7 World Trade Center
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There are two buildings that have been named 7 World Trade Center, one of which has yet to be completed.
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1984-2001
The first building, built 1984 - 1986 and opened in March 1987, collapsed on September 11, 2001 in the September 11th terrorist attacks. It had 47 floors and was 570 feet (174 meters) in height. The architect was Emery Roth & Sons. The building stood north of the main World Trade Center complex, across Vesey Street. Larry Silverstein financed the project.
The Central Intelligence Agency's New York office was in 7 World Trade Center. Also, the Department of Defense, Immigration and Naturalization Services, the Internal Revenue Service, major New York banks, and the Securities and Exchange Commission archive of filings on such sensitive cases as the Enron and World Com bankruptcies, as well as a host of unrelated businesses. [1] (http://www.alumni.berkeley.edu/Alumni/Cal_Monthly/September_2004/How_to_fight_terrorism.asp)
This was the setting of the 1988 movie Working Girl.
Destruction of 7 World Trade Center
On the morning of September 11, the North Tower of the World Trade Center (1 WTC) across Vessey Street collapsed, showering 7 WTC and neighboring buildings with debris.
7 World Trade Center collapsed hours later, at 5:20pm. Firefighters had abandoned the building, and let the fires burn. As little could be seen from outside, and no-one was able to observe what happened within the building, the cause of the collapse is disputed. The sprinkler systems may have failed when water pipes were damaged from the 1 WTC debris. A total of 160,000 liters (42,000 gallons) of diesel fuel were stored in five tanks within the building, which some believe could have fueled the fire, causing the steel skeleton to weaken and finally give way, as is reported to have had happened in the twin towers. In addition, the building's unusual architecture may have contributed to its collapse. It was built on top of an existing Con Ed substation, such that the building was cantilevered over the substation at the fifth floor.
Controversy
Others have speculated that the building -- which collapsed neatly into its own 'footprint' in a manner similar to that of a controlled demolition -- was intentionally demolished. In the PBS documentary America Rebuilds, Larry Silverstein, the owner of WTC7, was interviewed. In the video he says:
- "I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse."
The expression could simply refer to the decision to pull firefighting operations out of the building. However, some people interpret this to mean that it was a controlled explosive demolition prepared while the building was ablaze, or that had been prepared for months beforehand and was still intact after many hours of fire. Those who find neither latter scenario remotely likely point out that the similarity in the collapsing process of 7 WTC demonstrates that no prepared explosives were needed for the Twin Towers to collapse in the same way.
The FEMA report on the WTC collapse says:
- "The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence. Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue."
2005
The second building, a rebuilt replacement for the original, began construction in early 2002 and is to be complete by the end of 2005. The building will be 52 floors but with a narrower footprint at ground level than its predecessor as the course of Greenwich Street will be restored. The architect was David Childs of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. This building is not included in the World Trade Center master plan by Daniel Libeskind and thus does not share the new architectural design of the rest of the site.
See also
External links
- Wired New York 7 World Trade Center (http://www.wirednewyork.com/wtc/7wtc/default.htm)