September 11, 2001: Introduction and World Trade Center

I wrote a very large essay about the events leading up to and surrounding September 11, 2001, mostly to help myself grapple with the situation on an emotional and intellectual level. What follows is the first section of that essay. If people are interested, I can post additional sections on an on-going, "serial," basis.

WORLD TRADE CENTER

I. Description.  The World Trade Center was a large building complex constructed for the purpose of housing and facilitating business and commercial activity. It was located on a 16-acre site in lower Manhattan, about 3 blocks north of the New York Stock Exchange. The twin towers of
the Trade Center surpassed the Empire State Building as the world's tallest building and remained so until the construction of the Sears Tower in Chicago, which in turn surpassed the twin towers as the world's tallest building.

Though the twin towers of the World Trade Center were its most prominent and famous buildings, a total of 7 buildings comprised the actual trade center. These buildings were the North Tower (WTC1), the South Tower (WTC2), a 22-story Marriott Hotel (WTC3), two 9-story plaza buildings (WTC4 and WTC5), and a U.S. Customs House (WTC6). A 47-story office building, the seventh building, was constructed in 1987.

II. History of Towers.  The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owned and operated the World Trade Center, commissioned architect Minoru Yamasaki over a dozen other architects to design the building complex. His task was to build twelve million square feet of floor area on a sixteen-acre site. The site also had to accommodate facilities for subway connections. The Port Authority gave Yamasaki a target budget of $500 million to accomplish the project.

Yamasaki did not want the World Trade Center--a symbol of commerce and prosperity--to look like an overgrown housing project, a symbol of squalor and urban failure. He reviewed more than one hundred alternative structures in model form and ultimately decided on a two- tower design. He felt that one tower would be too large and unwieldy, while aesthetic considerations led him away from a structure with several towers.

Yamasaki's design succeeded. Groundbreaking for construction began on August 5, 1966, and steel construction began in August 1968. The twin towers, upon completion, each had 110 stories and measured approximately 1353 feet tall. Each floor on each tower housed an acre of rentable space. First tenant occupancy of the first tower (WTC1) occurred in December 1970, and occupancy of the second tower (WTC2) began in January 1972. At full capacity, the World Trade Center housed 50,000 people on a daily basis.

III. Reason for Collapse.  Three separate events led to the collapse of the towers: 1. the impact of the hijacked commercial airliners; 2. the fire that started and continued to burn as a result of the original impact; and 3. the progressive collapse of higher level floors upon the floors below.

The first event, the impact of the jets themselves, did not initially cause the collapse of the towers. Both aircraft literally sliced through the buildings' exterior structure and created a huge fireball that consumed most of the fuel in the jets' fuel tanks (which, at full capacity, held an estimated 10,000 gallons of fuel). The towers successfully, miraculously, withstood the damage of this original impact.

However, office furniture and paper exacerbated the fire that started when the jets collided with the towers. Structural systems continued to weaken because of the increasing heat.

The ultimate cause of the towers' collapse was the collapse of the higher level floors upon lower level floors. A progressive and accelerating series of floor failures resulted, which, in turn, caused freestanding exterior walls to buckle and collapse. Once the walls collapsed, the towers themselves fell.

IV. Symbolic Importance.  Yamasaki understood the symbolic importance of the World Trade Center, and adopted a design that incorporated political and philosophical principles as well as practical considerations. Yamasaki said that "[w]orld trade means world peace...The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace..." He further commented that the "World Trade Center should...become a representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and, through cooperation, his ability to find greatness."Yamasaki also felt that the Trade Center's lofty purpose need not and should not translate into a structure that was imposing or intimidating. He wanted his design to communicate the importance of the Center's purpose but also to communicate respect for the everyday working people--secretaries, clerks, executives, custodians--who serve and advance that purpose. He commented that there "are a few very influential architects who sincerely believe...each building should be a monument to the virility of our society." Yamasaki also observed that "these architects look with derision upon attempts to build a friendly, more gentle kind of building..." He further commented that "[a]lthough it is inevitable for architects who admire [the] great monumental buildings of Europe to strive
for the quality most evident in them--grandeur, the elements of mysticism and power, basic to cathedrals and palaces, are also incongruous today, because the buildings we build for our times are for a totally different purpose."

The buildings that Yamasaki describes are buildings that balance commercial and practical necessity with the American values of democracy and populism.