If this film doesn’t convince you that 9/11 was an inside job then probably nothing will.
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Pressing for the Truth on 9/11
The New American
William F. Jasper
12/25/2006
Excerpt:
9/11 Press for Truth effectively presents some of the most glaring discrepancies, lies, and coverups concerning the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil.
Henry Kissinger “nearly fell off the couch.” He spilled his coffee on himself. He was visibly shaken. The next day he announced that he was stepping down as chairman of the 9/11 Commission, the post to which President Bush had named him a couple of weeks earlier. What had caused the always poised and famously unflappable “Dr. K” to come unhinged? Why the abrupt resignation from the chairmanship he had so recently accepted amidst such fanfare?
The day before his resignation, Dr. Kissinger invited a small group of 9/11 family members to the New York office of Kissinger Associates, the premier global consulting service to presidents, princes, potentates, and corporate executives. The date was December 12, 2002. Kissinger, no doubt, expected them to be putty in his hands. After all, he is the fabled, gravelly voiced eminence who has strode across the world stage for the better part of half a century. Wars, revolutions, financial panics, political scandals, and economic crises — he has come through them all, not only unscathed but almost apotheosized to demigod status.
But the ever calm and supremely confident diplomat was unnerved when Laurie Van Auken, whose husband was killed in the World Trade Center, said the families wanted him to disclose his client list to assure there was no conflict of interest. She asked if there were any Saudis among his clients and if any were members of the bin Laden family.
Kristen Breitweiser, another 9/11 widow who was there, gives this account of the meeting: “Kissinger told us to trust him. We told him we couldn’t…. Kissinger seemed stunned…. He didn’t understand the fuss about his client list — they were all reputable people, he said. Kissinger seemed stricken and became unsteady. In reaching for his cup of coffee he bobbled, knocked the pot, spilled his own cup and nearly fell off the couch.”
After their hard-fought campaign to get an independent investigation, the 9/11 families were understandably alarmed when President Bush announced the appointment of Kissinger, a longtime adviser and mentor to President Bush (not to mention Bush Sr., Richard Nixon, David and Nelson Rockefeller, et al.). In reporting on the nomination, the New York Times (part of Kissinger’s media fan club) noted that Kissinger is the “consummate Washington insider,” and wondered if his selection “is not a clever maneuver by the White House to contain an investigation it long opposed.” Of course it was a containment maneuver, though, as events have shown, it was not quite “clever” enough.
The Kissinger-9/11 story and many other important stories related to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 — and the subsequent official investigations and coverups — are grippingly told in the important video documentary, 9/11 Press for Truth. Though it does not provide all the answers, this brave quest for justice by 9/11 families and independent researchers does at least ask many of the right questions — very pointed questions that most Americans have forgotten, or likely never even heard of amongst the incessant coverage related to 9/11 and its aftermath. 9/11 Press for Truth is a well-crafted exposé that will be an eye-popper to many Americans who still believe that the 9/11 Commission Report issued in 2004 represents the culmination of an exhaustive, good-faith effort by federal authorities to get to the bottom of what went wrong and how it was that this devastating attack so easily overcame our nation’s defenses.
9/11 Press for Truth centers around four widows who lost their husbands in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. These four women — Laurie Van Auken, Patricia Casazza, Mindy Kleinberg, and Kristen Breitweiser — have come to be known as “the Jersey Girls.” As months dragged on after the attacks and it became more and more apparent that the official “investigation” was turning into stonewalling and coverup, this quartet came together with other grieving survivors to build public pressure for a genuine investigation.
The documentary begins by telling the story through the eyes and voices of these determined wives and mothers who refuse to be bullied or cajoled into silence or tricked into accepting half-truths and lies for answers. Friends and relatives, as well as government officials, told them to just “let it go,” to just grieve and heal and get on with their lives. But as Patricia Casazza says in the video, “We were looking for answers.” Finding answers to some of their very troubling questions was an essential prerequisite for real healing.
Many of the families had been compiling notebooks, computer archives, and recorded videos of news stories and official statements. They were confused and angered by the steady stream of conflicting, contradictory statements of government officials and the adamant opposition of the Bush White House to an independent investigation. They were equally outraged by the complicity of the major media in willingly propagating the government’s ever shifting “Party line” on so many troubling aspects of 9/11. They were also exasperated by the way in which the government — aided and abetted by the media — fragmented and effectively hid so many of the 9/11 facts and documents even when they did finally release them by dribbling them out here and there amidst an avalanche of other stories.
The Jersey Girls and their fellow 9/11 family members got a big boost when they discovered Paul Thompson’s “Complete 911 Timeline,” an easily accessible online source where thousands of media stories and public source documents have been compiled and collated. In most cases, the original source can be accessed through a URL web link. As anyone who’s made a serious attempt to sort through the labyrinth of 9/11 stories (this writer included) can tell you, Thompson’s timeline is an indispensable research tool.
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View the complete article at:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/7346-pressing-for-the-truth-on-9-11
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9/11 Press for Truth (2006) Full Length Video
Ron Paul Believes Bush Admin. Had Advance Knowledge of 9/11 Attacks
The New American
Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.
9/6/2014
Excerpt:
What was on the 18- and-a-half minutes of tape erased by the Nixon White House? We’ll likely never know.
While theories and speculation about the content of that lost material still resonate, particularly in alcoves of the Internet, there is one contemporary puzzle that is beginning to attract the attention of lawmakers and citizens.
From the day of its release in 2002, 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 2001 — commonly referred to as the 9/11 Commission Report — have remained classified.
Not only is the content of those pages being kept hidden, but so is the reason for their continuing classification.
Although the public is prohibited from learning the content of the redacted portion of the report, a handful of lawmakers have looked through the protected pages and believe it is time to make Americans aware of what’s contained therein.
In an interview with former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul recorded on August 14, Representative Walter Jones (R-N.C.) gave Paul a glimpse into the procedure he (Jones) had to follow to read the redacted section.
You have to go down into a room that is guarded by uniformed officers, and then also you have an FBI person to sit there in the room. You can’t make any notes. The Bush people do not want it released. It’s not a national security issue. But it would be embarrassing to the previous administration if this information is opened for the public…. There will be no hope for America’s future if the American people don’t know the truth about a tragedy such as 9/11.
In December 2013, Representative Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) reported on his own experience with the document:
Twelve years after the horrific September 11 attacks, unanswered questions still remain. These pages contain information that is vital to a full understanding of the events and circumstances surrounding this tragedy. The families of the victims and the American people deserve better; they deserve answers, they deserve a full accounting, and that has not happened yet.
Ron Paul’s Voices of Liberty website published comments made by several other former and current legislators echoing the sentiments of Jones and Lynch.
Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) in a March 12, 2014 press conference with Congressman Jones and Congressman Lynch — “This is something the families deserve to know, this information. It’s been a decade — over a decade: 13 years — since this event happened. And we’ve had a narrative in the media and in the press and in the collective American conscience of what happened that day. But I don’t think it’s fully informed and it won’t be fully informed until everybody gets to see these 28 pages…. I had to stop every couple pages and just sort of absorb and try to rearrange my understanding of history for the past 13 years and the years leading up to that. It challenges you to rethink everything.”
Former Senator and Chairman of the Senate intelligence Committee Bob Graham (D-Fla.) in an interview with HuffPost Live in December 2013 — “This is not just a matter of something that happened a dozen years ago. This has real consequences today. It has real consequences in terms of justice. There are thousands of Americans who are victims of 9/11 who have been trying to secure justice through our federal court system and who have been largely blocked by our federal government through denying them access to information that would be necessary to successfully pursue their litigation and raising sovereign immunity on behalf of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
Former Congressman and Vice Chairman of the 9/11 Commission Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) in an interview with independent journalist Luke Rudowski in 2001 — “We do not claim in this report to have written the final truth.”
And former Congressman Hamilton on C-SPAN coverage of the 9/11 Commission Report 10th Anniversary on July 22, 2014 — “I am embarrassed that they are not declassified. We emphasized throughout transparency. And I assumed incorrectly that our records would be public — all of them, everything. And then when I learned that a number of the documents were classified and even redacted, I was surprised and disappointed. I want those documents declassified. I am embarrassed to be associated with a work product that is secret.”
To put pressure on the Obama administration to make the classified portion of the 9/11 report public, Representatives Jones, Lynch, Massie, and seven others are co-sponsoring a resolution to that end.
House Resolution 428 specifically requests that the president “declassify the 28-page section of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 2001,” declaring that “ the contents of the redacted pages are necessary for a full public understanding of the events and circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001, attacks upon the United States,” and “the families of the victims and the people of the United States deserve answers about the events and circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001, attacks upon the United States.”
To add to the pressure on the president, on his Voices of Liberty website Paul is calling for all Americans to upload a video of themselves explaining why they believe the redacted portion of the 9/11 should be released.
We are calling on you to make your voice heard. Record a short, simple video message of yourself saying: “I deserve to know the truth hidden in the 28 classified pages of the 9/11 report.”
Upload it to YouTube and share it on social media with the hashtag #Declassify, challenging others to do the same.
There is more to Paul’s push to completely declassify the document than just learning about the events after 9/11. In point of fact, in an interview with Charles Goyette, New York Times best-selling author and host of Money and Markets, the libertarian icon intimated that he believes the Bush administration had advance notice of the attacks.
“I believe that if we ever get the full truth [about 9/11], we’ll find out that our government had it in the records exactly what the plans were, or at least close to it,” said Paul, during the interview.
“Does that prove the fact that our president and others actually sat down and laid the plans and did this? I don’t think it does,” he added.
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View the complete article at:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/item/19066-ron-paul-believes-bush-admin-had-advance-knowledge-of-9-11-attacks
Wikipedia: The Terror Timeline
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terror_Timeline
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The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11–and America’s Response Paperback – September 7, 2004 – by Paul Thompson
Quote from the feature presentation:
IMO – The video, ‘9/11 – Anatomy of a Great Deception – Complete Version’ is a slick but remarkably sloppy presentation on the topic by David Hooper.
I REMAIN A SKEPTIC regarding the use of pre-planted ‘controlled demolition’ charges being used to bring down any of the three WTC buildings under discussion here, most especially the Twin Towers that were actually hit by planes. Those two buildings can easily be seen on video footage to be collapsing FROM THE TOP DOWN, a scenario not at all like CONTROLLED DEMOLITION would produce.
The Building #7 story is definitely more complicated, since it appears on video to have collapsed from the bottom up, into its own footprint, in a manner reminding one of controlled demolition.
However, consider the following excerpt from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_World_Trade_Center
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The following are just a few of the reasons I used the word ‘sloppy’ above for my opinion of David Hooper’s presentation:
— He repeatedly lumps his discussion of ALL THREE WTC BUILDINGS together when it’s obvious that the Building #7 scenario is completely different from those of the twin towers.
— He includes Jesse Ventura as some kind of building ‘demolition expert’ who says at about the 39:30 minute mark, something like ‘When I looked at the buildings and how they fell and the way that they fell, they couldn’t have come down without being assisted in some manner’.
— He includes a statement at about the 39:50 minute mark by William Rice, something like, ‘The only way that a building can accelerate is by having pre-engineered, precisely timed and placed explosives, in other words controlled demolition.’ (What? Is Newton’s calculation of normal ACCELERATION DUE TO GRAVITY no longer in fashion?)
— I strongly suspect that many of the, fire-surviving, high-rise buildings all over the world which he showed, had structural columns made of reinforced CONCRETE (non-melting) instead of steel. He certainly didn’t actually say the columns in all the buildings were made of steel. — A bit suspicious, I think!
— He repeatedly uses the term ‘molten metal’ which he implies means carbon steel (melting point 2600 – 2800 F). However, he fails to mention ALUMINUM (melting point only 1600 F), which is most certainly involved with with the Twin Towers attack, since the two very large planes involved were constructed of ALUMINUM ALLOY. In addition, there was likely a considerable amount of aluminum used in various non-structural locations in the building.
I will continue to believe the major ‘conspiracy’, if one can call it that, involved with the 9/11 tragedy remains with the attack being allowed to occur in the first place and the ‘controlled investigation’ and cover-up that subsequently occurred.
The whole 9/11/2001 tragedy (move along folks, trust us the WTC attack was a total surprise, nothing to see here, Saudi Sunni Muslim involvement, LIES and COVERUP) involving Bush II reminds me a little of the 11/4/2008 tragedy (move along folks, trust us he was born in Hawaii, nothing to see here, Saudi Sunni Muslim involvement, LIES and COVERUP) involving Obama II!
— Perhaps the same general category of ‘influential people’ in our government and the MSM were involved with both tragedies. Hmmmm!
the first 5 minutes are extremely important
Mark McDaniel wrote:
I agree! However, I think the segment regarding George W. Bush is inherently a bit weak and PASSIVE, due to the subject matter.
Even the video producer, David Hooper, introduces the segment with the phrase “The dog that didn’t bark”. That is, something DIDN’T happen in Florida on 9/11/2001 that MIGHT normally be expected to happen.
Sure — the Secret Service SHOULD HAVE whisked Mr. Bush away from the school much earlier than they did. This may indicate something very significant regarding what the President knew about the 9/11 attacks and when he knew it. — or it may have just been a poor judgement call on the part of the Secret Service. Hindsight is always 20/20.
To put things in perspective, compare the reaction of the Secret Service to the remotely-possible threat to Mr. Bush in a Florida school, very far from the attack location, back in 2001 to the recent very real threat to Mr. Obama in the WHITE HOUSE, and their absolutely pathetic response.
I would have been happier with Mr. Hooper if he had used the same video time to present, for example, the ‘failure of the fighter planes to do THEIR ASSIGNED TASK of intercepting and dealing appropriately with the highjacked aircraft before they were able to accomplish their mission and crash into the WTC buildings and Pentagon’. This, IMO, would have been a way to address the ‘advance (?) notice of the 9/11 attack topic’ in a more ACTIVE manner.
I detest the smell of obots in the morning.
Concrete on the Rise in City Building Projects
New York Sun
Joan Vollero, Special to the Sun
3/29/2007
Excerpt:
Everyone who sees the new world headquarters of Barry Diller’s IAC is likely to see something different. Architect Frank Gehry’s first structure on Manhattan’s West Side Highway could be said to resemble billowing sails or a pleated skirt, but the real sleight is concealed: It is concrete, not steel, that makes up the building’s backbone.
The American Mission to the United Nations building rising on First Avenue at 45th Street. Architects Gwathmey Siegel chose thick exterior walls made with reinforced concrete to protect from potential terrorist attacks.
The reinforced concrete slabs and tilted concrete columns were not part of the first blueprints. “It was originally designed by Gehry in steel,” the executive director of the New York Concrete Promotion Council, Carmine Attanasio, said. The group charged with boosting concrete’s presence in the city points to the IAC building as just one of several “conversions,” the industry’s term for buildings conceived in steel but that wind up with concrete in the finished product. Mr. Gehry changed his plans after an engineer, Vincent DeSimone of DeSimone Consulting Engineers, suggested he use concrete, Mr. Attanasio said.
Another such “conversion,” 505 Fifth Ave., peers over Bryant Park from across 42nd Street.
Ever since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, concrete’s presence in New York has been on the rise. Due to concrete’s fireproofing qualities, it is especially being used in elevators, stairways, and other means of exit. It is also being used to insulate steel beams. “One of the advantages of concrete is it is an inert material. It doesn’t combust,” an engineer who is a member of the NYCPC, Michael Mota, said. “It can withstand two to three hours of fire without really a lot of damage.”
Constructed after September 11, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations at 45th Street and First Avenue is one New York building that opted for concrete from the start. Architects Gwathmey Siegel purposely constructed thick exterior walls using reinforced concrete, because the material can withstand car bombs and chemical or even biological terrorist attacks.
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View the complete article, including photo, at:
http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/concrete-on-the-rise-in-city-building-projects/51455/
New Theory on World Trade Center Collapse Blames Explosive Chemical Reaction
Molten aluminum mixing with water could have ultimately brought the towers down
Popular Science
Clay Dillow
9/21/2011
Excerpt:
More than ten years after the fact, a scientists based at the Norwegian research institute SINTEF is proposing that a well-documented chemical reaction spelled the ultimate demise of the Twin Towers after the attacks of September 11, 2001. This isn’t another conspiracy theory, nor is it proven fact. But Christian Simensen theorizes that a mix of molten aluminum from the aircraft bodies mixed with water from the sprinkler systems could have catalyzed secondary blasts that brought the World Trade Center towers to the ground.
Simensen’s idea, presented at a materials technology conference in San Diego this week, is thus: after the planes impacted the WTC towers, tons of molten aluminum ran down into the floors below the impact sites, mingling with several hundred liters of water from the buildings’ fire sprinkler systems. This mix of aluminum and water is known to cause a chemical reaction that can not only boost temperatures but also put off combustible hydrogen in the process. Basically, it’s a recipe for a really hot explosion.
The official 9/11 report assigns blame for the collapsing towers to the steel structural beams at the building’s core. Basically, it says that these beams became super-heated by the jet fuel inferno created by the impacting aircraft, and that in turn caused the structures to fail.
But Simensen’s explanation is intriguing. It doesn’t dismiss the official report, but simply claims that it doesn’t tell the whole story. He says the aluminum industry has recorded more than 250 water-aluminum explosions since 1980, and that at one point aluminum maker Alcoa did an experiment involving just 44 pounds of molten aluminum and 20 liters of water (along with a small quantity of rust, which exacerbates the reaction). The resulting explosion destroyed the lab and left a 100-foot crater, he says.
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View the complete article, including photo, at:
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-09/new-theory-world-trade-center-collapse-blames-explosive-chemical-reaction
One World Trade Center, New York City
Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats
Written by Kenneth Lewis & Nicholas Holt, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill
Posted September 2011
Excerpt:
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The world knows what happened in Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. The twin towers of the World Trade Center and several other buildings were damaged or destroyed, and more than 3,000 people were killed. The ground smoldered for months. Rescue was replaced by recovery, which was followed by eight brutal months of removing thousands of tons of debris from what became known as Ground Zero. What most people do not realize is that reconstruction of the 6.5-hecatre (16-acre) site began soon after the cleanup, due to the fact that the initial work began underground and was therefore out of sight.
Now that buildings are emerging into the light of day, the ambitious redevelopment is clearly visible. One World Trade Center (1WTC), designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), is rising on the northwest corner of the site. The National September 11 Memorial is also under construction and will be completed by the 10th anniversary of the attacks in September 2011. The Port Authority is developing a major transportation hub. Silverstein Properties, the previous developer of 1WTC, is building three additional office towers for the site.
Even with all of these high-profile projects, 1WTC will dominate the site, not merely as New York City’s (and North America’s) tallest building, but as an icon representing perseverance, innovation, and urban modernism. While, in an era of supertall buildings, big numbers are the norm, the numbers at One World Trade are truly staggering: 5,660 cubic meters (200,000 cubic feet) of concrete, 92,920 square meters (one million square feet) of exterior glazing, 40,800 metric tons (45,000 US tons) of structural steel, and 241,550 square meters (2.6 million square feet) of office space. But the real story of One World Trade Center is the innovative solutions we sought for the unprecedented challenges we faced in building a project of this size on such a difficult site.
Site
The project team was confronted with unprecedented challenges. The site sits over a vast tangle of existing subterranean obstacles. The new tower must bridge existing PATH train tracks adjacent to existing subway tracks, as well as accommodate a planned network of new development. The new World Trade Center Transportation Hub alone will occupy 74,300 square meters (800,000 square feet) to serve 250,000 pedestrians a day.
The resulting underground challenges can be likened to a four-dimensional chess game. First of all, obstructions exist three dimensionally in overlapping planes at varying depths. Secondly, per the brief, PATH train service was to remain operational and existing structures had to be preserved throughout excavation and construction.
Bridging over the tracks was certainly an engineering challenge. “We used state-of-the-art methods of analysis in order to design one of the primary shear walls that extends all the way up the tower and is being transferred at its base to clear the PATH train lines that are crossing it,” explains Yoram Eilon, vice president at WSP Cantor Seinuk, the structural engineers for the project. “…we designed a steel structure that bridges over the tracks, which supported the wet concrete loads during construction and was eventually integrated into the permanent structure.”
Structural Design
The tower’s structure is designed around a massive, redundant steel moment frame consisting of beams and columns connected by a combination of welding and bolting. Two large Manitowoc cranes – the largest ever used in New York City – positioned the steel columns and nodes, the largest weighing as much as 72.5 metric tons (80 US tons). Paired with a massive concrete-core shear wall, the moment frame lends substantial rigidity and redundancy to the overall building structure while providing column-free interior spans for maximum flexibility.
1WTC is the first project in which 14,000 psi (pounds per square inch) concrete has been used in a New York City project. The standard for high-rise buildings in New York was maxed out at 8,000 psi. Since then, 12,000 psi has been used in numerous projects in the city.
The use of a hybrid system of high strength concrete core and structural steel moment frame at the tower perimeter results in an efficient structure. Additionally, the fact that the tower tapers as it rises coupled with the chamfered corners on the floor’s footprint forms an aerodynamic and structurally efficient shape. In New York City skyscraper design is governed by wind loads. The geometrical shape of the tower reduces exposure to such loads, as well as the amount of structural steel needed, and, thus, the demand on the lateral system of the tower. (bold emphasis added in the preceding two paragraphs)
Safety Design
Seven World Trade Center, the first rebuilt structure near Ground Zero, was completed in 2005. The 52-story, 226-meter (741-foot) tower provided us with an opportunity to enhance the original tower’s pure form with precision detailing. Simultaneously, we integrated the next generation of life-safety standards subtly into the infrastructure. The structure incorporates enhanced fireproofing for the structural steel that exceeds current codes. Its core is enclosed by up to three feet of reinforced concrete. There are dual interconnected fire standpipes and extra water storage to allow for high capacity sprinkler heads. If a standpipe is cut or broken, the interconnecting valve automatically cuts off water supply to that standpipe and redirects it to the other standpipe, ensuring that every other floor has sprinkler protection. – (bold emphasis added)
In addition to a concrete-enclosed core, the tower includes a protected tenant-collection point on each floor and a separate stairwell for first responders. From an architectural perspective, all of these features are integrated into the design without lessening efficiency or constructability. The building incorporates highly advanced state-of-the-art life-safety systems that exceed the requirements of the New York City Building Code and that will lead the way in developing new high-rise building standards.
While the building incorporates unprecedented security, the perception is one of openness and accessibility, which will be a humanizing element for the five million annual visitors expected when the adjacent park opens in 2013. Designed in collaboration with landscape architects Peter Walker and Partners, the collective vision is to connect the tower with nearby neighborhoods and allow views and access into the memorial.
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View the complete article, including photos, at:
http://www.ctbuh.org/TallBuildings/FeaturedTallBuildings/OneWorldTradeCenterNewYorkCity/tabid/2513/language/en-US/Default.aspx
A Look at the New One World Trade Center
The state-of-the-art future home of AD has claimed a prime place in the New York City skyline
Architectural Digest
Text by Robert Sullivan
September 2012
Excerpt:
Despite a decade of planning, the recent appearance of the new World Trade Center tower in the skyline of New York has been startling for many reasons, not the least of which being that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the maker of bridges and tunnels and a few large buildings on historically less controversial sites, has managed to complete its construction (almost). This is a big accomplishment, even if you set aside all of the extraordinary considerations of this particular site and just consider Hudson River politics: imagine trying to get the respective governors of New York and New Jersey to agree on wallpaper, much less the western hemisphere’s largest office building (3 million square feet, to be exact), which is connected to many of the city’s subway lines as well as the Port Authority’s own trans-Hudson railway, commonly known as PATH.
There have been several visions for One World Trade Center, as it is formally known, beginning with Daniel Libeskind’s master plan, in 2003, when it was still referred to as the Freedom Tower, and then a controversial redesign by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill—a redesign that for the most part survived yet another redesign, in 2005, after the New York Police Department weighed in and suggested the glass tower be further modified for safety. Since 2008 New Yorkers have seen an erector set–like spectacle when they look to the bottom of Manhattan Island: concrete follows the ascension of steel, at the pace of a floor a week.
But in these past few months, people in New York and nearby are at last getting a glimpse of what will be (by early 2014), and what is taking shape is a kind of classical obelisk, a monumental building. As little as five years ago, One World Trade Center was beginning to seem like a nearly $3.2 billion project to develop millions of square feet of office space that would not rent. (The Wall Street Journal reported in January that the tower and its escalating costs earned the distinction of being the world’s most expensive building.) Suddenly, though, 1 WTC is filling up. (Condé Nast, AD’s parent company, is renting 1.2 million square feet.) Thanks in part to the tax breaks offered post–9/11, lower Manhattan is hot, with new residential buildings, new parks, new restaurants. And it’s not just hot in real-estate terms—it’s also the neighborhood with the highest number of newborns in New York City.
Almost forgotten in the midst of all this is the fact that the building that has emerged is one of the safest, technologically advanced, and environmentally sensitive in the world. “It has a concrete core, with very thick concrete walls,” says Eduardo del Valle, a design consultant for the Port Authority, which took control of the project in 2006. (Del Valle has a personal connection to the building—his first job as an architect was in an office on the 86th floor in the old World Trade Center’s south tower.) The three-foot concrete slabs are designed to withstand high winds and earthquakes; there’s also a rocklike anchor, referred to as the building’s “podium,” constructed to withstand other things. “The podium has some hefty blast-resistant walls at the base,” says del Valle. There are state-of-the-art fire-suppression systems, specially protected elevators (70 in total), and a separate, dedicated stairway for fire and safety personnel. “I can tell you that it may not be the tallest building in the world, but it is certainly the safest,” says del Valle.
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View the complete article, including photos, at:
http://www.architecturaldigest.com/architecture/2012-09/one-world-trade-center-new-york-david-childs-article
What Are Steel Moment Frames?
Property Risk / ABS Consulting
Most modern high-rise buildings and many mid- and low-rise buildings rely on steel moment frames to resist lateral loads arising from winds or earthquakes. Lateral loads on a building caused by wind are externally applied and easy to visualize. Conversely, lateral loads from earthquakes result from internal inertial loads that develop as the ground, and therefore the building’s foundation, accelerates. This is similar to the force that a passenger standing on a bus feels when the bus accelerates. In the case of a building, inertial forces are primarily at the floor levels, where the weights are concentrated.
Steel moment frames consist of beams and columns joined by a combination of welding and bolting. They resist lateral loads through bending of the frame elements as illustrated in the top figure. In the case of wind loads and moderate earthquakes, steel frames designed using the current building code are intended to remain elastic. In other words, when the loading ceases, all of the steel beams and columns constituting the frame are expected to return to their original position without any permanent deformation.
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View the complete article, including diagrams, at:
http://www.propertyrisk.com/refcentr/steel-side.htm
extraditee plane to land here at Mombasa any moment.
warm welcome expected
Smith hasn’t posted or commented in two weeks.
Guess Kenya finally extradited him.
@ Bruce:
>>> BRUCE , THE MOST LIKELY SCENARIO AND CAUSE OF WORLD TRADE CENTER COLLAPSE IS DEMONSTRATED ON A RECENT POST . IT SHOWS DEEP DESTRUCTION OF THE GRANITE BELOW THE BUILDINGS AND MELTING OF THE GRANITE WHICH COULD ONLY BE POSSIBLE BY DETONATION OF A NUCLEAR DEVICE . GRANITE IS EXTREMELY HARD ROCK .
AT ANY RATE , SOMEBODY VERY EVIL WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DESTRUCTION , AND IT WAS NOT CAUSED BY AIRPLANES . WE ARE NOT BEING TOLD THE TUE STORY AND WE WILL NEVER KNOW .
THE VILLAGE IDIOT JOHN KERRY ADMITTED THAT BUILDING 7 WAS BROUGHT DOWN BY CONTROLLED DETONATION .
AN ENGINEER I KNOW , WHO IS ALSO A TOP RANK FIRE FIGHTER , WAS AT THE SITE OF W T C , AND COULD CERTAINLY SHED SOME LIGHT ON PROBABLE CAUSES , BUT I HAVE NOT SPOKEN WITH HIM SINCE THE EVENT.
Smith hasn’t posted an article or comment in the last month.
I hear Kenya is lovely this time of year.