Staff photo / Ed Runyan

Staff report

A crane moves a wrecking ball toward Realty Tower on Friday to start demolition of the downtown building, badly damaged in a May 28 gas explosion that killed a man working at Chase Bank on the first floor. The work is expected to take four to six weeks.

In the photo above, aA wrecking ball strikes the Realty Tower building as demolition begins. It took quite a few hits with the ball to start to knock pieces of the structure loose. The demolition started about 3:45 p.m.