Complaints mount about high-rise eyesore

WEST PALM BEACH, FL-- For Maria Falco her March move from Jersey City to a view of the Intracoastal Waterway was a sun-drenched dream.

And then workers started to dismantle the 1515 Building on South Flagler Drive.
 
"This is the beautiful view of the condo...look at that debris," she said.

From her porch in the building just north of 1515 Building Maria feels she might as well put on a construction hat.

The once proud tower was done in by hurricanes in 2004.

"I would have never moved in here. How can I sit on the balcony and right now it's quiet?" she asks.

The building, so far spared form implosions, is being dismantled piece by piece. It's a busy and noisy process.

According to neighbors, at 7 o'clock in the morning a breakfast truck rolls in, then the break truck, then the lunch truck. It's nothing but noise and dirt they complain.

They also say they've seen rats.

Big ones says Ben Levy. "It looked the size of a large cat," he says.

The Norton Park Place Management, which believe the rats are coming from next door, has brought in exterminators.

Levy, a pharmacy student, heard a scratching in the cupboards of his residence. "The pest control people told us it was a monster."

The building manager suspects the rats are indeed a product of the doomed building to the south.

Were it not for expensive containment measures the 1515 Building would likely be gone by now.

An implosion or top-to-bottom dismantling date is now set for December 18.