One after another, neighbors intently watching the demolition of a collapsed century-old building on Academy Street in Poughkeepsie, said they saw this coming.

"Everyone knew it was kind of a ticking time bomb," said recently evacuated neighbor Jason Fox.

Fox said on Wednesday that neighbors should have complained more to the city about the building, long before Monday's collapse.

The recently purchased seven-story building had been vacant for 20 to 30 years, according to city officials and council members. 

In an interview on Tuesday, Mayor Rob Rolison said the city had not received any complaints about the building at 19 Academy Street.

"We all should have made more noise in the neighborhood about it," Fox said.

The collapsed building and a building next to it "have no hope" of even being partially salvaged, according to demolition contractors on scene.

Currently, they are working carefully and slowly not to send bricks and debris falling onto the building on the other side, which they hope to keep from requiring demolition itself. 

The president and project coordinator of the demolition company on scene said he is planning for the collapsed building to be demolished down to three floors by Friday.

At that point, he said, his team will be able to determine whether it shares a wall with the building they are trying to save.

If the wall is shared, the building may be in jeopardy. 

At the turn of the 20th century, it was common for building owners to strike deals allowing other builders to construct their newer buildings using the existing walls.

Today, it is a much less common practice and much more heavily restricted.

"It's a construction method we don't use, because it ties all the buildings together," said David Hoehmann, the president of the demolition company, Highground Industrial, which began the tedious project on Tuesday.

As he coordinated workers from atop the apartment building across Academy Street, Hoehmann said his team is trying to avoid a cascade of damage to neighboring buildings, which are also century-old structures.

"If you have a failure [in one building], it affects all the buildings in close proximity," Hoehmann said.

As for Jason Fox, who said he and his wife "have been just wondering around town with our dogs" until they are cleared to return to their apartment, he hopes neighbors all around town become more inclined to speak up about blight, instead of just accepting it.

"This is hopefully the end of an era of really faulty, backward thinking," Fox said.

Hoehmann declined to say exactly how much this demolition is going to cost, but did confirm the price will end up being well over $100,000.

He said the city will receive the bill.

Mayor Rolison said on Tuesday, the owners of the collapsed building are likely going to be the ones paying the bill.