City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Eric Lipton (Author) "The phone rang at 7 A.M. in the four-story, red-brick town house on East Sixty-fifth Street where David Rockefeller was just finishing up his breakfast..." (more)
Key Phrases: trade center steel, trade center job, trade center project, Port Authority, New York, World Trade Center (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This is not a book only about September 11; the towers' collapse begins on number 236 of 337 pages of narrative text. New York Times reporters Glanz (science) and Lipton (metropolitan news) instead deliver a thoroughly absorbing account of how the World Trade Center developed from an embryonic 1939 World's Fair building to "a city in the sky, the likes of which the planet had never seen." In this lively page-turner, intensively researched and meticulously documented, a world of international trade, business history, litigation, architecture, engineering and forensics comes clear-a political and financial melodrama with more wheeling and dealing than Dallas, touched lightly with the comedic and haunted by tragedy. The authors move a Robert Altman-sized cast (engineers, architects, iron workers, builders, demolitionists, lawyers, mobsters, mayors, mathematicians, critics, activists, real estate dealers, biochemists, union organizers, an aerialist, an arsonist) through the design, construction, destruction and memorializing. Faceless entities like the Port Authority acquire names, personal histories and diverse agendas. Bureaucratic reports and public hearings, reduced with clarity and balance, become comprehensible, even readable. The authors are remarkably skilled at telling all without telling too much: a "deadening" 44-page speech by Port Authority official Austin Tobin gets short shrift but a fair account. Their descriptions of new technologies (e.g., "artificial creakiness"), fresh experiments (particularly in wind engineering), complicated financial maneuverings and secret studies become clear to the non-specialist reader. While some superlatives might have been avoided ("the biggest and brashest icons that New York ever produced," etc.), Glanz and Lipton tell this compelling story without becoming overwrought, and with graphs and charts (and 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW) that contribute immensely to understanding the logistical and technical aspects of the project. This book may be the definitive popular account of the towers.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* New York Times reporters Glanz (science) and Lipton (metropolitan news) briskly and lucidly tell the entire wrenching story of the genesis and destruction of the World Trade Center, once a testament to capitalistic ambition and technical innovation, now a monument to hubris, apocalyptic hate, and the suffering of innocents. The authors begin with engrossing profiles of the men who dreamed up the World Trade Center 40 years ago, most notably David Rockefeller, the Port Authority's feisty Guy Tozzoli, and Japanese American architect Minoru Yamasaki, who was afraid of heights and had never built a skyscraper before. Drawing on fresh and extensive research, Glanz and Lipton chart the contentious and irresponsible design process in which untested structural technologies were deemed safe over the objections of a prescient few who worried about fire and airplane collisions. The authors' highly detailed yet always human and dramatic chronicling of the towers' unprecedented construction, as well as unique insights into how the controversial twin towers finally won the affection of skeptical New Yorkers only to come under siege--first by an arsonist-janitor, then by terrorist bombers in 1993, and, finally, by those who brought them down on that unforgettable September 11--is both fascinating and tragic, encompassing, as it does, the best and worst of human ingenuity. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Times Books; 1st edition (November 12, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805074287
• ISBN-13: 978-0805074284
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #205,923 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best of the bunch, August 5, 2004

By	Rocco Dormarunno (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

As a child, I watched the World Trade Center go up. As an adult, I had been through the Center thousands of times and ate many a lunch in the plaza between the two beautiful towers. Although I worked only three blocks north of the WTC, I was nowhere near them on 9/11, and thank God for that. I don't think I could have been able to bear witnessing their destruction.

To fill the void, I began reading everything about the World Trade Center that I could. Eric Darton's book, "Divided We Stand", published before 9/11, was okay but I found the second-person narration and its choppy presentation too distracting. Several other books were published after the devestation, but they all seemed like rush jobs trying to cash in on the disaster. However, "City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center" by James Glanz and Eric Lipton is by far the best of the bunch. Meticulously researched without being too scholarly, the authors present a biography of the center that was filled with controversy, behind-closed-doors intrigues, political wrestling and, ultimately, the construction and engineering marvels that allowed the towers to rise. The pacing is remarkably swift but nothing is glossed over. The final quarter of the book is about 9/11 and afterward. I began this section with dread and was tempted not to read it at all. Fortunately, Glanz and Lipton handled it with incredible sensitivity.

"City in the Sky", like the towers themselves, is a remarkable collaboration: the narrative is seamless--like Burrows and Wallace's "Gotham". And, ultimately, this book is a lively and poignant tribute to the World Trade Center they must have loved.

Rocco Dormarunno,
author of "The Five Points"

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The saga of the WTC from its initial conception in 1939, May 21, 2004

By	Paul Tognetti "The real world is so much more... (Cranston, RI USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

It is all right here. From the germ of the idea at the 1939 New York World's Fair to the design and planning of a project unlike any other in the history of mankind to the cataclysmic events of September 11, 2001. New York Times reporters James Glanz and Eric Lipton have pieced together the complete history that needed to be told. "City In The Sky" is the remarkable story of how the World Trade Center came to be. It is a riveting tale from start to finish. Learn about those who first envisioned this project way back in the late 1940's and of the considerable role politics would play in this saga over the ensuing decades. You will be introduced to Lawrence A. Wien, owner of the Empire State Building, who fought this project tooth and nail. And you'll meet one Oscar Nadel, owner of a small appliance business that would be displaced by the World Trade Center. Put yourself in his shoes and in the shoes of hundreds of other small business people who were to be evicted in the wake of this massive project.
Glanz and Lipton also devote a considerable amount of time to the struggle between the City of New York and the New York and New Jersey Port Authority for control of this enormous project.
You will learn why the WTC was located where it was and
about all of the people who made this concept a reality from the visionary David Rockerfeller to the unconventional architect Minoru Yamasaki to powerful Port Authority chairman Austin Tobin. And of course, you will read once again of the tragic events of 9/11 and see how decisions made decades earlier may have helped decide who would live and who would die on that fateful day. Were corners cut during construction? Was the fireproofing used adequate? And were the consequences of an airliner crashing into the Twin Towers ever seriously considered? So many questions. This is an important book that helps you to unravel some of the complex issues here.
Recommended.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent history of the WTC...., May 10, 2004

By	James F. Anderson III (Hudson, WI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is an excellent history of the World Trade Center towers, from their conception in the early 1960's to their eventual destruction on 9/11/2001. This book avoids many of the political biases generally associated with this subject, and instead simply tells the story. Surprsingly, the book is a quick read, much like a novel. Highly recommended!