Philly's Spectrum gives way to the wrecking ball

Forty-three years after sporting competition debuted there with Joe Frazier's devastating left hooks, the Spectrum's demolition began Tuesday afternoon with a series of soft jabs to its brick and glass exterior.

Beneath gray skies symbolic of the funereal mood, a crowd of several thousand Philadelphia sports fans - passionate, sentimental and a bit shabby - gathered on the Spectrum's south side to witness both its demolition and the formal goodbyes from some of the graying performers who had starred there.

"It's a sad day," said ex-76ers great Julius Erving, "because some memories will be taken away." That process began at 12:33 p.m. when, more than a year after the South Philadelphia arena formally closed, a four-ton orange wrecking ball began a surprisingly tentative assault on the multipurpose facility once billed as "America's Showplace."

A Comcast-Spectacor official said it would take "four to five months" for the building to be razed. Sometime after that, the first phase of Philly Live, a retail, entertainment and dining development aimed at capitalizing on its proximity to the busy sports complex, will get started.

As fans and the assembled sports, business and political leaders looked on, the giant ball, suspended from a 180-foot-high Geppert Bros. crane, required several blows to poke a tiny perforation in the building's brown, sardine can-shaped facade.

The first few mechanical punches, accompanied at first by Bruce Springsteen's "Wrecking Ball" and then John Mellencamp's "Crumblin' Down," kicked up only little puffs of dust. Before long the fans, many of whom had been anticipating a more dramatic fall, began drifting away.

Comcast-Spectacor officials explained that the building's structure was not ideally suited for implosion and that this more deliberate destruction also would permit more of its bricks and iron to be salvaged. Its bricks, by the way, can be purchased for $39.95 apiece.

While Erving's belated arrival drew the day's loudest cheers and while his Sixers had won the 1983 NBA title while tenants there, the Spectrum's "Last Shot" ceremony had the distinct orange flavor of the building's other primary occupants, the Flyers.

Many spectators wore Flyers jerseys that bore the names of stars from disparate eras, ranging from the Broad Street Bullies' Dave Schultz to the current team's Mike Richards.

"We will always remember the Spectrum," said Bobby Clarke, the Hall of Fame captain of those Bullies. "God bless the Spectrum."