- Our place, our time is made possible in part by grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, and from the Arts Commission of the City of Newport News.

This week on our place, our time, the explosive disappearance of one of downtown Norfolk's longtime landmarks, the reappearance of one of Hampton Road's premier dancers in a leadership role and performances by John Boyles and Jackie Torrance.

Now here's your host, Vianne Webb.

- Welcome back to our place our time.

Last June, downtown Norfolk was the scene of a most unusual event.

The first American Bank building a part of the downtown Norfolk skyline since 1902 was demolished to make way for a new building.

Now, to bring a building down with a ball and crane is a process that can last several months, but this building came down in seven seconds.

How it happened and why it happened makes a fascinating story.

And David Ferraro filed this report.

- It's the morning of June 12th, 1988.

Today the face of downtown Norfolk will be changed forever.

The first American Bank building a longtime landmark of Norfolk's financial District, will vanish in seven seconds.

This building started life as the National Bank of Commerce building.

Local historian and photographer, Carol Walker remembers - The National Bank of Commerce Building was built in 1,905, and it was just a narrow building at the time.

Later, later on, they added two sides to it, I believe, and they widened the building, I think twice.

WTAR had its, I think its first station, was up on the Bank of Commerce building course for its period, it period of time.

It was a very nice building that was the main business area in Norfolk.

At that time.

It was for about 250 years until they tore it down and it came what it is today.

But it was always a bank, a bank, or two on that corner.

- The building had enjoyed several incarnations as the home for the National Bank of Commerce, the first and Merchants Bank, and for First American Bank.

But the building no longer fit in with First American's plans.

First American's.

Wink Pierce explains.

- I came to this region personally about three years ago, and one of my immediate assignments upon arrival was to try to establish a corporate identity for First American in the financial center, which is Norfolk.

The engineers told us the, the building just was not feasible for rehabilitation for several reasons.

One, the load bearing columns were not spaced efficiently as they would be in a, in a more modern construction.

The floor to ceiling height was not as, as it should be for a more modern structure.

So there were a lot of problems like that.

It just did not make economic sense to try to rehab that building and finish with what would be known as a rehabilitated building.

Instead of a brand new class, a office type building, - Enter row development company, row sold First American on a need for a new building on the site.

- We succeeded in sharing our vision with Mr. Pierce and ultimately with the members of the bank's board, through the process of bringing the board to the old building and setting them down in Norfolk in a conference, in a vacant room near one of the top floors of the building to help emphasize the strong location that the site presented and the terrible obsolescent qualities the building presented.

We were able to sell both sides of our presentation without saying a word.

- There were two options for demolition of the existing building.

Traditional ball and crane techniques or explosives.

Bids for both techniques were comparable.

Roach has explosives and controlled demolition Incorporated, or C-D-I-C-D-I has over 30 years of experience in felling buildings, bridges, and industrial structures, including the removal of a five building city block complex in Dallas.

Doug Lozo is vice president of CDI and is here to execute the demolition.

- Now, when you say explosives, as an explosives demolition, it's got a negative connotation.

People think that you're going to blow the structure up.

Actually, we use explosives as a catalyst to start a progressive failure.

Anything vertical to the horizon wants to fall due to gravity's effect on it.

And we utilize the weight in the construction of the building along with a little bit of explosives to bring the structure down.

Neat on the side, - CDI begins a 10 day assault on the building to prepare it for demolition.

- Firstly, we had no blueprints.

We didn't know how the structure was built.

We came down and surveyed the building, just made a cursory survey on the structure before we determined that it was feasible to take down with explosives.

What we did was to remove the non load bearing interior supports on the first level of the building, weaving only the structural steel columns, which actually support the building.

That was the first thing.

Secondarily, we went on upper floors and exposed certain structural columns so we could also weaken them and expose them for subsequent explosive placement.

We had to augment the structure on integrity of the building by placing cables from exterior walls to interior columns to help incline the building in away from the streets and adjacent exposure.

Every ounce of workforce it took to put up a structure is at your disposal.

Anything vertical to the horizon wants to fall.

Every bit of force it took to put every brick in place in 1905 whenever it was built, is sitting there as kinetic energy waiting to be used.

It wouldn't be that difficult to take a building down.

The real key is to take it down where you want it and to break it up so a contractor can move the debris readily.

- It's Sunday morning, June 12th.

Roe has created a media event around the spectacle of the building.

Demolition scheduled for 7:00 AM Roe and First American host, a party for implosion watchers in the waterside garage.

Other blast Fanciers gather on adjacent buildings and behind security lines.

The mood is fested.

Tell me about the mock building model.

We blew up in our backyard.

Yeah, we had a lot of gunpowder earlier.

Now we already bought up one building tonight.

We expect to see another one, but it's all business for the CDI team and for police and fire crews.

Security is tight as the final preparations are made for the implosion.

After the implosion crews moved quickly to move the debris and to control the dust.

Doug Wazo is considerably more relaxed.

- I was concerned about being able to control the debris and it came straight down right in the footprint of the building.

We cheated death again.

- One half of 1% you said is all it got out.

I mean, just the - One 10th of 1%.

All the debris that's in the street is just slough.

The major structure went into the pile and that was facade brick with soft belt.

- Who clears all this away?

The other - DH Griffin we're finished.

- You just come in, put your explosives in, and - We're the traveling executioners.

- This site will be the home of the new First American Financial Center, which will be ready for occupancy in 1989.

For the thousands of people who witnessed it, the implosion of the First American Bank building was a spectacle they will never forget.

- The first American Financial Center will be completed in 1990.

The face of downtown Norfolk is definitely changing, and we'll study what some of those changes mean with Urban Scholar Dr. Leonard Rockerman.

On a future segment of our place, our town, - The seven week old strike by the musicians of the Virginia Symphony is over.

The musicians have voted to accept their management's latest contract offer.

Ironically, the musicians voted to go back to work shortly after they were at work, rehearsing at the Jewish Community Center in Norfolk for a concert to benefit themselves.

And management staff members laid off because of the strike.

That benefit concert will take place Saturday night at seven 30 in the Virginia Beach Pavilion theater actor David Ogden, Steyers, best known for his portrayal of Winchester on the Mash television show, but also an experienced conductor will lead the concert.

The vote ending the symphony's longest strike in its 67 years means the orchestra will be able to perform.

Its scheduled concerts Thursday, Friday and Saturday, November 10th, 11th and 12th.

In Virginia Beach and Norfolk, the management is also hoping to reschedule all the concerts missed during the strike.

The new contract between the management and the musicians calls for a term of three years, a term the management wanted.

On the other hand, the contract exceeds to a musician's request that salaries for the third year be improved over.

Earlier.

Management offers these concessions by both sides.

Came after a marathon negotiating session that started Wednesday night and went into the early hours Thursday, a management spokesman said he plans to have the symphony office and phone lines open for business by Monday morning.

- The great conductor se Kosky once remarked that a city without a symphony was a city without a soul.

Now that the labor differences between the musicians and the management of the Virginia Symphony have been settled, it becomes our responsibility to support the orchestra, to give it our moral support, our financial support, and to attend its concerts.

You know, there is no substitution for the performance of live music.

And so we at WHRO encourage you to attend the performances by the Virginia Symphony to enjoy the living creation of music.

- In my mind, somewhere there was always this idea that I would come back to Norfolk.

It was never concrete.

When couple of times I have called up and said, okay, I'm coming home.

And I've been told it's not the right time.

You can't, and actually I've been grateful when that, when I've been turned down because it actually wasn't the right time.

But this year, the time was really, really right.

- Glenn White learned to dance at the Academy of the Tidewater Ballet.

He went to New York, joined the Great Joffrey Ballet, and quickly became its premier dancer.

Last fall, Glenn returned to teach at the school where he began and to create dances for its company.

Recently he was named artistic director Tim Morton.

Looked at the man on whom much of the future of dance and ballet in Hampton Roads depends.

- I like pure dance.

I like the body.

I like to show what the body can do more than anything.

And then if there's a little philosophy or a point I'm trying to make, or if something's happened to me and I wanna express my viewpoint in relationships or you know, everyday life, but build it up a little bit, you know, from my point of view, which is distinctly slanted - Audiences.

Gotta look at Glenn White's slant.

In September when the Tidewater Ballet presented its first performances under his artistic leadership, the Dances White created reflected his love of pure dance and bodies that sing to music.

It was a promising beginning.

- I have attended a lot of performances of of, well I'll call it put under the title of meaningful dance.

Really, if I want, meaning I'm gonna stay home and look at my bills.

To me, theater is to be entertaining.

Sure, it's to, I know there's a big trend towards naturalism in theater right now, but I want to escape.

I wanna get out to large in life, or I wanna be entertained.

- Entertaining, exhilarating was Glenn White as a dancer, the esteemed critic, Clive Barnes once ranked him in the top four of world class male dancers.

White had strength, style, speed, and something else.

I remember you, when you were a teenager, you could jump like hell.

You had extraordinary elevation.

What was it you had?

- Partially it's the shape of my legs.

I'm a little bit bow-legged and bow-legged.

People jump a little bit higher.

It has something to do with just the resiliency of the skeleton.

- Isn't that weird?

When you were a kid, young boys didn't walk into a ballet studio and start to dance.

What made you do it?

- When I was about 11, 10, 11, my father was very ill. A lot of my time was spent in hospital waiting rooms and all.

And I think as an escape, I started going to the movies.

Then somehow, you know, the light bulb went off and I looked up there and I thought, well, those aren't adults playing children.

Those our children doing children.

And I thought, well, I, I mean, right outta Chorus Line, I could do that.

I, I came back home from the movies and I said, mom, I'm gonna be a child star.

And she, of course, I always walked in and had a great pronouncement of some kind or other.

Mother said, well, okay.

And she said, well, you should play an instrument.

You should sing and you should dance.

So that when any, if any of that happens, you don't have to move off the stage while the singers, the dancers or the musicians, you know, don't go in loaded.

So you don't have anything to hold you back.

You - Threw yourself back.

You've - Gotta keep your backstory.

You've gotta get all of this up.

The dance teacher white went to was Jean Hammett, a former professional ballet dancer himself, and the Tidewater ballet's only artistic director until now.

- At the time, Mary Cooper was the president of the Norfolk Civic Ballet.

And of course we lacked for men, very strong men because at that era, the ballerinas were not the sils that we have today.

So we needed very strong men to lift them and carry them.

They were well proportioned and being southern well fed.

And suddenly this boy arrives on the scene who is very thin and who has arms that reach down to his legs.

And Mary Cooper drops by the C class and she sees this young man, and she's, oh Gene, nothing is ever going to happen with that boy.

He looks like an orangutan and a very skinny orangutan.

Is that, well, needless to say, three years later, he was in the studios at Joffrey watching this young man who now was in proportion and he had grown into his body and she turned to her husband Dudley, who is a very wonderful philanthropist here in town, and said, well, you know, ducks can turn into swans, but this is the first time I've seen an orangutan turning to a prince.

- Well, I enjoyed dancing.

It was, it wasn't a part of it that I didn't like.

You know, I loved lifting a pretty girl over my head.

I would carry her to the moon if I could.

I liked doing my own solo stuff, 'cause I could show off what I could do.

And Jean never taught me to be afraid.

I was never afraid of anything.

You know, I want you to jump over the piano.

Sure, let's go.

Do I jump on seven or do I jump on eight or do I jump on one?

It held me in really good stead when I went to New York, you know, people always wanted to work with me because I was never afraid and never said, I can't - Dancing here is in baseball terms, AAA ball.

This isn't the major leagues.

How do you deal with that?

This isn't, this isn't where you were.

How do you deal with that?

- I bang my head against the wall a lot.

It has been a, an enri, an enriching experience.

Maybe I've had to learn.

I spent a year here just sort of satellite going around watching how it works.

'cause it's real different.

Professional world up in New York is very black and white.

You know, you do the audition, you can do the step, you can't do the step, you can't do the step, you don't get the contract, you don't eat.

You can do the step.

You get the contract.

You're in business until the next job.

You know, here where people are struggling for identity and technique and they're learning, there's a gray area between the black and the white.

You know?

And I'm having to learn to cope with that because my mind is so set to on off.

Yes, no.

And maybe is a new term for me here.

I respond to music more than I do people.

And the music has to be right.

And then I have to see people moving to it.

In my mind, I feel like the audience can forgive you if you can't do a step or, you know, you don't have a million bucks to do this big whizzbang production.

But if you're not musical, if you don't really, you're not the soul of the music.

The body doesn't sing.

They know.

- What do you want to do with this company?

- I want to carry the tradition of the school on.

I wanna serve it best, the best way I can.

I wanna make sure that the, the standards are always as high.

I think that there's a real good environment here, a very hospitable environment to foster creativity and innovation.

And I'm interested in that.

- I originally learned to play guitar when I was about 13 years old.

I started as a lot of people did in my generation with the Beatles and Peter Paul and Mary.

And I've tried to learn about every Beatles song ever written, I think.

And a lot of that time was very good for guitar.

I think back in the sixties and even into the early seventies when you had the Eagles and a lot of people that wrote guitar based music, that was easy enough to play for most of us.

So I started with chords like a lot of people, and sang and still do when I play certain places.

That's, that's the kind of stuff I do.

And then I sort of graduated into wanting more outta guitar and thinking, well, I want it.

I don't wanna just strum.

I really wanna make melodies, chords, bass lines, classical guitar.

I realized sooner or later, was it - 75 years old this year?

The Wells Theater in downtown Norfolk was recently restored.

Fred Astaire danced here.

The Metropolitan Opera performed here today.

The Wells Theater preserves those memories while at the same time serving as a beautiful, functional, modern theater.

Recently, a solo artist whom they call the story lady, held an audience of children and adults enthralled here, enthralled by the poetry of her language and by her acting ability.

For those of you who missed it, Kim Simon Fink asked Jackie Torrance if she would introduce herself to us all over again.

- My name is Jackie Torrance.

I'm a storyteller.

I tell stories all over the country.

You know, when you listen to a story, you use your imagination.

You make pictures in your mind of the words that you're hearing.

Like this story, Wiley was a little boy.

He lived on the edge of the great dismal swamp with his mother.

And every day of Wiley's life, Wiley's mother said, don't go into the swamp.

Wiley.

The hairy man lives in the swamp.

And Wiley would say, I won't ever, never, ever go into the swamp.

But one day, Wiley's mama made 50 jars of strawberry jam, wild strawberry jam.

And she asked Wiley if he would take a jar of that strawberry jam to grandmother's house.

And Wiley said, so she said, Wiley, I want you to take a shortcut through the swamp.

And Wiley said, Uhuh, but Wiley's mama said, now don't you worry, Wiley, I've got a glass of milk here.

That's magic.

It turns red If the Harry man should chase you.

And then we'll send the hound dogs to chase him away.

Wiley said goodbye.

As Wiley walked through the swamp, the snakes that hung down out of the trees watched Wiley as he walked along and behind Wiley, he heard a voice.

Hello there Wiley.

It was the hairy man.

And Wiley said, how do you do Mr. Harry man?

And Wiley started running 'cause he knew that Harry man was after him.

I'm going to eat that jar of strawberry jam Wiley, and then I'm going to eat you.

And the Harry man ran up behind Wiley, grabbed him by his t-shirt, held him up, and while his little legs were still going, 'cause they were short, but they could go real fast.

And while he was so, but back at home, Wiley's mother was standing at the sink and she saw that glass of milk turn red.

And she knew that the hairy man was chasing Wiley.

So she sent Wiley's hound dogs to get him.

And that old hairy man was getting ready to swallow Wiley when he said, Wiley, what was that noise?

And Wiley said, thems my hound dogs.

Oh, Wiley said the Harry man, I don't like hound dogs.

And Wiley said, I know you don't.

Are they coming this way?

And Wiley said, and the Harry man put Wiley on the ground and he started running and the dogs came after him.

- Roof - Chased him out of the swamp.

Nobody's ever seen him since.

While he took that job, strawberry Jam to his grandma's house, came back, had apple pie for supper.

Now while he goes in and out of the swamp, and nobody bothers him, especially the hairy man.

And that's the end of that.

- Next week on our place, our time, we'll visit one of the most beautiful and historic areas of Hampton Roads, Gloucester County, where the residents are faced with the sure prospect of dramatic change.

And then we'll meet and talk with some artists and craftsmen who work together in a collective environment in Yorktown, at a place called On the Hill.

My name is Vianne Webb.

Hope you'll join us next time for our place, our time.