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Essay on Structure and Meltdown of the WTC
The World Trade Center was conceived in the early 1960s by the Downtown-Lower Manhattan Development Association to revitalize the seedy “radio row” dominated by electronic stores. Chase Manhattan Bank chairman David Rockefeller, founder of the developme nt association, and his brother, New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, pushed hard for the project, insisting it would benefit the entire city. In 1962, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey began plans to build the center.
Minoru Yamasaki and Associates of Michigan was hired as architect. Eventually, Yamasaki decided on two huge towers. Critics charged that a modern monolith would rob New York of character, ruin the skyline, disrupt television reception, and strain city services. However, the project was approved and construction began in 1966. In order to create the 16-acre World Trade Center site, five streets were closed off and 164 buildings were demolished. Construction required the excavation of more than 1.2 million cubic yards of earth, which was used to create 23.5 acres of land along the Hudson River in lower Manhattan. During peak construction periods, 3,500 people worked at the site. A total of 10,000 people worked on the towers; 60 died during its construction.
Prior to its destruction, the World Trade Center had been the world's largest commercial complex, home to many businesses, government agencies, and international trade organizations. Most prominent among its structures were the 110-story rectangular twin towers, one rising to 1,362 ft (415 m) and the other to 1,368 ft (417 m), with floors roughly an acre in size.Designed by Minoru Yamasaki and Emery Roth, the towers and concourse portion of the center were completed in 1973 at a cost of $750 million. For a brief period (until the completion of the Sears Tower in Chicago in 1974), the towers were the tallest buildings in the world. They remained the largest structures on the E seaboard of the United States, an internationally known landmark and tourist attraction rising high above the skyline of lower Manhattan........
