Building 7 of the World Trade Center (Eng. WTC 7) is a building built in the Lower Manhattan area of ​​New York City, New York State, USA. This is the second building with this name and address. The first structure was built in 1987 and was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. The present building was opened in 2006 on the site of the previous one. Both projects were developed by Larry Silverstein, who is the tenant of the site owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Description

First building

The original building had 47 floors and a stone façade. An elevated pedestrian walkway connected the building to the World Trade Center area. The building was built over an electrical substation, which created unique constraints in the planning and construction process. As a result, structurally the building consisted of four levels: The first four floors included two two-story vestibules, each in the center of the south side of the 1st and 3rd floors. The north side of the 1st and 2nd floors was occupied by an electrical substation. The remaining area of ​​the first four floors of the northern, eastern and western sides of the building included a conference room, offices, a cafeteria and other premises. The 5th and 6th floors were a mechanical space. These floors housed trusses and beams that redistributed the weight of the upper floors between the structural foundations of the electrical substation and the four lower floors of the building. Floors 7 to 45 were structurally almost identical to each other, and were occupied by various offices. The exception was the 22nd and 23rd floors, where there was a reinforcing breaker. The 46th and 47th floors, including most of the office space, were reinforced to support the cooling tower and water tanks for the fire suppression system. On September 11, 2001, the building was damaged by falling debris from the mall's North Tower. Inside the building, on the lower floors, fires started. Damage to the water supply system as a result of the fall of the towers disrupted the internal fire extinguishing system, and prevented firefighters from effectively fighting the fire. Around 3:30 p.m., firefighters were ordered to leave the building due to the danger of collapse. The area around the building was cordoned off in anticipation of the collapse, which occurred at 17:20 local time.

Second building

The construction of the new building began in 2002 and was completed in 2006. The current building has 47 floors above ground and 1 underground, and is one of the 40 tallest buildings in New York. This building occupies a slightly smaller area than in the past, allowing the restoration of a section of Greenwich Street, which was previously interrupted in the World Trade Center area. On the vacant square between Greenwich Street and West Broadway, a park with a fountain was created, called the Silverstein Family Park and dedicated to the survivors of the events of September 11, 2001. During the construction of a new building special meaning given security: the building has a strong reinforced concrete core, wide staircases, and more…



Plan:

    Introduction
  • 1 History and construction
    • 1.1 Fire February 13, 1975
    • 1.2 Terrorist attack on February 26, 1993
  • 2 Destruction September 11, 2001
    • 2.1 Consequences
  • 3 Buildings of the new complex
    • Notes

Introduction

Coordinates: 40°42′42″ s. sh. 74°00′49″ W d. /  40.711667° N sh. 74.013611° W d.(G)(O)40.711667 , -74.013611

World shopping mall (English) World Trade Center), abbr. WTC, a more correct translation - World Trade Center- this was the name of a complex of seven buildings designed by Minoru Yamasaki, an American architect of Japanese origin, and officially opened on April 4, 1973 in New York (USA). The architectural dominant of the complex were two towers (in fact traditional definition they do not correspond to the towers), each with 110 floors - North (417 m high, and taking into account the antenna installed on the roof - 526.3 m) and South (415 m high). On September 11, 2001, the WTC complex was destroyed in a terrorist attack. For some time after the construction was completed, the towers were the tallest skyscrapers in the world (before that, the Empire State Building was the tallest building, which, after the destruction of the World Trade Center, again became the tallest building in New York). Sometimes these towers are called "a symbol of US world domination."


1. History and construction

In the 1960s, the prestige of American democracy shook. In order to awaken pride in the minds of people for their country and restore optimism and faith in the future to the people of the United States, an all-American project was needed - something grandiose that would stagger the minds and feelings of millions of people.

Projects that could capture the imagination of the American people were put forward a lot. One of the architects actively involved in the project was the Japanese American architect Minoru Yamasaki (1912-1986), already well known for his work, including the airport building in St. Louis, the complex of buildings of the Institute of Arts and Crafts in Detroit, the American Concrete Institute.

Minoru Yamasaki conceived the project of the World Trade Center in 1962, in January 1964, the architect, commissioned by the Port Authority, created drawings of buildings, a little later in the same year he submitted a 1:130 full-size layout for discussion, and two years later (5 August 1966) powerful excavators began to dig a pit.

Construction of the World Trade Center in 1971.

Prior to the twins, skyscrapers in New York were built on natural stone foundations. Manhattan is really made of stone, it has stone, granite under a layer of earth, you can see it when you watch the construction of new houses: pits are not dug out here, but cut down, gnawed out by the steel teeth of cutting hammers.

The first problem the engineers faced was that there was no footstool where the twins were supposed to stand. Instead, they found artificial, alluvial soil that used to "belong" to the Hudson River. This soil was a large artificial earth, mixed with layers of cobblestone, sand, gravel, pebbles, even old ships came across in artificial soil. The builders were desperate: additional difficulties, additional expenses, additional concrete.

This was not the only problem that lay in wait for the architect and engineers. The next problem that befell them was 164 large and small, narrow and wide buildings, most often stone, which stood on the site of the future World Trade Center and had to be demolished. It was not difficult to demolish them, but the problem still remained after that. At the same time, it was much more difficult to keep intact and then move the rich and complex system of underground communications, the fire alarm system, stranded telephone and electric cables, gas, thermal, pneumatic and water pipes, not to touch the nearby expressway and save numerous pedestrian roads. and transitions.

Another problem was the underground station railway, from here starting an underwater journey in New Jersey, which carries hundreds of thousands of people to and from work. If the road were closed, New York and the entire United States would face inevitable economic problems. The subway transported people until a new underground station was built in the lower tier of the complex.

This is not to say that the work of the builders was easy. That only cost 1.2 million cubic meters. yards of earth that had to be dug up and hauled away. Instead, the so-called Plaza was created under the twins - an underground space where numerous restaurants and banks, travel agencies, airline ticket offices, shops, a new New Jersey road station, much better than the old one, were located, warehouses, technical workshops for servicing twins and underground garage for two thousand cars.

Faced with the challenge of constructing a building of unprecedented height, the engineers adopted a progressive structural model: a rigid "hollow tube" of closely spaced steel columns, with storey trusses expanding towards the center. On the outer surface of each of the four sides of the building along the entire height there were 61 steel beams, between which, cables were also stretched along the entire height. The columns, finished in silver aluminum alloy, were 476.25mm wide and set just 558.8mm apart, making the towers look like they had no windows at all from afar. The load-bearing walls were assembled from prefabricated steel blocks, each weighing 22 tons, 36 feet high (4 floors high), 10 feet wide. Two hundred thousand tons in total weighed the steel laid in Gemini.

As the twins grew, installers laid floor slabs of special prefabricated corrugated steel and durable concrete slabs. The ceilings were attached to the outer load-bearing walls from the outside and to the inner, the only steel columns in the twins with a purely useful function - they were erected to mount internal elevators.

The elevator system used in the buildings was also unique. The twin towers were the first ultra-tall buildings designed without masonry. Worried that the intense air pressure generated by the high speed elevators could bend the standard shafts, the engineers developed a solution using a "dry wall" system anchored in a reinforced steel base. Elevators with a standard configuration serving 110 floors could need half the area of ​​the lower rooms for the location of the shafts. Otis Elevators designed a fast and compact system that required passengers to take turns in "sky lobbies" on the 44th and 78th floors, cutting the number of shafts in half. In total, the World Trade Center complex had 239 elevators and 71 escalators, which were controlled by computer center from the Port Authority. Each elevator with a carrying capacity of 4536 kilograms could lift 55 people at a lifting speed of about 8.5 meters per second.

Construction proceeded quickly, despite the ongoing difficulties with financing. New York budget 1965-1970 was $6 billion. To raise money to invest in the construction of the Trade Center, the city issued bonds with a guarantee of their redemption. But in 1970, New York suffered a financial crisis. The maturity date for the bonds has also arrived. The building almost froze. To save the situation, it was necessary to introduce new, increased taxes in the field of entrepreneurship. Another source of money was found: the future premises of the Twins began to be rented out for offices. And they were expected to be huge - 100 thousand square meters. m. From all the difficulties it was finally possible to "get out". The north tower was completed in 1971, the south tower in 1973. The grand opening of the World Trade Center took place on April 4, 1973.

The twins took off to a record height of 450 m. The towers were square in cross section, with a side of 65 m. Each tower had 110 floors. The foundations of the structures went underground by 23 m. 200 thousand tons of rolled steel were spent on the frames of the buildings, and the cables of the electrical networks, with a total capacity of 80,000 kilowatts, stretched for 3 thousand miles - half the distance from New York to London, across the Atlantic. Enumeration of quantitative data can hardly be boring, because each new figure or number speaks of the unprecedented scope of what has been created. The structure of the buildings was simple and reasonable. The facades are made in the form of steel frames and modular aluminum sections mounted on them with dimensions of 3.5x10 m, manufactured by the factory stamping method. This design is earthquake-resistant and able to withstand the pressure of the wind, which is very strong on high altitude. According to the architects, each tower of the World Trade Center could withstand collisions with several aircraft, but on September 11, 2001, both towers of the World Trade Center collapsed to the ground.


1.1. Fire February 13, 1975

On February 13, 1975, three fire alarms sounded on the 11th floor of the North Tower. The fire spread through the central empty pipes to the 9th and 14th floors due to the ignition of telephone wires in a shaft located vertically between the floors. Those areas where the fire penetrated through the wires were extinguished almost immediately, the source of ignition was dealt with in a few hours. Most of the damage occurred on the 11th floor, where a fire started in an office filled with paper, typewriter fluid and other office equipment. The fire-fighting treatment of the steel against melting saved the shell itself, and no structural damage was caused to the tower. In second place in terms of damage were the lower floors, which suffered not so much from fire as from fire foam. At that time, the World Trade Center did not have a fire extinguishing system.


1.2. Terrorist attack on February 26, 1993

Destruction in the basement

On February 26, 1993 at 12:17 p.m., a truck loaded with 680 kg of explosives driven by Ramzy Youzef drove into the World Trade Center grounds. It exploded in the underground garage of the North Tower. As a result, a hole with a diameter of 30 m was made through 5 underground floors by a blast wave, causing maximum damage to levels B1 and B2 in their entire history and significant damage to level B3. Six people were killed (when people ran out they were simply "trampled") and another 50,000 workers and visitors could not breathe due to lack of oxygen on the 110 floors of the towers. Many people inside the North Tower had to climb down dark stairs, some taking more than two hours.

Youzef fled to Pakistan shortly after the explosion, but was arrested in Islamabad in February 1995 and extradited to the United States for litigation. Sheikh Omar Abdel Raman was charged in 1996 with involvement in the bombing and other conspiracies. Yousef and Ayd Izmoil were sentenced to life in prison in 1997 for their involvement in the bombing. Four more were also sentenced for participation in the explosion in May 1994. According to the court, the goal of the conspirators was the complete destabilization of the North Tower, followed by the South - that is, the complete destruction of both towers.

After the explosion, it was necessary to restore the affected floors, especially because they carried the structural load and were supporting. The wall of liquid cement was in danger after the explosion, and the metal plates that prevented the pressure of the Hudson's water from the other side were also lost. The cooling plant on sublevel B5, which supplied air to the entire World Trade Center complex, was disabled.

After the attack, the port authorities installed photoluminescent signs on the walls. The fire alarm system had to be completely replaced due to the original system's wiring and alarm system failing. In memory of the victims, a reflecting pond was created with the names of those killed in the explosion. Unfortunately, the memorial was also destroyed in the September 11 attacks. A new memorial common to the victims of the explosion and terrorist attack will appear in a new complex being built on the site of the former World Trade Center.


2. Destruction on September 11, 2001

View of the World Trade Center on fire

On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and deliberately collided with the North Tower at 08:46 (from the north facade, between the 93rd and 99th floors). Seventeen minutes later, a second group of terrorists crashed the same hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 (United Airlines Flight 175) into the South Tower (floors 77-85). Due to the damage caused by the aircraft's body to the North Tower, all exits from the building above the collision site were completely blocked, as a result of which 1,344 people were trapped. The impact of the second aircraft, unlike the first, fell closer to the corner of the skyscraper, and one stairwell remained intact. However, few people managed to freely descend it before the collapse of the building. But still, despite the fact that the plane hit the South Tower lower, here they were blocked between floors or killed less than 700 people at once - much less than in the North. At 9:59 a.m., the South Tower collapsed due to a fire that damaged the steel members of the structure, already weakened by the collision with the aircraft. The north tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m. after a fire that lasted 102 minutes.

At 17:20 on September 11, 2001, the eastern penthouse of the seventh building of the World Trade Center (WTC-7) collapsed, and at 17:21 the entire building collapsed due to the fact that spontaneous fires irreversibly destroyed its structure. The third building of the World Trade Center, the Marriott Hotel (WTC-3), was hit by the falling Twin Towers. The three remaining buildings in the complex were severely damaged by falling debris and were eventually demolished as they were beyond repair.
The Deutsche Bank building on the other side of Liberty Street, opposite the World Trade Center complex, was later deemed uninhabitable due to the high content of toxic compounds in the premises; Now the building is being demolished. Fiterman Hall of Manhattan Community College at 30 West Broadway is also scheduled for demolition due to extensive damage sustained during the attack.

Already after the attack, the media reported that tens of thousands of people could have been injured, since over 50,000 people could be in the complex during normal working hours. As a result of the 9/11 attacks, 2,752 death certificates were issued, including those issued to Felicia Dunn-Jones, whose death was registered only in May 2007; Dunn-Jones died five months after the attack due to a terrible lung condition caused by clouds of flying dust during the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings. Two more victims were later added to official list dead: Sneha Anne Philip, a doctor who last time seen the day before the attack, and Leon Hayward, who died in 2008 of lymphoma provoked by inhalation of air saturated with dust that rose from the collapse of the Twin Towers. The Cantor Fitzgerald L.P. investment bank, located on floors 101-105 of the World Trade Center, lost 658 employees - more than any other institution, even the Marsh and McLennan Companies, located directly below the bank premises on floors 93-101 (where the plane crashed terrorists) and lost 295 people. In third place in terms of human losses (175 people) is Aon Corporation. Also killed were 343 NYC firefighters, 84 Port Authority of New York and New Jersey employees, including 37 Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) officers and 23 New York City Police Department officers. Of all those people who were in the towers at the time of their collapse, only 20 people were rescued alive, including PAPD police officers Will Jimeno and John McLaughlin (the eighteenth and nineteenth survivors).


2.1. Consequences

As a result, all seven buildings of the complex were destroyed: the three tallest buildings (North Tower, South Tower and WTC-7) collapsed (the WTC-7 building was not attacked, and according to the official version, the cause of its destruction was internal fires due to debris falling into it during attacks on the Twin Towers), the Marriott Hotel was almost completely destroyed by the wreckage of WTC-1 and WTC-2, the remaining three buildings suffered such damage that they were declared unsuitable for restoration and later demolished. Also, as a result of the collapse of the WTC-2, irreparable damage was caused to the 40-story building of Deutsche Bank, which is currently being dismantled.

On the site of the collapsed twin towers erected memorial Complex. Currently, the complex is being reconstructed, which is planned to be completed by 2012.


3. Buildings of the new complex

  • Freedom Tower (Tower 1 )
  • 200 Greenwich Street (Tower 2 )
  • 175 Greenwich Street (Tower 3 )
  • 150 Greenwich Street (Tower 4 )
  • 130 Liberty Street (Tower 5 )
  • 7 World Trade Center
  • World Trade Center Memorial
  • World Trade Center transportation hub

It is also planned to build a mosque and an Islamic center on the site of the collapse of the WTC buildings.


Notes

  1. "World Trade Center" - now in Moscow ... - yermolovich.ru/faq/4-3
  2. 9/11 Commission Report - www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
  3. Dwyer, Jim, Lipton, Eric et al. 102 Minutes: Last Words at the Trade Center; Fighting to Live as the Towers Die - query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00E6DC153BF935A15756C0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=4, The New York Times(May 26, 2002).
  4. NIST NCSTAR 1-1 (2005), p. 34; pp. 45–46
  5. FEMA 403 - World Trade Center Building Performance Study, Chapter. 5, section 5.5.4 - www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch5.pdf (PDF).
  6. Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 - Draft for Public Comment - wtc.nist.gov/media/NIST_NCSTAR_1A_for_public_comment.pdf xxxii. NIST (August 2008).
  7. World Trade Center Building Performance Study - www.fema.gov/rebuild/mat/wtcstudy.shtm. FEMA (May 2002).
  8. World Trade Center Building Performance Study - Bankers Trust Building - www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch6.pdf. FEMA (May 2002).
  9. The Deutsche Bank Building at 130 Liberty Street - www.renewnyc.com/plan_des_dev/130Liberty/default.asp. Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center.
  10. Fiterman Hall - Project Updates - www.lowermanhattan.info/construction/project_updates/fiterman_hall_39764.aspx. Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center.
  11. DePalma, Anthony. For the First Time, New York Links a Death to 9/11 Dust - www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/nyregion/24dust.html, The New York Times(May 24, 2007).
  12. Official 9/11 Death Toll Climbs By One - www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/10/national/main4250100.shtml, CBS News(July 10, 2008).
  13. Foderaro, Lisa W.. 9/11"s Litany of Loss, Joined by Another Name - www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/nyregion/12groundzero.html (September 11, 2009).
  14. Siegel, Aaron. Industry honors fallen on 9/11 anniversary - www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070911/REG/70911011, investmentnews(September 11, 2007).
  15. Lung Ailments May Force 500 Firefighters Off Job - query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E1DC1631F933A2575AC0A9649C8B63, The New York Times(September 10, 2002).
  16. Post-9/11 report recommends police, fire response changes - www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-08-19-nypd-nyfd-report_x.htm (August 19, 2002).
  17. Police back on day-to-day beat after 9/11 nightmare - archives.cnn.com/2002/US/07/20/wtc.police/index.html, CNN(July 21, 2002).
  18. The premiere of Oliver Stone's film took place in New York - www.svobodanews.ru/content/News/259800.html, Radio Liberty(August 07, 2006).
  19. In New York, a mosque will be built on the site of the twin towers - www.k2kapital.com/news/222476/
  20. A mosque will be built on the site of the twin towers - www.ntv.ru/novosti/193798/
  21. A mosque about which one cannot remain silent - www.svobodanews.ru/content/article/2131015.html, Radio Liberty(August 18, 2010).

As a result of which almost 3,000 people from 92 countries died. On the site of the collapsed World Trade Center, new skyscrapers, a museum and a memorial are being built in memory of the terrorist attack.

About what the new World Trade Center in New York will look like, we will tell in today's report.

Shortly before the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States reported that there was some threat to the safety of American citizens in New York and Washington. Security measures have been stepped up. This photo was taken August 24, 2011 at the Pennsylvania railway station in NYC. (Lucas Jackson | Reuters):

New York, June 16, 2011. The fire engine that took part in extinguishing fires at the site of the collapse of the World Trade Center Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. These kinds of exhibits will be sold to fire departments, cities and museums around the world to create memorials for the 10-year-old attacks. (Photo by Mike Segar | Reuters):

A bit of history. The World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City is a complex of 7 buildings designed by Japanese-American architect Minoru Yamasaki and officially opened on April 4, 1973. The architectural dominant of the complex were two 110-storey twin towers - North (417 meters high, and taking into account the antenna installed on the roof - 526 meters) and South (415 meters high). For some time after the construction was completed, the towers were the tallest skyscrapers in the world. The WTC complex was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. After the collapse of the World Trade Center, the tallest building in New York was the Empire State Building.

The construction site of the new World Trade Center in New York, August 31, 2011. (Photo by Mark Lennihan | AP):

As a result of the September 11, 2001 attacks all 7 buildings of the complex were destroyed: the three tallest buildings collapsed WTC-1 (North Tower, 110 floors), WTC-2 (South Tower, 110 floors) and WTC-7 (47 floors), which was not attacked, it was demolished industrially. WTC-3 (Marriott Hotel, 22 floors) was almost completely destroyed by the wreckage of WTC-1 and WTC-2. The remaining three buildings in the complex suffered such damage that they were deemed unfit for restoration and were later demolished. A memorial complex was erected on the site of the collapsed twin towers.

Top view of the construction site of the new World Trade Center, New York on August 24, 2011. (Photo by Lucas Jackson | Reuters):

The Freedom Tower or World Trade Center Tower 1 (WTC-1) is the central building in the new World Trade Center complex under construction in lower Manhattan in New York. Completion of the construction of the Freedom Tower is scheduled for 2013. A man is trying to take a picture of him on the phone, July 20, 2011. (Photo by Mike Segar | Reuters):

Here it is, under construction, the Freedom Tower of the new World Trade Center, on August 28, 2011. In 2007, the cost of its construction was estimated at $ 3 billion. The skyscraper will have 108 floors, its height will be 417 meters (roof). (Photo by Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images):

Cemetery in Vilnius, Lithuania. This man lost his daughter Lena on September 11, 2001, who worked in the World Trade Center building. (Photo by Mindaugas Kulbis | AP):

August 21, 2011. Memorial at the Pentagon, where the 3rd plane crashed, Flight 77 American Airlines. (Photo by Paul J. Richards | AFP | Getty Images):

The 9/11 memorial outside the Pentagon, September 3, 2011. (Photo by Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images):

The National September 11 Memorial at the site of the crash of the World Trade Center in New York will be unveiled on September 11, 2011, 10 years after the attack. It consists of 2 square pools, located exactly on the site of the former "twin towers". The museum will be located under the memorial at a depth of about 21 meters underground, but it will open only in 2012. One of the walls of the underground museum will be unusual: in its place will be installed a fragment of the wall that was preserved during the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. An estimated 5 million people will visit the monument each year, which would be the most of any historic site in the United States.

Some exhibits of the future museum on the site of the collapsed twin towers. This is the helmet of the deceased fireman. (Photo by Lucas Jackson | Reuters):

Another exhibit - shoes in the blood. This woman was working on the 97th floor of the South Tower when the 1st plane crashed into the North Tower. Public address systems said to stay put but she decided to run out of the building down the stairs. And it was the best decision in her life. Just as she reached the 61st floor, the South Tower was hit by a second plane just a few floors above. The woman managed to run out of the skyscraper before it crashed. (Photo by Lucas Jackson | Reuters):

Cell phones and pagers of the dead. For 10 years, relatives and acquaintances called them, but their owners did not answer ... (Photo by Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images):

In search of the best shot, September 7, 2011. Light memorial "Tribute in the light", temporarily installed on the site of the former World Trade Center.Two pillars of light, one and a half kilometers high, hitting the sky from the very place where the WTC twin towers stood, can be seen after dark in New York from March 11 to April 11, 2012. They turn on at dusk and turn off at 11 pm. Each of these 7000-watt beams is formed by 44 spotlights located on areas of 15x15 meters - this is about a quarter of the area occupied by one tower. E it is a tribute to the dead, expressed in light.(Photo by Andreas Gebhard | Getty Images):

The Empire State Building (center) and the Freedom Tower (WTC-1) under construction, August 30, 2011. (Photo by Mark Lennihan | AP):

At the construction site of the new World Trade Center. Welder. New York, July 28, 2011. (Photo by Mike Segar | Reuters):

Construction of the Freedom Tower (WTC-1). Already built 80 of 108 floors, 30 August 2011. Completion is scheduled for 2013. (Photo by Mark Lennihan | AP):

Memorial at the crash site of the World Trade Center in New York. As we have already said, these are 2 square pools located on the site of collapsed skyscrapers, September 6, 2011. (Photo by Susan Walsh | AP):

Two pools with the largest man-made waterfalls in the USA. US President Barack Obama himself will help us to feel the size of the pools and the height of the waterfalls:

The pools descend to the foot of the former "twin towers". They symbolize the loss of life and the physical emptiness caused by terrorist attacks. The sound of falling water will have to imitate the sounds of the city. About 400 white oaks will fill the remaining territory of the Memorial Square with an area of ​​2.4 square meters. km.

The names of those killed in the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 are written on the bronze sides of the Memorial Pools.

Story WTC (World Trade Center) started in 1946.
Walked first postwar year- Europe was in ruins, Japan was recovering from the consequences of the atomic bombing, China was in anticipation civil war. The only country that managed with little blood, with a mighty blow, were the USA - on very a short time the world has become Pax Americana.

Pax americana and sovietica

Better to be dead than red
(anti-communist slogan)
We will bury you
(N.S. Khrushchev)

The dollar was recognized as an international means of payment, the Marshall Plan began to be implemented, the International Monetary Fund was created, International Bank and, of course, the UN.

The UN headquarters is located in cosmopolitan New York.

In 1946, the New York city fathers, anticipating the heyday of international trade V post-war world, proposed to build a "World Trade Center" in Lower Manhattan.

The idea turned out to be premature. The Soviet Union, having the strongest land army, acquired atomic bomb. Over Europe the Soviets lowered iron curtain, in Asia, having made friends forever with China, unleashed the Korean War.

world out pax americana turned into Pax americana et sovietica (the American world and the Soviet world)

The Cold War was not very conducive to the flourishing of international trade - the Americans returned to the idea of ​​building the World Trade Center only in the late fifties. The word "worldwide" now referred exclusively to the capitalist world.

The center was supposed to be built in Lower Manhattan, which was in deep crisis. After 1929, not a single new skyscraper was built here, and the area itself gradually turned into a ghost town. The Rockefeller brothers, David and Nelson, managed to stop this process.

Rockefellers. "Baron", philanthropist, politician, banker

All major modern states acquired in the most dishonorable way
"Capitalist Sharks. Biography of American Millionaires" ...
As an intelligent person, he will understand that a part is less than the whole, and will give me this part for fear of losing everything.
(Golden calf)

The brothers belonged to not the last dynasty in the capitalist world - their grandfather was the same Robber Baron (robber baron) John Rockefeller Sr., who is Standard Oil, and his father is a philanthropist John Rockefeller Jr.(Rockefeller Center).

John Rockefeller Sr.

John Rockefeller Jr. and his sons - David, Nelson, Winthrop, Lawrence and John Rockefeller III, awaiting the arrival of the coffin with the body of John Rockefeller Sr. (1937)

If the founder of the dynasty, the first "dollar" billionaire in the world, forever left the stigma of a robber baron, then his heirs became famous as philanthropists and politicians - money does not smell.

The most notable figures of the five brothers were Nelson and David.

Save Lower Manhattan!

WTC skyscrapers were going to be named "Nelson" and "David"
(New York folklore)

Nelson Rockefeller, vice president in the administration of Gerald Ford, served 14 years as Governor of New York State.

David Rockefeller since 1961 he has been president of the Chase Manhattan Bank.

It was with the construction of the 60-story skyscraper Chase Manhattan Bank that the revival of Lower Manhattan as a business center began.

In 1960, the "Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association", led by David Rockefeller, developed a plan to create World Trade Center- a complex of office buildings and hotels. With the support of New York State Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the plan began to materialize.

Such a grandiose project could only be mastered by Port Authority- a powerful organization responsible for the infrastructure inside the ring with a radius of 40 km and the center - the Statue of Liberty.

Through hardship to the stars

The construction of the World Trade Center, of course, could not do without conflicts. The interests of the two states (New York and New Jersey), the city of New York, the owners of the Empire State Building and the organization Port Authority. The parties had to compromise, make concessions and receive change.

Almost everyone was reconciled by the transfer of the WTC site to east coast Manhattan (East River) to the west (Hudson). At the same time, the WTC was planned to be built just above the railway tunnels connecting Manhattan with the New Jersey coast.

1 - original location for WTC, 2 - WTC

As a result, the state of New Jersey received railroad upgrades, and the state of New York and the Port Authority profited from the operation of the terminal of this road, which was planned to be built under the World Trade Center.

Contradictions were resolved in the corridors of power, only the last battle took place on the square - with the owners of small shops located on the site of the future World Trade Center. They were mostly electronics stores - that's what the place was called Radio Row(Radio series).

Businessmen, behind whom loomed the owners of the Empire State Building, who did not want the appearance of such a competitor, staged demonstrations and tried to act through the courts.

All their efforts were in vain - on March 21, 1966, the first of the red-brick buildings of Radio Row was demolished.

What did they plan to build under such a loud name - the World Center?

Back in 1962, a little-known architect from Detroit, a 49-year-old Japanese American, won a competition in which architects of the first rank participated. Minoru Yamasaki.

Quiet Japanese American

The biography of Minoru Yamasaki is a classic illustration of American success. Born in Seattle to Japanese immigrants (his father worked in a local shoe factory and his mother was a pianist), he was exposed early to the racism then so prevalent in those parts. To earn money for his college education, he traveled to Alaska, where he worked 14-hour days on fishing boats.

Minoru Yamasaki shows the place under the World Trade Center on the layout of Lower Manhattan

two one hundred and ten

Yamasaki was given the modest task of designing a building with five times the office space of the Empire State Building. Having gone through dozens of options - a lone skyscraper with 150 floors, four skyscrapers, a complex of low buildings and others, the architect settled on two identical skyscrapers-parallelepipeds with a square section.

Italian influence is evident in the works of the American architect of Japanese origin.

The shape and arrangement of skyscrapers - like the towers of the medieval Italian city of San Gimignano

Twin towers of San Gimignano

Twin Towers of the World Trade Center

Gothic arches - like the Doge's Palace in Venice

Doge's Palace

World Trade Center Plaza

The original skyscrapers had 80 floors, making them shorter than the Empire State Building.

Guy Tozzoli, in charge of the project from the organization Port Authority, stated:
Pit, the president is going to put a man on the moon. I want our skyscrapers to be the tallest in the world

Yamasaki added 30 floors each. Now the 110-story skyscrapers have bypassed the Empire State Building... and started their second high-altitude race. As is known, first high-altitude race completed in 1931, and the winner, the Empire State Building, remained the tallest building in the world for 40 years. The second race is still going on:

World Trade Center (1973)
Sears Tower (1974)
Petronas Towers (1998)
Taipei 101 (2004)
Shanghai World Financial Center (2008)
New WTC-1 (2013, under construction)
Burj Khalifa (2010)

On August 6, 1966, twenty years after the concept of the complex was born, the construction of the World Trade Center began.

Construction of the century

We built and built and finally built

The construction of a skyscraper is an extraordinary task in itself, but the construction of the World Trade Center was unprecedented in scale and complexity.

The problems started from the foundation. The skyscraper must stand on bedrock(hard rock). It turned out to be more than 20 meters before her in the place chosen for the Center. Just digging was dangerous because of the proximity of ocean waters, so before digging began, an underground "wall" was built around the entire perimeter of the future construction site. The structure was named bathtub (trough).

Bathtub (indicated by arrows). Tunnels: 1 - in New Jersey, 2 - from New Jersey

And what was to be done with so much excavated land? New York remembered its Dutch roots - the inhabitants of the Netherlands (Lower Lands) were famous for their ability to win space from the sea. The Dutch colonists brought this know-how to New world, and the British took advantage of their knowledge - over the centuries of colonization, the outlines of Manhattan have changed a lot.

These changes are demonstrated by a photograph from the 30s - elevated metro line runs along the border New Amsterdam

1 - a place under the World Trade Center, 2 - the area of ​​the future embankment

WTC towers and embankment under construction

Later, a residential complex was built on the embankment. Battery Park City And World Financial Center. Four squat skyscrapers Financial Center, similar to the Teletubbies, delight the eye with a variety of tops - the Egyptian pyramid, the Mayan pyramid, the dome and the mastaba

The blue dots are the outlines of Manhattan in the year of its "purchase" from the Indians (1626), the gray area is man-made areas.

Depths bathtub enough for seven underground floors, over which the construction of 110-story towers began.

Cranes ordered from Australia were used in the construction Kangaroo capable of self-growing

The unusual design of the WTC skyscrapers is demonstrated by a unique photograph, which, like an x-ray, shows the "skeleton" of the North Tower.

The weight of the skyscraper was carried by two groups of columns - the central and the outer.

Stairs and elevators were located in the center, and the space between the central and outer columns was intended for offices. This design gave future tenants the freedom to redevelop offices.

Typical skyscrapers of that time had facades made entirely of glass, while Twins had windows in the back, behind the columns.

At night, the windows were clearly visible.

During the day, skyscrapers became blind monoliths

This is how skyscrapers looked at the end of construction, in 1970.

The last floor of the North Tower was built at the end of 1970, the South Tower - in the middle of 1971. The opening of the Center took place April 4, 1973.

The twins seemed to be the legs of a huge tuning fork upon completion of construction.

The opportunity to see them in full growth disappeared after the construction of the World Financial Center in 1988.

The cost of construction went over 1.5 billion dollars, 7.5 thousand people built the World Trade Center, 8 people died.

Perpendicular city

As is customary, the United States is divided into areas that are assigned postal codes ( zip code).

It is unusual to assign an index to a single building. In New York City, 44 skyscrapers are large enough to have their own zip code. For example, the Empire State Building zip code is 10118 , Chrysler Building - 10174 , Seagram Building - 10152 .

The WTC index was the numbers 10048 .

The World Trade Center was a real city - in the buildings of the complex on a weekday there were up to 50 thousand employees and from 50 to 100 thousand visitors. This made it the sixth most populous "city" in the state of New York.

The WTC is six buildings that fit in the Plaza (square) of 16 acres, and one building is outside the square.


1 WTC - North Tower
2 WTC - South Tower
3 WTC - Marriot Hotel
4 WTC - commodity exchange
5 WTC - Dean Witter Building
6 WTC - US Customs
7 WTC - Salomon Brothers Bank

Often the whole complex was simply called the Twins - the rest of the buildings faded next to the 110-story towers:

Height of the North Tower (without antenna) - 417 meters
The height of the South Tower is 415 meters
Antenna height - 104 meters

The delivery of people and goods was carried out by elevators - there were 103 of them in each tower (97 passenger and 6 freight). Express elevators stopped only at 44th, 78th and upper floors(so-called skylobbies- heavenly vestibules). For intermediate floors, it was necessary to transfer to local elevators.

In the center of the Plaza was a fountain with a rotating sphere

Under the plaza there was a mall, below the mall there was an underground garage for 2000 cars. At the level of the seventh floor there was a railway tunnel.

Endure - fall in love

The initial reaction of New Yorkers and guests of the capital of the world to Yamasaki's creation was very cool:

The twins are the boxes that the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building were delivered in.
(New York folklore)

The most ruthless critics were professionals:

Ada Huxtable , architectural critic:
The towers are bare technology, the lobbies are tearful sentimentality, the impact on New York is pure fantasy... The twenty-two inch (56 cm) windows are so narrow that one of the marvelous possibilities afforded by high-rise buildings, the breathtaking view from above, is completely absent. ... Towers are great buildings, but they are not great architecture.

Paul Goldberger , architectural critic:
It [Center] is big. It is larger than any building. He showed once again that a person can adapt to anything ... His influence on the city, whether it concerns the skyline, the downtown environment and real estate prices, cannot be overestimated. But the Center's buildings themselves are so boring and banal that they wouldn't even be worth building for a bank in Omaha.

In the end, the Gemini repeated the fate eiffel tower- they got used to them, then they stopped noticing, then they began to be proud.