Destruction...

I guess my title doesn't really appear like much of a 'deep thought', but put into context, you'll realise why perhaps a discussion could form from it.

Long-story-cut-short I was on a run this morning and as I was running down a particular street I saw an old Amsterdam canal house being bulldozed. Not literally bulldozed per se, but rather a digger was ripping the building apart for whatever reason. This building was fairly large and right on a main road. The funny thing was, several people stopped to take photos and observe what was going on. Even for myself I felt an urge to continue to look and observe the destruction of what was an attractive building. The question is, why did people find it worth observing? Why were people drawn to this? If the building was simply being pulled apart brick-by-brick it would not attract an audience. However, the extent of the so-called destruction was much larger than simply the removal of bricks, and this seemed to attract people. Why is this? Is it related, somehow, to Edmund Burke's conception of the sublime?