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Like many people who have never been to New York City or visited the World Trade Center campus, my knowledge of the area was very limited. Since this terrorist attack that hit this landmark of NYC, I've been trying to see in my mind where the Twin Towers are in relation to the city and where the smaller buildings are in relation to them. I've done some surfing and found maps of the area and information on the individual buildings.
Manhattan Island -- Overview: This picture is a map of the lower half of Manhattan Island. This area is the financial district. The World Trade Central is in the southwestern section of the island and is bordered by the World Financial Center on the west and Liberty Plaza on the East. Further east of the World Trade Center is the New York Stock Exchange. The picture is orientated with north going up.
Here's some information I've picked up on the buildings.
1 WTC: Opened in 1970. Also known as North Tower. Steel frame construction with aluminum and glass exterior. Had 110 floors and supports a large antenna system which broadcasts 10 local TV stations and a few FM radio stations. Destroyed on September 11, 2001 at approximately 10:40 a.m. (ET)
2 WTC: Opened in 1972. Also known as South Tower. Steel frame construction with aluminum and glass exterior. Had 110 floors. With 1 WTC, held approximately 430 businesses ranging from brokerage firms to technology companies. Morgan Stanley was one of the largest tennants with the brokerage leasing 50 floors. Collapsed on September 11, 2001, at approximately 10:00 a.m. (ET) Remaining floors collapsed on September 12, 2001, around 4:00 p.m. (ET)
3 WTC: Stands at 21 floors. It is the Marriott World Trade Hotel. Holds about 820 guest rooms and 27 conference rooms and several ballrooms. Essentially a conference center hotel, it would appear. As of the evening/early morning of September 11 and 12, 2001, this building is in imminent danger of collapse.
4 WTC: Opened in 1977. Also known as the Southeast Plaza Building, this building is apparently an office building of some sort. Stands at 9 floors. As of latest reports, this building is still intact. This building may be close to collapse since it appears to have born the brunt of the debris from 2 WTC (personal speculation).
5 WTC: Opened in 1972. Also known as the Northeast Plaza Building, this is apparently another office building of some sort. Also stands at 9 floors but with a larger floor area than 4 WTC. This building is in imminent danger of collapsing.
6 WTC: Opened in 1975. This is the U.S. Customhouse. Stands at 8 floors tall. No information available on condition of this building; however, it is flanked on the north by 7 WTC and on the south by 1 WTC. Definitely covered in wreckage and is a smoking husk. Danger of collapse is not known.
7 WTC: Not much information available on this building. Stood at 47 floors. Collapsed at approximately 5:30 p.m. (ET) on September 11, 2001, due to structural damage from collapse of 1 WTC. Referred to on the news broadcasts at a "general officer building." Held offices for, among others, the U.S. Secret Service.
1 Liberty Plaza: Opened in 1973. Stands at 54 floors. Houses financial firms (?) and is currently in imminent danger of collapse. Has developed a "giant crack" due to vibrations from collapsing buildings and weakened by falling debris from 2 WTC.
As a few other notes, behind 1 Liberty Center (on the east side of it) is the Millennium Building. One official said that this structure has buckled and is probably closer to collapsing than than 1 Liberty Plaza. Also, a few hours ago, NBC was reporting that 5 WTC had fallen along with 3 WTC. I have yet to find online confirmation of the collapses of these two buildings, and NBC has yet to re-air the animation and report segment.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
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I'll never forget those buildings, or the horrendous act that took them, and the people inside, down. I spent some quiet reflective moments looking at all the pictures I ever took of the WTC. In my old career I was a pro photographer and did sevral shoots in NY, mainly B/W urbanscapes. I even found a few older photos of me, on the observation deck of tower 1. This whole disaster is just so hard to fathom.
I only hope, that when the dust settles these marvellous icons are rebuilt with two new fantastic towers, to once again rule the New York skyline.
-------------------- "To the Enterprise and the Stargazer. Old girlfriends we'll never meet again." - Scotty
posted
I think you're confusing a USN bridge with a Star Trek bridge. USN bridges are close to the top of ths ship (but not at the top) because that's where they have to be to do any good. Trek bridges are on the top of a ship for symbolic value.
posted
Here's some more information I've picked up. When the North Tower was completed in 1972, it was the tallest building in the world. It lost the title about a year later when the Sears Tower in Chicago was finished. 1 WTC was opened in 1970; however, it opened with construction still continuing on the upper thirty or so floors. The tower was completed in 1972. The South Tower as well was opened before the upper floors were completed.
CNN.com had an interview with one of the architects of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers. The link I have is invalid now, so I need to find it again. Anyway, Aaron Swinsky is one of the 14 architects that designed the buildings.
This team come up with an innovative idea to make the buildings solid so that they wouldn't sway so make at the tops. The steel support columns were not inside the building perimeter but were the building perimeter. As well, the steel beams are usually 20 to 25 feet apart. In the Twin Towers, the beams were 39 inches apart. In addition, the steel beams were coated in a flame retardant insulation. The core of the buildings were reinforced concrete connecting with the rigid steel frame. This was called a "tubular design."
The buildings were designed to withstand the collision with a plane the size of a Boeing 707. That is a very significantly smaller plane than the ones that slammed into them two days ago. Find a picture of the Air Force One jet used during the Kennedy through Reagan administrations, and you have a 707.
Structural engineers and Mr. Swinsky himself has concluded that the intense heat of the planes and the point of collisions are what sent the buildings crashing down. The massive amounts of jet fuel and the intense heat generated by the fires overwhelmed the insulation and softened the steel beams. Gravity took over and caused the buildings to collapse.
South Tower went first because of the plane taking out supports on at least three sides with 50 floors above the point of impact. North Tower took a bit longer because supports were hit on only two sides and there were only 30 floors above the point of impact. Still, it was enough.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
posted
Yes they knew precisely where and how to hit these buildings. I think one blessing is how the buildings collapsed, falling virtically and not toppling. Hitting them so high, about three quarters of the way up, they may have been hoping they would indeed have toppled over sideways. This may well have taken down many other buildings in lower Manhattan, and death toll would've been even more horrific.
I'm sure their objective was to in any event cause the buildings to collapse.
As these planes were on their way to Los Angeles I believe (from Boston) they would've been virtually full with jet fuel, and hence, they were in essence flying bonbs.
-------------------- "To the Enterprise and the Stargazer. Old girlfriends we'll never meet again." - Scotty
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One of the sites that I used to collect information about the buildings is slowly coming back online now. It's called Skyscrapers.com and have a vast database of tall buildings around the world. They were temporarily shut down because of high traffic last week.
If you go to the website, on the front page are satellite photos of the current state of Lower Manhattan. They also have a map of the devastated area. It certainly showed just how much of a toll this has taken.
From their reports, five buildings have completely collapsed: One World Trade Center, Two World Trade Center, Marriott Hotel (Three World Trade Center), Five World Trade Center, and Seven World Trade Center.
Three buildings have significant enough damage to cause partial collapses. Those buildings are One Liberty Plaza, Four World Trade Center, and Six World Trade Center.
Other surrounding buildings receiving major damage from falling debris and vibrations from the collapsing towers. Those buildings include East River Savings Bank, Federal Building, 90 West Street, Bankers Trust, N.Y. Telephone Building, One World Financial Center (Dow Jones + Ottenheimer & Company Building), Two World Financial Center (Merrill Lynch Building), Three World Financial Center (American Express Building), N.J. Kalikow Building, Millenium Hilton Hotel, and St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church.
The destruction of and damage to all of these buildings is probably going to cost billions of dollars in just hauling away debris, repairing damage, and replacing the destroyed buildings. Of course, this cost is insignificant in comparison to the human factor lost in all of this.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
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