World Trade Center (1973-2001)
The World Trade Center (in Spanish, «World Trade Center») was a complex of buildings in Manhattan, New York City, United States, which included the emblematic Towers Twins, inaugurated on April 4, 1973 and destroyed in the attacks of September 11, 2001, along with the 7 World Trade Center. The other buildings in the complex were damaged in the attacks and their remains were later demolished. The site is currently being redeveloped with four new skyscrapers, a memorial dedicated to the victims who died in the attacks, and a transport terminal. The One World Trade Center (1 WTC) is the main building of the new complex, with a total of 94 stories; it was the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.
At the time of their completion, the original World Trade Center 1 (the North Tower) and World Trade Center 2 (the South Tower), collectively known as the "Twin Towers", were the tallest buildings in the world. The other buildings included the WTC 3 (Marriott Hotel of the World Trade Center) , the WTC 4 (where, in addition to offices, various stock exchanges operated), the WTC 5, WTC 6 (which contained Customs and Border Protection) and WTC 7. All of these buildings were built between 1975 and 1985, at a cost of $400 million ($2.3 billion in 2014). The complex was located in the heart of New York's financial district, with a total floor space of 1.24 million square meters for offices.
The complex was designed in the early 1960s by Minoru Yamasaki and Associates of Troy, Michigan and Emery Roth and Sons of New York. The Twin Towers, each 110 stories tall, used a tube frame as structural design. To get approval for the project, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed to take over the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad but which became the Trans-Hudson Port Authority (PATH). The foundation stone for the World Trade Center was laid on August 5, 1966. The North Tower was completed in December 1970, and the South Tower was completed in July 1971. The construction process included the removal of a large amount of material already which was later used as fill to build Battery Park City, on the west side of Lower Manhattan.
Windows on the World restaurant was located on the 106th and 107th floors of 1 World Trade Center (the North Tower), while the Top of the World observation deck was on the top floor 107 of the 2 World Trade Center (the South Tower). Before September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center had already suffered some incidents, such as a fire on February 13, 1975, a bomb attack on February 26, 1993, and a robbery on January 14, 1998. In 1998, the Port Authority decided to privatize the World Trade Center, placing a public bid for a private company to manage the building, and awarded the bid to Silverstein Properties in July 2001, two months before the attacks.
On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda hijackers crashed two Boeing 767 airliners into the complex, one into each of the twin towers, in a coordinated terrorist attack. After burning for 56 minutes, the South Tower (WTC 2) collapsed, followed half an hour later by the North Tower (WTC 1). The attacks on the World Trade Center resulted in an estimated 2,996 deaths. 7 WTC collapsed later that day, and other buildings, although they did not collapse, had to be demolished due to extensive damage. irreparable. The site cleanup and reclamation process took eight months, ending in May 2002.
Original construction
Planning and construction
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In 1943, the idea of establishing a World Trade Center in New York City was first proposed. The New York State Legislature authorized Thomas E. Dewey, then-Governor of New York, to initiate development of plans for the project, but those plans were put on hold in 1949. During the late 1950s and 1960, New York's economic growth was concentrated in the center of the city, Manhattan, while Lower Manhattan was pushed to the background. To stimulate urban renewal, David Rockefeller suggested that the Port Authority build the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan.
Initial plans, made public in 1961, identified a site on the East River as the construction site for the World Trade Center. As a bi-state agency, the Port Authority required approval of both the Governor and the Governor for new projects. New York and New Jersey. Robert B. Meyner, then Governor of New Jersey, was opposed to New York receiving a $335 million project. Towards the end of 1961, negotiations with Meyner, the outgoing Governor of New Jersey, stalled.
By then, New Jersey's Hudson and Manhattan Railroad (H&M) ridership had dropped considerably from a peak of 113 million riders in 1927 to 26 million in 1958, after new tunnels and bridges for automobiles were opened across the Hudson River. In a December 1961 meeting between Astin J. Tobin, director of the Port Authority, and Richard J. Hughes, recently elected Governor of New Jersey, the Port Authority offered take the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad and transform it into the Trans-Hudson Port Authority (PATH). The Port Authority also decided to move the World Trade Center project to the site of the Hudson Terminal Building on the west side of Lower Manhattan, a more convenient location for New Jersey passengers arriving via the PATH. With the new location and the Port Authority's acquisition of the H&M Railroad, New Jersey agreed to support the World Trade Center project.
It also required the approval of New York City Mayor John Lindsay and the New York City Council. Disagreements with the city centered on tax issues. On August 3, 1966, an agreement was reached, under which the Port Authority would make annual payments to the city in lieu of taxes on the portion of the World Trade Center sold to private tenants. In later years, the payments were increasing, as the real estate tax rate increased.
Architectural design
On September 20, 1962, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced the selection of Minoru Yamasaki as Principal Architect and Emery Roth & Sons as Associate Architects. Yamasaki devised a plan incorporating two towers into the complex twins; in Yamasaki's original plan, each tower was 80 stories tall. To meet the Port Authority's requirement of 930,000 m² of office space, each tower had to be 110 stories tall.
An important limitation in this type of construction is the issue of elevators; the taller the building, the more elevators are needed to serve it, which consumes a lot of space. Yamasaki and the engineers decided to use a new system with two special lobbies, which allowed users to pass high-capacity express elevators (stopped only at certain floors) to a local elevator (stopping at all floors in a section). This allowed the design of stacking local elevators within a single elevator shaft. Located on the 44th and 78th floors of each tower, special lobbies allowed elevators to be used efficiently, increasing the amount of usable space on each floor by 62-75% by reducing the number of elevator shafts. In As a whole, the World Trade Center had 95 elevators, between express and local. This system was inspired by the one used by the New York Subway, whose lines include express stations, where both express and local trains stop, and local stations, where only local trains stop.
Minoru Yamasaki's design for the World Trade Center, revealed to the public on January 18, 1964, called for a square base for the towers approximately 63 meters on each side. The buildings were designed with narrow 46-inch windows. centimeters wide in the offices, reflecting Yamasaki's fear of heights as well as his desire for occupants to feel safe inside the buildings. The design of each tower featured façades clad in aluminum alloy, whose pieces were assembled one by one as the towers gained height. The World Trade Center was one of the most important implementations of Le Corbusier's architectural ethic, as was the greatest expression of Yamasaki's Gothic modernist tendencies.
In addition to the twin towers, the plan for the World Trade Center complex included four other low-rise buildings, which were built in the early 1970s. The 47-story World Trade Center Building 7 was built in the 1980s, north of the main complex. Together, the World Trade Center complex occupied a 65,000 m² superblock.
Structural Design
Structural engineering company Worthington, Skilling, Helle & Jackson worked to put Yamasaki's design into practice, developing the structural tube frame used on the façade of the Twin Towers. The Port Authority's engineering department fulfilled the role of founding engineers, Joseph R. Loring & Associates that of electrical engineers and Jaros, Baum & Bolles that of the mechanical engineers of the project. Tishman Realty & Construction was the general contractor on the World Trade Center project. Guy F. Tozzoli, director of the World Trade Department at the Port Authority, and Rino M. Monti, the Port Authority's chief engineer, oversaw the project. As an interstate agency, the Port Authority was not bound by local laws or regulations. of New York City, including building codes. However, the World Trade Center's structural engineers ended up following the drafts of the new 1968 building codes. The tube frame design, introduced earlier by Fazlur Khan, was a new approach that allowed for more open floor plans than in the traditional design, which distributed columns throughout the interior to support the loads of the building. The World Trade Center towers used strong and strong perimeter steel columns, known as Vierendeel trusses, that were located a short distance apart, thus forming a strong and rigid wall structure, supporting virtually all lateral loads, such as those of the wind, and sharing the load of gravity with the central columns. The perimeter structure, containing 59 columns per side, was built with extensive use of precast modular pieces, each consisting of three columns, three stories high, connected by parapet plates. These plates were welded to the columns to create the modular pieces off-site, in the fabrication shop. Adjacent modules were bolted together with splices in the middle of the span of the columns and sill plates. The plates were located on each floor, transmitting the shear stress between the columns, allowing them to work together to resist lateral loads. The joints between modules were staggered vertically, so that the joints of the columns between adjacent modules would not be on the same floor.
The center of the towers housed the elevator and service shafts, toilets, three stairwells, and other support spaces. The center of each tower was a rectangular area 27 by 41 meters and contained 47 steel columns that ran from the base to the top of the tower. The large space between the perimeter and the center, free of columns, was vertically segmented by precast floor beams. The floors supported their own weight, as well as live loads, giving lateral stability to the exterior walls and distributing wind loads between these walls. The floors consisted of lightweight, 10-centimeter-thick concrete slabs, placed on a deck of ribbed steel. A network of light bridge girders and main beams supported the floors. The beams connected to the perimeter in staggered columns and stood on 2.03-meter bases. The top lines of the beams were bolted to seats welded to the parapet plates on the outer side and to a channel welded to the central columns on the inner side. The floors were connected to the perimeter sill plates with viscoelastic dampers that helped reduce the sway perceived by the building's occupants.
Between the 107th floor and the top of each tower was a large beam, designed to support a tall communications antenna atop each tower. However, only WTC 1 (North Tower) had an antenna, which was added in 1978. The lattice system consisted of six trusses arranged on the long side of the core, and four on the short side, which joined the central core with the perimeter framework of the building. This framework system allowed the redistribution of the load between the perimeter and the central columns, helping to stabilize the efforts caused by the transmission antenna.
The tube frame design, which used a steel core and perimeter columns encased in a fire-resistant material, created a relatively lightweight structure, which would sway more in response to wind than traditional structures, such as those of the Empire Building State, which for fire protection feature thick, heavy masonry, with steel structural elements. During the design process, wind tunnel tests were conducted to establish the wind stresses at which the State Buildings World Trade Center could cope with, as well as a structural response to those forces. Experiments were also conducted to assess how much sway the occupants could comfortably tolerate; however, many subjects experienced dizziness and other adverse effects. One of the lead engineers, Leslie Robertson, worked with Canadian engineer Alan G. Davenport to develop viscoelastic dampers to absorb some of the roll. These dampers, used in the structures at the junctions between the floor beams and the perimeter columns, along with other structural modifications, reduced the sway of the building to an acceptable level.
Construction
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In March 1965, the Port Authority began acquiring property on the site of the World Trade Center. Demolition work began on March 21, 1966 to clear thirteen blocks of low-rise buildings on Radio Row for construction of the World Trade Center. The cornerstone of the complex's construction was laid on August 5, 1966.
The World Trade Center site was on a landfill with the rocky base located 20 meters below. To build the WTC, it was necessary to make a "bathtub" with a diaphragm wall around the West Street side of the site, to keep out water from the Hudson River. The containment method, selected by John M. Kyle, Jr., Port Authority chief engineer, included excavation of a trench, which was then filled with a paste-like mixture of bentonite and water, which plugged the holes and kept groundwater out. When the trench was dug, a steel box was inserted into place and concrete was thrown, forcing the mix out. The diaphragm wall took fourteen months to complete, which was necessary before excavation of material from within the site could begin. The 917,000 m³ of excavated material was used (along with other fill material) to expand the Manhattan waterfront to across West Street, thus forming Battery Park City.
In January 1967, the Port Authority awarded $74 million in contracts to various steel suppliers, and Karl Koch was hired to erect the steel. Tishman Realty & Construction was hired in February 1967 to oversee the construction of the project. Construction work began on the North Tower in August 1968; construction of the South Tower was already underway in January 1969. The original Hudson Tubes, which carried PATH trains to Hudson Terminal, remained in service as sky tunnels during the construction process, until 1971, when it opened. a new PATH station.
The completion ceremony for WTC 1 (North Tower) was on December 23, 1970, while the ceremony for WTC 2 (South Tower) occurred later, on July 19, 1971. The first occupants moved in to the North Tower in December 1970; the South Tower accepted tenants in January 1972. By the time the World Trade Center Twin Towers were completed, total costs to the Port Authority had reached $900 million. The groundbreaking ceremony was held on April 4, 1973..
Criticism
Plans to build the World Trade Center were controversial. The site for the World Trade Center was where Radio Row was located, home to hundreds of commercial and industrial tenants, property owners, small businesses, and approximately 100 residents, many of whom put up staunch resistance to the forced relocation. A group of affected small businesses filed an injunction challenging the Port Authority's eminent domain power. The case made its way through the court system to the United States Supreme Court, which refused to accept it. In February 1964, a group of “anti-Twin Towers” merchants and activists denounced that there was a danger to the safety of the future towers in the event of an explosion or plane crash.
Private developers and members of the New York Real Estate Board, led by Lawrence A. Wien, owner of the Empire State Building, have expressed concern about this large amount of "subsidized" it was on the open market, competing with the private sector when there were already excess vacancies. The World Trade Center itself was not fully leased until after 1979. Others questioned whether the Port Authority should really accept a project described by some as a "misguided social priority".
The design of the World Trade Center drew criticism for its aesthetics from the American Institute of Architects and other groups. Lewis Mumford, author of The City in History and other books on urban planning, criticized the project, describing it and other new skyscrapers as "mere glass and metal filing cabinets". The Twin Towers? views on each side into narrow slits, were not to the liking of many. Activist and sociologist Jane Jacobs also criticized the plans for the WTC, arguing that the shoreline should be left open for New Yorkers to enjoy.
The mall's superblock, replacing the more traditional, dense neighborhood, was seen by some critics as an inhospitable environment that disrupted Manhattan's typical complicated traffic network. For example, in his book The Pentagon of Power, Lewis Mumford denounced the center as an "example of the aimless gigantism and technological exhibitionism which today eviscerate the living fabric of every great city".
For many years, the vast Austin J. Tobin Plaza (also known as World Trade Center Plaza) was frequently harassed by strong, ground-level winds. In fact, some gusts were so strong that pedestrians had to be helped by ropes for walking. In 1999, the outer plaza reopened after undergoing some $12 million renovations, which included replacing marble pavers with gray and pink granite stones, adding new benches, planters, new restaurants, food kiosks and outdoor dining areas.
Complex
North and South Towers
In the 1980s, with the construction of the 7 World Trade Center, the World Trade Center had a total of seven buildings, but the most notable were the two main towers. Each rose to a height of 410 meters, occupying around one of the 16 acres (65,000 m²) of land occupied by the complex. During a press conference in 1973, a journalist asked Yamasaki, "Why two 110-story buildings? Why not a 220-story building? His response was: "I didn't want to lose the human scale."
When completed in 1972, 1 World Trade Center (the North Tower) became, for two years, the tallest building in the world, surpassing the Empire State Building, which had held the title for 40 years. The North Tower was 417 meters high and featured a telecommunication antenna or mast that was added to the roof in 1978 and was 110 meters high. With this antenna, the highest point of the North Tower reached 527 meters. 2 World Trade Center (the South Tower) became the second tallest building in the world when it was completed in 1973. The South Tower's rooftop observation deck was 415 meters high, and the interior observation deck of said tower was 400 meters high. The World Trade Center towers held the height title for only a brief time: the Willis Tower, in Chicago, completed in May 1973, reached 440 meters to the roof. Throughout its existence, however, the WTC towers had more floors (110) than any other building. This number was not surpassed until the construction of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which opened in 2010.
Of the 110 floors, eight were kept apart for technical services in the technical floors of level B5/B6 (floors 7/8, 41/42, 75/76 and 108/109), which are four areas of two floors evenly spaced in the building. All the remaining floors were free for open-plan offices. Each floor of the towers had 3,700 m² of space to be occupied. Each tower had 350,000 m² of office space. Together, the entire complex of seven buildings had 1,040,000 m² of space.
Initially conceived as a complex dedicated to companies and organizations directly involved in the "world of commerce," it was initially unsuccessful in attracting the expected customers. During the first years, various government organizations became key tenants of the World Trade Center, including the State of New York. It wasn't until the 1980s that the city's perilous financial state improved, after which an increasing number of private companies, primarily financial firms associated with Wall Street, became tenants. During the 1990s, approximately 500 companies had offices in the complex, including many financial companies, such as Morgan Stanley, Aon Corporation, Salomon Brothers, and the Port Authority itself. The World Trade Center basement concourse included the World Trade Center Mall along with a PATH station. The North Tower became the corporate headquarters of Cantor Fitzgerald, as well as the headquarters of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Electrical service for the towers was provided by Consolidated Edison (ConEd) at 13,000 volts. This service passed through the World Trade Center Primary Distribution Center (PDP) and was sent through the center of the building to electrical substations located in the technical plants. The substations lowered the primary voltage, from 13,800 volts, to a secondary voltage, from 480/277 volts, and later to 120/208 volts, which was the general power and lighting service voltage. The complex also had emergency generators located in the sub-levels of the towers and on the roof of WTC 5.
The 110th floor of 1 World Trade Center (the North Tower) was home to television and radio broadcasting equipment. The rooftop of WTC 1 contained a wide array of broadcast antennas, including the approximately 110-meter central antenna mast, rebuilt in 1999 by Dielectric Inc. to support DTV. The center mast contained the television signals for nearly every station in New York City: WCBS-TV 2, WNBC-TV 4, WNYW 5, WABC-TV 7, WPIX 11, WNET 13 Newark, WPXN-TV 31, and WNJU 47 Linden. It also had four New York FM stations: WPAT-FM 93.1, WNYC 93.9, WKCR 89.9, and WKTU 103.5. Access to the rooftop was controlled from the WTC Operations Control Center (OCC), located on level B1 of WTC 2.
Top of the World Observation Deck
Although most of the space in the World Trade Center complex was off-limits to the public, the South Tower featured an indoor and outdoor public viewing area, known as the World Trade Center Observatory Center, in its 107th and 110th floors. Visitors passed through security checks added after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, then were transferred to the indoor observatory on the 107th floor, at an elevation of 400 meters. The columns on each side of the building were reduced at this level to allow 71 centimeters of glass between them. The Port Authority renovated the observatory in 1995, later leasing it to Ogden Entertainment to operate it. Attractions added to the observation deck included a simulated helicopter flight through the city. The 107th floor food court was themed after a subway car and featured Sbarro and Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs. Weather permitting, visitors could take two short stair rides from the observation area on the 107th floor to an outdoor observation deck on the 110th floor, at an elevation of 415 meters. On a clear day, visitors could see more than 80 kilometers away. A fence was put up to prevent suicides on the roof itself, locating the observation deck to the rear and above it, requiring only a railing and leaving the view unobstructed, unlike the Empire State Building's observation deck.
Windows on the World Restaurant
The North Tower had a restaurant on its 106th and 107th floors known as Windows on the World, which opened in April 1976. The restaurant was developed by Joe Baum at a cost of over $17 million. In addition to the main restaurant, at the top of the North Tower were two branches: Hors d'Oeuvrerie (offering a Danish buffet during the day and sushi at night) and Cellar in the Sky (a small wine bar). Windows on the World also had a wine school program run by Kevin Zraly. Windows on the World was closed following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. After reopening in 1996, Hors d'Oeuvrerie and Cellar in the Sky were replaced by the Greatest Bar on Earth and Wild Blue. In 2000, its last full year in operation, Windows on the World reported earnings of $37 million, making it the highest-grossing restaurant in the United States. The Skydive Restaurant, opened in 1976 on the ground floor 44 North Tower, was also operated by the Windows on the World restaurant, but served lunch only.
The other buildings
Around the 65,000 m² block were five smaller buildings. One was a 22-story hotel, which opened in 1981 as the Vista Hotel, and in 1995 became the Marriott World Trade Center (3 WTC), in the southwestern corner of the site. Surrounding the plaza were also three low-rise buildings (WTC 4, WTC 5 and WTC 6), with the same hollow tube design as the towers. The 6 World Trade Center, in the northwest corner of the site, was home to the United States Customs and Border Protection and the United States Stock Exchange. The 5 World Trade Center was located in the northeast corner, above the PATH station, and the 4 World Trade Center was in the southeast corner. In 1987, a 47-story office building was built to the north of the block, called 7 World Trade Center. Beneath the World Trade Center complex was an underground shopping mall, which in turn had connections to several major transportation services, including to the New York Subway system and the Port Authority's own PATH trains, connecting Manhattan with Jersey City, Hoboken and Newark.
Underneath the World Trade Center was one of the largest gold depositories in the world, owned by a group of commercial banks. The 1993 bomb exploded near the vault that contained it. Seven weeks after the 9/11 attacks, $230 million worth of precious metals was removed from WTC 4 basement vaults, including 3,800 100-troy ounce gold bars and 30,000 1,000-troy ounce silver bars.
History, events and happenings
On a typical weekday, 50,000 people worked on the Twin Towers, with another 200,000 passing through as visitors. The complex was so large that it had its own ZIP code: 10048. The towers offered a great view from the Top of the World Trade Center Observatories observation deck, atop the South Tower, and from the Windows on the World restaurant, atop the North Tower. The Twin Towers became known around the world, appearing in numerous movies and television shows, as well as on postcards and other marketing media, and began to be seen as a New York icon, on a par with the Empire Building. State, the Chrysler Building or the Statue of Liberty. French tightrope walker Philippe Petit walked between the towers on a tightrope in 1974, as depicted in the film Walking the Tightrope. He crossed the 43 meters that separated the two buildings eight times. In total it was a 45-minute adventure at more than 400 meters above the ground.
George Willing, a Brooklyn toymaker, scaled the exterior of the South Tower in 1977. On Memorial Day in 1983, activist, firefighter, and high-rise rescuer Dan Goodwin successfully scaled the exterior of the North Tower of the WTC. His action was intended to draw attention to the impossibility of rescuing people potentially trapped on the upper floors of skyscrapers.
The 1995 World Chess Championship was played on the 107th floor of the South Tower.
Fire of February 13, 1975
On February 13, 1975, a fire broke out in the North Tower of the WTC, which spread throughout the 11th floor. This fire spread through the core to the 9th and 14th floors after the insulation caught fire of the telephone cables located in a service shaft that ran vertically between the floors. The fire that reached other areas was extinguished almost immediately, and the original fire was put out within a few hours. Most of the damage was concentrated on the 11th floor, as the fire was fueled by cabinets filled with paper, alcohol-based office machine fluid and other office supplies. There was no structural damage to the tower, as the steel was encased in a fire-resistant material. Other than fire damage, some floors below suffered damage from the water used to put out the fire above. At that time, the World Trade Center did not have fire sprinkler systems.
Bomb attack of February 26, 1993
On February 26, 1993, at 12:17 p.m., a Ryder company truck containing 680 kilograms of explosives, parked by Ramzi Yousef, exploded in the underground parking lot of the North Tower. The explosion ripped a hole 30 meters across five sub-levels, with the most damage occurring on levels B1 and B2 and considerable structural damage on level B3. Throughout the tower's 110 stories, six people were killed and 50,000 other workers and visitors were short of air to breathe normally. Many people inside the North Tower were forced to descend stairs in the dark without emergency lighting, some taking more than two hours to get to safety.
Following the bombing, Yousef fled to Pakistan, but was arrested in Islamabad in February 1995 and extradited to the United States to stand trial. Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman was convicted in 1996 for involvement in the bombing and other conspiracies. Yousef and Eyad Ismoil were sentenced in November 1997 for carrying out the attack. Four other people were sentenced in May 1994 for their part in it. According to a Supreme Court judge, the main target of the attack was to destabilize the North Tower and bring it down on top of the South Tower, bringing it down.
The floors affected by the attack had to be repaired to restore the structural support they provided to the columns. The diaphragm wall was in danger after the attack and lost the floor tiles that provided lateral support against the pressure exerted from the side opposed by the waters of the Hudson River. The refrigeration plant on sublevel 5, which provided air conditioning service to the entire World Trade Center complex, was seriously damaged. After the bombing, the Port Authority installed photoluminescent signs on the stairwells. The fire alarm system of the entire complex had to be replaced as a consequence of the fact that an important part of the wiring and signaling of the original system was destroyed. A memorial was built to the victims of this attack, a water fountain was installed with the names of those who died in the explosion. However, the memorial was destroyed in the September 11 attacks. The names of the victims of the 1993 attack were included in the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.
Theft of January 14, 1998
In January 1998, Ralph Guarino, a Mafia member who had gained maintenance access to the World Trade Center, formed a three-man gang to steal more than $2 million, which was being moved from a mob truck. Brinks company to the 11th floor of the WTC.
Leasing
In 1998, the Port Authority approved plans to privatize the World Trade Center. In 2001, the Port Authority sought to lease the World Trade Center to a private entity. Bids came from Vornado Realty Trust, from a joint proposal between Brookfield Properties Corporation and Boston Properties, and from another joint proposal between Silverstein Properties and Westfield Group. Privatizing the World Trade Center would add it to the list of contributors and would provide funding for other Port Authority projects. On February 15, 2001, the Port Authority announced that Vornado Realty Trust had secured the lease for the World Trade Center, through a $3.25 billion payment the same, 99-year long. Vornado Realty offered $600 million more than Silverstein, even though Silverstein increased his offer to $3.22 billion. However, Vornado insisted on making last-minute changes to the agreement, including a shorter 39-year lease, which the Port Authority deemed non-negotiable. Vornado subsequently withdrew, and Silverstein's offer for the contract The lease for the World Trade Center was accepted on April 26, 2001, and closed on July 24, 2001.
Destruction
On September 11, 2001, a group of terrorists hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and crashed it into the north façade of the North Tower at 8:46:40; the plane impacted between floors 93 and 99. Seventeen minutes later, at 09:02:59, a second team of terrorists crashed the also hijacked (and similarly to the previous one) United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower; the impact occurred between floors 77 and 85. Damage caused to the North Tower by Flight 11 destroyed all escape routes from above the impact area, trapping 1,344 people. Flight 175, compared to of Flight 11, it had a much less focused impact, and a single stairway was left intact; however, only 18 people made it through it successfully before the tower collapsed. Although the South Tower was hit lower than the North Tower, thus affecting more floors, fewer people, just under 700, were killed instantly or trapped.
At 9:59 a.m., the South Tower collapsed, after burning for approximately 56 minutes. The fire caused the steel structural elements, already weakened by the plane's impact, to fail. The North Tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m., after burning for approximately 102 minutes. At 5:20 p.m. on September 11, 2001, the 7 World Trade Center began to collapse, with the east eaves collapsing, and it completely collapsed at 5:21 p.m., due to the uncontrolled fire causing structural failure.
The 3 World Trade Center, a Marriott hotel, was destroyed during the collapse of the two towers. The three remaining buildings in WTC Plaza were heavily damaged by debris and were later demolished. The Deutsche Bank Building, across Liberty Street from the World Trade Center complex, was later condemned. due to the uninhabitable toxic conditions within; it was deconstructed, with work completed in early 2011. Manhattan Township Community College Fiterman Hall, located at 30 West Broadway, was also condemned, due to serious damage received in the attacks, and its deconstruction is scheduled.
Immediately after the attacks, press reports suggested that tens of thousands of people may have been killed in the attacks, as more than 50,000 may have been inside the towers. Recently, 2,753 death certificates (excluding those of the hijackers) were produced in connection with the September 11 attacks in New York, including one presented for Felicia Dunn-Jones, who was added to the official death toll in May of 2007; Dunn-Jones died five months later from a lung condition connected to his exposure to dust during the World Trade Center collapse. Three other victims were later added to the official death toll by the city coroner's office: Dr. Sneha Anne Philip, last seen the day before the attacks, Len Heyward, a man who developed lymphoma and later died in 2008 as a result of breathing in dust during the events after the attacks on the Twin Towers, and Jerry Borg, who died in December 2010 of pulmonary sarcoidosis, which was determined in June 2011 to be a result of dust from the attacks. Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., an investment bank located on floors 101 to 105 of the Tower Norte, lost 658 employees, significantly more than any other company, while Marsh & McLennan Companies, located immediately below Cantor Fitzgerald, on floors 93 to 100 (the Flight 11 crash site), lost 295 employees, and 175 Aon Corporation employees were killed in the South Tower. Additionally, 343 of the dead were New York City firefighters, 84 were Port Authority workers, of whom 37 were members of the Port Authority Police Department, and another 23 were officers of the New York City Police Department. Ten years after the attacks, in 2011 only 1,629 victims have been identified. Of all the people still in the towers when they collapsed, only 20 were rescued alive. Will Jimeno and Sgt. John McLoughlin, Port Authority Police Officers, were the 18th and 19th survivors. The last person rescued after the collapse was found after 27 hours of rescue work. After these 20 survivors, it is estimated that an unknown number of people could have survived for a while in the rubble, but lost their lives as their rescue was not possible.
New World Trade Center Complex
Immediately after the destruction of the original complex, debate began about building a new complex to replace it. In November 2001, Governor Pataki created the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), an official commission to oversee the rebuilding process. In an August 2002 press release, LMDC announced that a design competition would be held for the master plan of the new World Trade Center. On February 27, 2003, Studio Daniel Libeskind was declared the winner of the competition and thus became the architect of the new World Trade Center. Although Libeskind designed the master plan of the complex, the buildings would be designed by different architects.
Libeskind's original proposal, titled Memory Foundations, underwent extensive revisions in collaboration with Silverstein and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the architecture firm hired by Silverstein. Although not all of Libeskind's ideas were retained in the final design, he was able to win respect for his idea that the footprints of the Twin Towers should become a memorial and not be used for commercial purposes thanks to the support it garnered from the public. The design of the new World Trade Center involved numerous stakeholders, including Silverstein and the Port Authority. In addition, the families of the victims, the residents of the surrounding neighborhoods and other groups wanted to participate in the decisions. Negotiations on the final design of the complex lasted for several years and have been considered the most complex real estate transaction in history due to the complexity of the issues to be dealt with, the numerous interest groups involved and the difficulty of reaching a consensus.
After years of delays and controversy, reconstruction of the World Trade Center began in March 2006. The new complex includes One World Trade Center, 3 World Trade Center, 4 World Trade Center, 7 World Trade Center and another office skyscrapers, the 2 World Trade Center and another mixed-use Five World Trade Center whose works are stopped. The new World Trade Center also includes a museum and memorial, and a transportation hub similar in size to Grand Central Terminal.
One World Trade Center, which is 541 m tall and is the main building of the complex, was completed on August 30, 2012, and the last component of its spire was installed on May 10, 2013. On 4 World Trade Center opened in November 2014, and 7 World Trade Center, the complex's first building, opened on May 23, 2006. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum is complete: the museum opened on May 21, 2014, and the memorial on September 11, 2011. The World Trade Center Transportation Hub opened to the public on March 4, 2016. 3 World Trade Center opened on June 11, 2018. Construction on 2 World Trade Center was halted in 2009, and a new design was announced in 2015.
WTC American Flags
During cleanup efforts, a small number of American flags were recovered that had been flown near the World Trade Center during the attacks. One was found by New York City Police Department Sergeant Gerald Kane and Detective Peter Friscia at 5:30 a.m. on September 12, 2001. While assisting rescue teams at ground zero, they noticed that the large American flag that once flew in front of the WTC on Church Street had been detached from its flagpole during the collapse of the buildings and hung upside down from a utility pole several blocks away. The two men recruited several soldiers and firefighters in the area, who hoisted a ladder to the top of the pole. Detective Friscia climbed the steps of the ladder to the top, retrieved the flag, took it down and lowered it to the street. Kerik then gave the flag to NASA officials, and it was transported on the space shuttle Endeavor (STS-108) as part of its December 5-17, 2001 mission to the International Space Station. On January 14, 2002, on Flag Day, the American flag was returned to New York City residents by NASA's Sean O'Keefe and Commander Dom Gorie and members of Endeavour's crew at a ceremony at the Rose Center of the American Museum of Natural History. The flag is secured and maintained by the New York City Commissioner of Records and is part of the annual ceremony each anniversary of September 11, at Ground Zero.
Another flag, which originally flew atop one of the towers, was recovered three days after the attacks, and due to its poor condition, was handed over to the National Guard for ceremonial destruction. Later, the National Guard discovered, thanks to a label, that the flag belonged to the Port Authority, and instead of removing it, they returned it. it was flown during the 2001 World Series and Super Bowl XXXVI. The flag was also used, controversially, at the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics, held in Salt Lake City. Initially, the International Olympic Committee refused to allow the flag to be used at the ceremony, fearing that it would be seen as too pro-American, overly patriotic, and that it would create complications during future ceremonies. But an agreement was eventually reached between the event organizers and the IOC, which allowed the flag to be carried to Rice-Eccles Olympic Stadium by both American athletes and 9/11 responders. The flag was carried into the stadium in silence, after which the flag bearers stopped in front of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, allowing them to sing The Star-Spangled Banner, while another American flag was raised.
Another flag, originally on a yacht, was hoisted on a pole by 3 firefighters on the evening of 9/11, over the rubble of the World Trade Center, captured in an iconic photo. Later the flag disappeared and 15 years later it reappeared, being returned to New York.
Several flags of other countries were also recovered from the World Trade Center site. A New Zealand flag was presented to the country's then Prime Minister, Helen Clark, by representatives of the New York City Fire Department. Two of the victims were New Zealanders. Conservatives mounted and framed the flag, which now hangs on the main staircase of Parliament House, the main building in New Zealand's Parliament complex. A Union Flag of the United Kingdom was also recovered, and is now in the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester, England. The United Kingdom suffered the highest death toll after the United States, with between 60 and 70 British. killed during the attacks.
In popular culture
The original World Trade Center was a symbolic building that appeared in numerous movies, as well as many television shows, cartoons, comic books, video games, and music videos. Perhaps the most notable films in which he appears are Godspell (1973), King Kong (1976), Raise the Titanic (1980), Trading Places (1983), Cat's Eye (1985), Working Girl (1988), Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), Super Mario Bros. (1993) Daylight (1996), Men in Black (1997), Godzilla (1998), Stuart Little (1999) and The Walk (2015).
The events surrounding the 9/11 attacks were portrayed in several documentaries and films, including two major films made in 2006, Oliver Stone's World Trade Center and United 93, by Paul Greengrass. In several films released after September 11, 2001, it was decided to eliminate the towers digitally. After the attacks, most of the programs re-broadcast on television chose not to show the towers, cutting the parts where they appeared, as happened with some episodes of Friends and The Simpsons. Shots of the World Trade Center were removed from the opening sequences of the HBO series Sex and the City and The Sopranos, in episodes made after the buildings were destroyed, as a mark of respect for the victims of September 11. In the season finale of the Fox series Fringe, the World Trade Center is seen intact in a parallel universe of the city of New York.
The plot of the pilot episode of The Lone Gunmen (a spin-off of The X-Files), which aired in March of 2001 (six months before the attacks), focuses on a plot led by government secret services to crash a passenger plane into one of the Twin Towers, using autopilot. The idea was to place responsibility for the act on a foreign country in order to increase the military defense budget. In the chapter, the objective is thwarted by the protagonists, who get on the damned plane and deactivate the malicious autopilot system seconds before the plane crashes into the World Trade Center.
They had thought to include the towers in the movie Spiderman, released in the United States in May 2002. In fact, in the first trailer a group of thieves escape in a helicopter from a robbery at a bank, but are then trapped by a large spider web strung between the Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center. After the attacks, this trailer went out of circulation, and all reference to the towers in the film disappeared. Also of note is a brief appearance of the Twin Towers in OVA 1 of Shin Getter Robo vs Neo Getter Robo, published in 2001.
The 2018 film Ralph Breaks the Internet from Walt Disney Animation Studios has the same feature of the south tower, which looks like the Google tower with the name and colors of the show.
Succession
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