[Leica] Manhattan harbor - World Trade Center

[lrzeitlin at gmail.com (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

When she looked at the picture of Manhattan harbor showing the World Trade
Center in the background, my wife reminded me of an incident that occured
nearly 35 years ago. Wes Hurley, our neighbor, was Chief Engineer of the
Port Authority. Early in 1967 while the buildings were going up, he came to
our house, very agitated, looking for someone to talk to. He confided that
tests run by his department showed that some 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 objectives of withstanding a 200 year storm. He had a moral dilemma
since he was near retirement and any complaint would cause a firestorm of
criticism because his boss, Austin Tobin, then Director of the Port
Authority was anxious to get the buildings erected as soon as possible.
Anyway, Wes kept quiet and retired as soon as he was eligible. I had lunch
with him a few times in the Port Authority executive dining room before he
left and he said that he always felt uneasy going to his office in bad
weather and called in sick when violent storms were expected to strike the
city. The sudden buckling of both towers shows he may have been right.
- - - - -

>From the Wayback machine. Manhattan harbor small boat anchorage. Taken 1990
with a Leica IIIc, 5 cm. Elmar. I don't know what film was used but it is
quite grainy. Certainly not Kodachrome.

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Manhattan+harbor_+1990.jpg.html

Larry Z