Customer Reviews

Twin Towers: The Life of New York City's World Trade Center

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I thought this book would have had more pictures of the construction of the towers and also some pictures of the finished towers. I wanted it as a keepsake since the Towers are now gone. however there are no pictures and only about 7 illustrations. (cross-sectional diagram, map of layout, etc)

It does contain an interesting background to the building of the Towers that is quite an interesting read.

Having worked at One World Trade from 1985-1987 and being a native New Yorker, I ordered this book thinking I would at least get a better understanding on the construction of the towers with photos to document the history. Unfortunately those photos do not exist in this book. There a few diagrams, but no photos worth while in the book. So if you're looking for a basic understanding and would like to see the building of the towers(via photos)and to see the "city within a city" that it was, this isn't the book.

As the Statue of Liberty is known around the world as the symbol of America and freedom, the Twin Towers are recognized around the world as the symbol of America and power. Angus Gillespie's "Twin Towers" sneaks the reader past security to see what it really took to create these modern day monuments to human greatness. The book also lets the reader peer through the eyes of the myriad of different people who work in the building, maintain the building, and even those who try to destroy the building. Simply fascinating!

This book was written in 1999 as pressure was mounting for the Port Authority to turn the WTC over to a private agency. The book was reissued shortly after September 11 as the only scholarly history of the WTC. It's a fascinating study of political pressures and engineering feats.

It's impossible to discuss the World Trade Center Towers without first understanding the New York/New Jersey Port Authority. Conceptually, it was unique when it was created in 1921. Authorities - quasi-governmental agencies that were authorized to build projects and then levy user fees to pay for them - had a long and well-established history in England. What made this new authority unique in 1921, when it was created to build the Holland Tunnel, was that it was granted a charter to build facilities, i.e., multiple projects.

The idea for the WTC was conceived during a period of relentless optimism [Kenney] but "completed during a period of national gloom and retreat [Vietnam, 1970's, and Nixon's collapse.]" There were political aspects, aside from the desire to build the world's tallest building, and there was always the pressure from New Jersey to reduce bridge and tunnel tolls. A new project that would use these surplus funds would help to relieve that pressure. It was a project that was lauded by the critics at first, then reviled, only to be resurrected in the minds of New Yorkers, but never as an architectural triumph. It had the misfortune to fall between two architectural periods: International Style, with massive amounts of glass, and Postmodern, which represented a return to the more colorful and decorative building facades. Its Japanese architect, Minoru Yamasaki, used unique aluminum curtain walls that had been dyed to reflect light in unusual ways. The floor-to-ceiling windows were smaller, about the width of a large man, and set back from the curtain. This reduced heating and cooling expenses and eliminated the sense of vertigo that plagued other skyscrapers that had office space right up to the edge of the window, a more floor-efficient design. Yamasaki went through eighty iterations of the design, sometimes using three or four towers, but eventually settling on two. The spacing between them became critical because if placed too close together the winds sweeping down could create sympathetic vibrations in the buildings, destroying their integrity, i.e., a euphemism for causing them to fall down.

The engineering was incredible, and the building could not have been built without technologies developed in other countries. The "Kangaroo" cranes that hoisted themselves up the elevator shafts were developed in Australia. Nothing like them was available in the United States. They were needed to raise the very heavy steel columns that were the load- bearing walls, another unique design feature of the buildings, and the floors. It was initially thought that only U.S. Steel or Bethlehem Steel, the two largest steel companies in the United States, would be able to supply the enormous quantity of steel needed - the drawings for the steel construction weighed over 650 pounds - and Andrew Tobin, the Port Authority's director, thought that by involving them early in the design stage he would get a reasonable bid from them. Not so, and Tobin was so angry with their overbidding, which bore suspicions of collusion - a later investigation revealed no evidence of that - that he contracted portions of the steel to smaller companies, thereby saving over 30% of the anticipated costs. Going to different companies and subcontracting and bidding for smaller lots was to become the industry standard because of the cost savings.

Because the building was so close to the river and excavation for the huge buildings had to go deep down to hit bedrock (enough soil and material was excavated to create Battery Park, an eighteen-acre site that extended Manhattan Island an extra 700 feet into the river and creating additional real estate worth [$]), some method to keep the water out was needed that would not affect the adjacent structures. A slurry method imported from Italy permitted concrete and steel reinforcement for the huge "bathtub" that kept the water out. Slurry containing betonite clay was pumped in as the trenches were dug and then pumped out as concrete and rebar were placed to create the final walls.

The effect of sway on humans had to be tested. The buildings had to be flexible; any degree of stiffness could be built in, but it could not be changed after the building was complete. At its top the Empire State Building sways three inches in a one hundred-mile-per-hour wind. Swaying rooms were built to test people's reactions. Psychologists found that people would tolerate up to eleven inches of slow sway. That represented winds of 140 miles per hour, wind speeds that had never occurred in New York. The building was designed to withstand much higher gusts than that.

Wind can cause other problems. On a gusty day, the buildings twisted and moved so much that the freight elevators could not be used. They were the only elevators to go all the way to the top - all the others had shorter runs to assorted lobbies where commuters changed cars - and the 1350-foot cables would slap around too much. Everything had to be inspected daily. The elevators made 450,000 "movements" (one person on one trip) per day.

The Port Authority has its own police force, and forty-two officers were assigned to the WTC buildings. It is a unique force in that the officers have bi-state authority, the only police force in the country to have such authority. In fact, their jurisdiction lies in a circle with a twenty-five mile radius from the Statue of Liberty.

It's impossible to recount all the riveting (not a pun, since no rivets were used) details of the gargantuan buildings. It's a fascinating story of a building, and, aside from the enormous human tragedies of September 11, it was a great engineering loss as well.

This is a serious history of the conception and creation of not only the building, but the idea behind the building, the politics behind it, and the actual intellectual processes involved.
A very enganging read. Probably does not bode well for a rebuilding of the towers however, as many thought the buildings should not have been built in the first place.
The chapter on the actual working of the building was far too short for me, perhaps the author will go back to his notes, which he states are extensive, and give us a posthumous account of all the great stories people told about the building (of which only two or three are included).
Don't buy the book if you're looking for pictures, just a few diagrams and such are included.

I don't know what the authors were thinking, but to write a book like this, which will no doubt be in HUGE demand now, and not put photographs inside, is clearly not wise. If it were not for the awesome cover shot of these steel phantoms, we would not have even a glimpse inside of the beauty that once was before September 11, 2001. Having lived in New York City all my life, I witnessed these towers crumble, and I can't get my hands on enough stuff even remotely related to them, this is why I ordered this book. However, this is wonderful to read -- not to look through. Informative and well written, it certainly includes thorough coverage.

I picked up this book after the attacks of September 11th to find out more about the buildings that I had often seen in the distance, but had never known much about. I had never been in the World Trade Center, never visited the observation deck, nor eaten at Windows on the World. I found this book very helpful in providing much information about who built it, and how. It also gives a good perspective on what it was like to work in the building.

And it is with that perspective that I recommend this book to others. Not anticipating the sudden and tragic demise of the towers when it was written 1n 1999, the book celebrates the life of the World Trade Center. The last part focuses on the day-to-day lives of the people of the towers and can be especially hard to read after the staggering loss of life on the day the buildings collapsed. I don't think I could read this book right now if the towers were a part of my life before that tragic day. So for the many people for whom the World Trade Center before September 11th was just a recognizable part of the New York skyline, and are interested in learning more about it now that it has so suddenly and completely been destroyed, this is a good book to read. For those whose lives were tied to the buildings in some way, this book may be too close, like a letter from a battlefield soldier that arrives after his or her death.

The book starts out with the background of the organization that planned and built the World Trade Center, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. This is a fascinating story in itself about the growth of a small interstate agency that started its life connecting New York and New Jersey with bridges and tunnels and went on to build the tallest and largest buildings in the area. The author goes on to tell how the Port Authority devised the project, chose an architect, fought all the criticism, and persevered to build the two tallest buildings in the world at that time.

Conceived in the early 1960s, started in 1966, with opening ceremonies in 1973, the World Trade Center was built in a period of great political unrest when many social values were being reexamined. The buildings were subject to a lot of criticism as the values of society were being called into question. The author tells the story of how the architectural world reacted to the towers, but also how the people came to accept the towers as a symbol of New York.

The book is illustrated by seven charcoal drawings by Becky Glyn and by illustrations provided by the Port Authority. Ms. Glyn's drawings are simple and expressive at the same time, but only two are of the World Trade Center towers, and all are reduced to a small 2"x3" format. More illustrative are the stock illustrations the Port Authority provided the author, including the great photo that graces the dust cover. There is a good index and good footnotes. The sources in the footnotes show that there was a lot of research behind the book, including many interviews with the people involved. Many books full of glossy color photos about the World Trade Center will come out after September 11, 2001, but this is the book about the life of New York City's World Trade Center. In that sense, it is a fitting memorial to those who lost their lives in the WTC that tragic day.

It's certainly possible to write a brilliant, riveting book that looks in depth at the design, construction, operation, and cultural significance of a major civil engineering project. I know it's possible, because Angus Kress Gillespie (along with a co-author whose name escapes me) has already written one about the New Jersey Turnpike. The Turnpike Book was brilliant, but _Twin Towers_ is no more than good. It covers its intended subjects with clarity and precision, but (unlike the Turnpike book), I was never particularly driven to push on to the next section.

Partly, I think, the problem is familiarity. Most of us are a lot less familiar with the history and inner workings of a major highway than with the inner workings of a major skyscraper. There's something fascinating about listening to an expert explain, layer by layer, the hidden mysteries of some overly familiar piece of the everyday world. It's harder to do that with the World Trade Center because--to some extent--we *do* know about very tall buildings and what they're like.

Part of the problem, too, may be a basic difference of opinion between Gillespie and I. He clearly thinks that the WTC is a beautiful structure, and one that the architectural establishment (which hates it) hasn't given a fair shake. I'm not an architect, but I never liked it much either. Despite his best efforts, I *still* don't like it that much, and by about halfway through the book, his praise of it was beginning to wear thin.

Gillespie is a clear and graceful writer (if only he could stop saying "as we shall see" so often he'd be even better), and he makes the complex comprehensible. If the idea of a book about the inner workings of one of the world's tallest buildings intrigues you, then _Twin Towers_ is well worth checking out.

With nothing to go on but the cover picture (the reviews have all been published since I ordered the book) I was expecting a photo record of how the WTC was built and images at various stages. This is not the case and although the book contains a lot of well-written and interesting information, there is not a single photograph at any stage of construction. I was therefore very disappointed. A picture really is worth a thousand words and the few sketches that there are, simply do not begin to portray the majesty that was the WTC.

I visited the towers of the WTC in Feb 2000 and was amazed by them (from an engineering perspective) so I went out and bought this book.

While it contains a bunch of interesting and sometimes amusing anecdotes, it is totally uncritical of every aspect of the project: from the architecture (which many New Yorkers and most architecture critics despise because of its arrogant dominance of the varied and otherwise impressive downtown skyline) to the politics behind its construction (which Gillespie presents both as a neutral exercise in town-planning and as 'one man's heroic struggle to realise his dream', neglecting a substantial analysis of the politics of property speculation).

A suprisingly unscholarly work for a professional academic, testament more to the author's evident love of the building than anything else. (The final chapter, "a day in the life", is laughable: a children's story).

I would suggest you take a look at "Divided We Stand", whose blurb looks more promising. Or Mike Davis' "City of Quartz" (about LA), which is phenomenal.