The World Trade Center

Height: 1,368 and 1,362 feet (417 and 415 meters)
Owners: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Architect: Minoru Yamasaki, Emery Roth and Sons consulting
Engineer: John Skilling and Leslie Robertson of Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson
Ground Breaking: August 5, 1966
Opened: 1970-73; April 4, 1973 ribbon cutting 
The World Trade Center is more than its signature twin towers: it is a complex of seven buildings on 16-acres, constructed and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ). The towers, One and Two World Trade Center, rise at the heart of the complex, each climbing more than 100 feet higher than the silver mast of the Empire State Building. 

Construction of a world trade facility had been under consideration since the end of WWII. In the late 1950s the Port Authority took interest in the project and in 1962 fixed its site on the west side of Lower Manhattan on a superblock bounded by Vesey, Liberty, Church and West Streets. Architect Minoru Yamasaki was selected to design the project; architects Emery Roth & Sons handled production work, and, at the request of Yamasaki, the firm of Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson served as engineers. 

The Port Authority envisioned a project with a total of 10 million square feet of office space. To achieve this, Yamasaki considered more than a hundred different building configurations before settling on the concept of twin towers and three lower-rise structures. Designed to be very tall to maximize the area of the plaza, the towers were initially to rise to only 80-90 stories. Only later was it decided to construct them as the world's tallest buildings, following a suggestion said to have originated with the Port Authority's public relations staff. 

Yamasaki and engineers John Skilling and Les Robertson worked closely, and the relationship between the towers’ design and structure is clear. Faced with the difficulties of building to unprecedented heights, the engineers employed an innovative structural model: a rigid "hollow tube" of closely spaced steel columns with floor trusses extending across to a central core. The columns, finished with a silver-colored aluminum alloy, were 18 3/4" wide and set only 22" apart, making the towers appear from afar to have no windows at all. 

Also unique to the engineering design were its core and elevator system. The twin towers were the first supertall buildings designed without any masonry. Worried that the intense air pressure created by the buildings’ high speed elevators might buckle conventional shafts, engineers designed a solution using a drywall system fixed to the reinforced steel core. For the elevators, to serve 110 stories with a traditional configuration would have required half the area of the lower stories be used for shaftways. Otis Elevators developed an express and local system, whereby passengers would change at "sky lobbies" on the 44th and 78th floors, halving the number of shaftways. 

Construction began in 1966 and cost an estimated $1.5 billion. One World Trade Center was ready for its first tenants in late 1970, though the upper stories were not completed until 1972; Two World Trade Center was finished in 1973. Excavation to bedrock 70 feet below produced the material for the Battery Park City landfill project in the Hudson River. When complete, the Center met with mixed reviews, but at 1,368 and 1,362 feet and 110 stories each, the twin towers were the world's tallest, and largest, buildings until the Sears Tower surpassed them both in 1974. 

From Tania

View from the observation tower of the WTC

http://topoftheworld.citysearch.com/3.html

Photo tour of the WTC - remember it the way it WAS - and the way it can be again!!

http://www.nyctourist.com/wtc_new1.htm

http://www.urbanlegends.com/ulz/lastmoment.html

Well, the photofreaks have already started with the Urban Legends.

Terror Timeline
From
MSNBC news
9/11/2001 

8:48 a.m. American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 en route from Boston's Logan Airport to Los Angeles International with 92 people onboard, slams into the north tower, 1 World Trade Center.

9:05 a.m. Approximately 18 minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175, also a Boeing 767 enroute from Boston to Los Angeles with 65 people onboard, hits the south tower, 2 World Trade Center. 

9:21 a.m. New York City Port Authority closes all bridges and tunnels in New York City. 

9:24 a.m. President Bush calls the crashes "an apparent terrorist attack on our country." 

9:32 a.m. New York Stock Exchange closed 

9:40 a.m. The FAA orders the entire nationwide air traffic system shut down. All flights at U.S. airports are stopped. 

9:43 a.m. American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 enroute from Dulles Airport outside Washington to LAX with 58 passengers and six crew members, crashes into the Pentagon. One of the building's five sides collapses. 

9:45 a.m. The White House is evacuated. 

9:59 a.m. The south tower of the World Trade Center collapses in a plume of ash and debris. 

10:00 a.m. United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 en route from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco with 38 passengers and seven crew members, crashes just north of the Somerset County Airport, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Shortly before impact, a passenger called on his cell phone from a locked bathroom: "We are being hijacked, we are being hijacked!" At this time there was concern the plane was headed to Camp David. 

10:24 a.m. The FAA reports that all inbound transatlantic flights are to be diverted to Canada. 

10:28 a.m. The World Trade Center's north tower collapses. 

12:15 p.m. The United States closes some border crossings with Canada and Mexico. 

1:02 p.m. New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani orders an evacuation of Manhattan south of Canal Street. 

1:04 p.m. In a speech at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, President Bush announces that security measures are being taken and says: "Make no mistake, the United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts." 

1:44 p.m. The Navy dispatches aircraft carriers and guided missile destroyers to New York and Washington. Around the country, fighters, airborne radar and refueling planes scramble. The North American Aerospace Defense Command go to its highest alert. 

1:44 p.m. President Bush leaves Barksdale Air Force Base for Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base, home to the U.S. Strategic Command. 

4:30 p.m. President Bush leaves Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska for Washington. 

4:45 p.m. The City of New York announces that 200 firefighters have been killed and 78 police officers are missing. 

5:20 p.m. Seven World Trade Center, a 47-story tower, collapses from ancillary damage.

The Terror continues

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