Kodak building reduced to rubble

Implosion July 18 in Rochester, New York, will make way for biotechnology companies.


Kodak Building 53 in Rochester, New York, was imploded on the morning of Saturday, July 18. According to local reports, M.B. Glick, which was responsible for the demolition

The 92-year old building was situated on Eastman Business Park. Officials from Eastman Kodak say they want to attract new bio-materials facilities in the eastern portion of the Eastman Business Park campus. One big project has already been announced: a fermentation cluster.

According to the Kodak website, that's a set of equipment that will allow companies to use the infrastructure already in Eastman Business Park to convert sugars and other substances into bio-based products.

One-hundred pounds of dynamite took down 1,500 tons of concrete and steel in just 18 seconds, local reports say.

Since 2003, Kodak has spent $200 million in demolition. The goal is to create a new space for innovation at Eastman Business Park. It will take about 10 days to cleanup what was demolished Saturday. The rest of the building will be taken down by wrecking crews. Building 53 will be completely gone by December.