Hollywood apartment that once housed terrorists reduced to rubble

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Note: It is the CSR's belief that Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi  that lived at this address were murdered by the Mossad and their bodies likely dumped in the S. Florida swamps.

--The CSR

------
Hollywood apartment that once housed terrorists reduced to rubble
Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi lived in the building shortly before 9/11

By Robert Nolin, Sun Sentinel

4:51 p.m. EST, February 26, 2010


fl-terrorist-apartment-demolition-20100226

Hollywood - In less time than it took the Twin Towers to fall, the rotting building where two of its attackers once lodged was smashed Friday morning into a hulking pile of splintered wood, shattered glass and crushed walls.

The two-story, 13-unit apartment building at 1818 Jackson St. was effectively demolished within an hour by an unrelenting assault with a 20-ton track hoe wielding a massive clawed shovel.

The coral-colored building just off Young Circle will make way for a parking lot and pool for a new midrise complex next door.

"It's good to see it go. Get rid of the karma," said neighbor Phil Cook.

Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, pilots respectively of the first and second planes to strike the World Trade Center's towers, occupied an apartment in the doomed building from May through June 2001. In recent years the 48-year-old building has been crippled by rot and abuse.

Bryan Grosman, who owns the apartment complex next door, bought the building in December. He later learned the terrorists once resided there.

"It was just a bonus," he said. "I'm happy to be the person that's getting rid of this blemish."

Clad in a Sept. 11 memorial shirt, Nancy Tappen appeared with a walker and a camera to snap a shot of Apartment 3A, the second-floor unit where the terrorists lived. "It's a part of history, right?" she said. "A bad part."

The powerful machine's bucket, with near-prehensile adroitness, mauled the shuddering building from the roof down, tearing open whole sections to expose wiring, pipes, appliances and furniture. The bucket then nudged walls inward and tamped down the debris like knuckles knocking wood.

The noise was screeching and sounded like crunching cereal amplified a thousandfold. A worker maintained a spray of water to keep down the dust, but still it tickled noses and stung eyes.

Darren Fradin, vice president of the BG Group, the Boca Raton firm handling the demolition, watched the equipment operator claw the structure apart. "The wood in that place is so rotted out he's going right through it," Fradin said. "He's pulling it down like matchsticks."

A handful of neighbors strolled up to observe the destruction of a venue they saw as a nuisance. Cars slowed as the curious snapped shots with cellphones.

Virginia Bourgeois, from a block away, stood in the sun and contemplated the crumpled building Atta once called home.

"To think he was right there — my God," she said. "But he's gone and it's gone."

Noreen Buchbinder, owner of a nearby pizzeria, lauded the building's demise. "It's a way of getting back," she said.

Robert Nolin can be reached at http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/browar ... 6272.story