It took only a few seconds Sunday night for three Astrodome ramp towers to come tumbling down. The round cylinders, which were added in the late 1980s to accommodate an expansion of 10,000 seats and luxury suites to keep the then-Houston Oilers from moving to another city (the team eventually left anyway), quickly imploded into a pile of concrete rubble as a group of onlookers watched.
Harris County commissioners had authorized the demolition of the silo-like towers as part of an $8 million cleanup effort to prepare the aging dome for either demolition or preservation.
During the demolition, which went off without a hitch around 9:30 p.m., the Texas Department of Transportation halted traffic on both eastbound and westbound lanes of the South Loop as a precaution.
CultureMap contributing photographer Michelle Watson captured the demolition in these stunning photos.
The Astrodome without the towers: Back to its original design.
