As the looming gray building imploded, crumbling into a pile of debris and dust, a crowd of onlookers cheered. Some wept.

The televised blast on Friday that leveled the Monaco building, the former home of the drug kingpin Pablo Escobar in Medellín, Colombia, erased a symbol of the city’s past that many have tried to forget. In its place, the city is planning a memorial park to honor the victims of his drug cartel’s crimes.

“Today, that building falls and hope begins,” President Iván Duque of Colombia said in a televised statement. “It is impossible to change the past, but you can build a better present and a better future.”