again," she said. "Awesome fun," said Mark Roberts of Long Island as he walked toward the rubble, his wife, Evelyn, daughter, Michele, 7, and two sons, Sean, 9, and Jonathan, 12, in tow. "It was like a house of cards tumbling down." Cleveland Wrecking which claims demolition work on sets of the three "Lethal Weapon" movies to its credit, demolished the building.

Took 12 seconds The demolition started with a thunderous boom. Then, in less than 12 seconds, the reinforced concrete walls and beams on the first, second, fourth and sixth floors of the building, holding about 1,500 electronically charged dynamite sticks crumbled and the building fell into itself. In a couple of minutes, after the With help of dynamite, the building folds into a cloud of dust 3 vie. After the dust settled, a block-long pile of rubble, 25 feet high, remained. jack Mmt daily news.