‘Leaning Tower of Dallas’ endures blows from wrecking ball

DALLAS (AP) — The “Leaning Tower of Dallas,” a social media sensation born when a part of a building survived implosion, endured hundreds of blows from a wrecking ball Monday.

Dozens of people gathered northeast of the Texas city’s downtown to watch as a crane was used to batter the former Affiliated Computer Services building. But the developer now says the demolition may take days.

The 11-story building found a second life online after surviving a first demolition attempt. It inspired jokes and comparisons to Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa when a Feb. 16 implosion failed to bring down its core.

The company that engineered the blast said some explosives did not go off. In the following week, people flocked to the site to post photos of themselves pretending to prop up the lopsided tower.

A Friday statement from De La Vega Development suggested the demolition would be done by noon. But the the core of the tower, including the elevator shafts, was still standing in the late afternoon Monday, and a spokeswoman said the process is expected to take up to four days.

And as the effort to topple the structure stretched into the late afternoon, people began to take another genre of photo — pretending to push the tower over rather than prop it up.