World Trade Center

Rather than just being two huge buildings that stood across in the city, the World Trade Center Towers in New York were an image of strength and belief that the city looked up to. Built during the period when the future of the city itself was not certain, the world trade center towers helped restore the confidence in its people. Ever since their make, the towers brought a halt to the deteriorating condition of lower Manhattan and brought up a lot of glitz, and success to the city. Well, let’s have a look inside world trade center and its history.

A Rockfeller Creation

The idea of building this huge monumental build was conceived in the initial days of 1960s. The idea was accepted by Downtown-Lower Manhattan Development Association with the main aim to refurbish the sleazy radio rows which were mainly dominated by mostly the electronic stores. However, the idea about the building these landmarks was further supported by David Rockfeller, the then Bank Chairman of Chase Manhattan and also the founder of the development association along with his brother and governor of New York city, Nelson Rockfeller. They believed that the project would bring in great benefit to the city and its future.

The Port Authority of New York City and New Jersey (PANYNJ) soon made plans to construct the monumental buildings in 1962. Minoru Yamasaki and Associates from Michigan were hired as the architects for the project. The project was later approved in 1966 and soon the construction procedures began. 5 streets in the city were closed and 164 buildings demolished in order to start the construction of the buildings. About 1.2 million cubic yards of land was to be excavated that was then used to create the 23.5 acres terrain across the Hudson River. A huge number of 3,500 people worked over the project while, 10,000 workers worked on its towers.

The work for the building began on 5th August 1966, while its ribbon cutting ceremony took place on April 4th, 1973. Initially, the towers were planned to have only about 80 to 90 floors, but it was later decided to make them the tallest buildings of the world. During the time of its destruction, the towers were ranked as the fifth and sixth most tallest buildings in the entire world. About 50,000 people were employed within the buildings and 200,000 others visited it every single day.

World Trade Center attack

Prior to 9/11, there was one more world trade center attack that occurred in 1993. The incident that killed 6 people and left 1,000 injured.

Like most other people in the world, forgetting the dreadful scene of the two burning towers in the York city, seems rather impossible. The entire world shuddered from what it was then and what it is today. Every time people visited the city, a huge crowd would gather around the Twin Towers, the World Trade Centers, to see its immense height and powerful engineering. But things changed forever for the new city on the September 11th, 2001. With initial news of two planes crashing into the towers, the world trade center video soon flashed up across all news channels. Ever since then, people visit the city to stand and mourn around ground zero, the very place where the twin towers stood superior to the other skyscrapers. But the question still remains on how the two strong buildings fell down like a stack of cards. Here is a short brief about the investigation performed by experts and engineers that followed after the attack.

The fall

1. Impact of the terrorist planes

Hijacked by the terrorists, when the two huge Boeing planes struck the huge towers, nearly about 10,000 gallons viz. about 38 kilolitres of jet fuel from the planes dripped over from the planes onto the towers, causing an gargantuan fire. However, the impact of the planes and the sudden burst of flames did not cause the world trade center collapse. The reason for the fall was its redundant design and structure.

The world trade center towers had about 244 columns surrounding a single central core. This further housed the stairwells, elevators, utilities and other mechanical systems. Hence, when a few of these columns were destroyed in the clash, the others still stood by supporting the building.

2. Heat of the fire

With the impact from the planes, sprinkler system stopped functioning and hence the fire became intense. The jet fuels burn at a high temperature of 800° – 1500°F but it is still not hot enough to melt steel which was used for the construction of the huge towers. However, the steel structures used in the construction lose their strength due to the heat.

3. Collapsing floors

The fire that began from the planes, spread through the entire floor thus bringing down the weakened floors. The crashing down of these floors with high momentum and weight crushed the successive floors below them.

Why the towers looked flat after the fall?

Lightweight steel was used in the making of the towers around the central core and the towers had 95% air which thus caused the huge fall killing hundreds of world trade center people.