[Leica] Re: Twin Towers collapse

[lrzeitlin at optonline.net (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

I hate to continue this topic, but I probably have more familiarity  
with the internal NY Port Authority politics than most LUG members,  
and I participated, although in a miniscule way, in some of the  
decisions that probably led to the collapse of the towers.

In the late 50s the Port of New York Authority (PONYA), the agency  
controlling all the marine terminals, bridges and airports in New  
York City and the adjacent portions of New Jersey, determined that  
one out of every four jobs in the NYC area was, in some way,  
connected with the import, export and distribution of products  
through one of PONYA's facilities. In those pre-Internet days,  
communication between companies was largely by phone or snail mail.  
Wouldn't it be nice if everyone involved had offices in the same  
large building complex? And so the idea of the World Trade Center was  
born. But by the time the plans had been firmed up, the computer and  
Internet revolution was in full swing and the idea of a centralized  
import-export-distribution center was obsolete. However, New York's  
politicians and labor unions saw many jobs and votes in the  
construction and pushed the project forward, despite opposition from  
the surrounding community. Further, Austin Tobin, then Director of  
the Port Authority (and a very short man) wanted to leave the tallest  
building(s) in the world as a memorial of his regime. He sweetened  
the construction pie by offering to move most of PONYA's operations  
to the new building, although it's offices in existing buildings were  
perfectly satisfactory. In short, the World Trade Center was not  
necessary but went ahead anyway.

The following is a letter of mine that was published in the Op Ed  
section of the New York Times shortly after the collapse. A copy  
containing greater documentation and some of my personal records went  
to the FBI.

"The article in the Science Times of December 4, 2001 offered several  
explanaions for why the World Trade Center collapsed so unexpectedly  
after the terrorist attack on September 11. I have another  
explanation. It is not a scientific analysis but is based on my  
memory of events that happened nearly 40 years ago.

 From 1964 through 1968 I was a consultant to the Organization and  
Procedures department of the Port of New York Authority. O&P had the  
task of maximizing the utilization of the 13 floors of the WTC that  
the Port Authority was taking for its own offices.

After experimenting with a number of floor layouts mocked up in a  
large existing office building, O&P decided upon an "Open Landscape"  
office configuration with desks arranged according to work flow,  
separated by only low partitions to break up visual sight lines. The  
"Open Landscape" concept originated in Germany after WW2 when it was  
necessary to get the economy started as soon as possible. The term  
"Landscape" comes form the fact that many large potted plants were  
dispersed through the office to enhance the otherwise austere  
esthetics. The absence of walls and corridors in this configuration  
permitted 25% more people to work effectively in a given space. It  
also facilitated lighting and air conditioning and was cheaper to  
maintain. The O&P studies showed that both productivity and morale  
was higher. Acoustic privacy was assured by allowing normal offices  
noises to build to a speech masking level. The concept required about  
10,000 square feet of open space per floor. The "Open Landscape" idea  
was adopted for PONYA offices in the WTC. Further, it was highly  
recommended to tenants as a cost saving measure and most of them  
followed the recommendation.

The WTC towers were suited to the "Open Landscape" configuration. The  
floors of the WTC with their periphery of closely spaced but  
relatively thin structural girders and a central service core  
provided large open spaces with few interior walls or partitions.  
Concrete covered corrugated steel floors tied each tower's structure  
together.

In 1967 while the buildings were going up, Wesley Hurley, then Chief  
Engineer of the Port Authority and a personal friend confided to me  
that tests run by his department showed that much of the concrete  
being used to construct the twin towers had failed strength tests and  
clearly was of substandard quality. He felt that the buildings would  
not be able to meet their structural objective of withstanding a 200  
year storm. My wife was a witness to the entire conversation. I have  
no direct evidence to support Hurley's contention but a search of the  
archival records, if they still exist, might support his claim. I  
suspect, however that most of the records were lost in the collapse  
of the towers. In the years that I had known him, both before and  
after my association with PONYA, I found him to be a man of great  
professional honor and integrity.

Hurley had a both a personal and a moral dilemma. He was near  
retirement and any complaint would cause a firestorm of criticism  
because Austin Tobin was anxious to get the buildings erected before  
his own retirement. Hurley kept quiet and left the Port Authority as  
soon as he was eligible. I had lunch with him a few times in the Port  
Authority executive dining room in the WTC before he retired and he  
said that he always felt uneasy going to his office when violent  
storms were expected to strike the city. A suicidal aircraft impact  
was never considered. In hindsight, it probably should have been. The  
9/11 attack has an uncanny resemblance to the opening chapters of Tom  
Clancy's novel, "Executive Decision" when a revenge seeking terrorist  
crashed a fully fueled 747 into a joint session of Congress

Judging from the images shown on television, both planes penetrated  
the building without being significantly impeded by the building  
walls or by any internal structure. Because of our "Open Landscape"  
design recommendations, large office spaces had few floor to ceiling  
partitions to slow the spreading of fire. If the concrete in the  
floors was of substandard quality as Hurley feared, floors and  
columns would have given way quickly as the steel weakened from the  
heat. The sudden buckling of both towers shows Hurley may have been  
right.

Anyway, the point is moot now. The buildings are gone and most of the  
people who were involved in their design and construction are dead.  
It's too bad that they weren't more strongly built - it would have  
saved the lives of nearly 3000 office workers and several hundred  
brave firemen who entered the buildings fully expecting them to  
stand. A lesson to be learned is that public authorities should  
exercise more stringent oversight on building design and  
construction, especially when architects push the limits of the  
envelope."


Lawrence Zeitlin
Professor Emeritus - Graduate Center
City University of New York