And Boom Goes the Prudential Building (Implosion VIDEO)

It lasted almost 50 years, but that’s too damn long for a Houston building.

The Prudential Buidling, which a while back was imaginatively renamed the Houston Main Building, returned to dust Sunday through a planned implosion.

It had been falling apart — sinking one side at a time — the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center said.

It’s been empty since March 2010.

M.D. Anderson said:

After much discussion and many feasibility studies conducted by outside consultants, it was determined that renovation and repair of HMB would be more costly than demolition and construction of a newer, updated facility designed around MD Anderson’s mission and goals.

This article appears in Jan 5-11, 2012.