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2 World Trade Center
The World Trade Center's South Tower (WTC2), pictured in summer of 2001
Alternative names	2 WTC South Tower WTC 2 Building B Building 2 Tower B Tower 2
General information
Status	Destroyed
Location	Liberty Street, New York, NY 10048, United States
Construction started	January 1969
Topped-out	July 19, 1971
Completed	1973
Opened	September 1971
Inaugurated	April 4, 1973
Destroyed	September 11, 2001, 9:59 a.m. Eastern Time Zone
Owner	Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Management	Silverstein Properties
Height
Roof	1,362 ft (415 m)
Observatory	1,377 ft (420 m)
Technical details
Floor count	110
Floor area	4,759,040 sq ft (442,129 m)
Lifts/elevators	99
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Minoru Yamasaki Emery Roth & Sons
Structural engineer	Leslie E. Robertson (Worthington, Skilling, Helle, and Jackson)

The original Two World Trade Center (also known as the South Tower, Tower 2, Building Two, or 2 WTC) was one of the Twin Towers in the original World Trade Center Complex in New York City. The Tower was completed and opened in 1973 at a height of 1,362 feet (415 m) to the roof, distinguishable from its twin, the North Tower (1 World Trade Center), by the absence of a television antenna. On the 107th floor of this building was a popular tourist attraction called "Top of the World Trade Center Observatories," and on the roof was an outdoor observation deck accessible to the public and a disused helipad at the center. The address of this building was 2 World Trade Center, with the WTC complex having its own ZIP code of 10048.

The South Tower was destroyed along with the North Tower in the September 11 attacks. At 9:03 a.m, seventeen minutes after its twin was hit, the South Tower was struck by United Airlines Flight 175. Although it was the second of the two skyscrapers to be hit by a hijacked airliner, it was the first to collapse, at 9:59 a.m., after burning for 56 minutes. Of the 2,977 victims killed in the attacks, around 1,000 were in the South Tower or on the ground.

The new 2 World Trade Center, which is currently on hold, is planned to have a diagonally-pointed roof, with no observation deck, and no mechanical floors. At the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the southern pool marks the spot where the South Tower stood.

History

Development

In 1961, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed to build the World Trade Center on the site of the Hudson Terminal in Lower Manhattan, New York City. On September 20, 1962, the Port Authority announced the selection of Minoru Yamasaki as lead architect and Emery Roth & Sons as associate architects. Yamasaki devised the plan to incorporate twin towers. His original plan called for the towers to be 80 stories tall, but to meet the Port Authority's requirement for 10,000,000 square feet (930,000 m) of office space, the buildings would each have to be 110 stories tall. Yamasaki's design for the World Trade Center, unveiled to the public on January 18, 1964, called for a square plan approximately 208 feet (63 m) in dimension on each side.

In March 1965, the Port Authority began acquiring property at the World Trade Center site. Demolition work began on March 21, 1966, and groundbreaking for the construction of the World Trade Center took place on August 5, 1966. In January 1967, the Port Authority awarded $74 million in contracts to various steel suppliers. Construction on the South Tower was under way by January 1969. The topping out ceremony for 2 WTC (the South Tower) occurred on July 19, 1971. The South Tower began accepting tenants in January 1972, and a ribbon cutting ceremony took place on April 4, 1973.

Operation

In 1981, the Port Authority announced a $45 million plan to install sprinklers throughout the World Trade Center, following a major fire that occurred at the North Tower in 1975.

On February 26, 1993, a Ryder truck filled with 1,500 pounds (680 kg) of explosives (planted by Ramzi Yousef) detonated in the North Tower's underground garage. According to a presiding judge, the conspirators' chief aim at the time of the attack was to destabilize the North Tower and send it crashing into the South Tower, toppling both skyscrapers. Six people were killed and 1,042 others were injured in the attacks.

In February 2001, the Port Authority leased the entire World Trade Center complex to Vornado Realty Trust. However, Vornado insisted on last minute changes to the deal, and the next-highest bidder, Silverstein Properties, signed a lease for the complex on July 24, 2001.

September 11 attacks

At 9:03 a.m. EDT on September 11, 2001, five terrorists crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the southern face of the South Tower. Three buildings in the World Trade Center complex, including 2 WTC, collapsed due to fire-induced structural failure. The light construction and hollow nature of the structures allowed the jet fuel to penetrate far inside the towers, igniting many large fires simultaneously over a wide area of the impacted floors. The fuel from the planes burned at most for a few minutes, but the contents of the buildings burned over the next hour to hour and a half.

The fires might not have been as centrally positioned, nor as intense, had traditionally heavy high-rise construction been standing in the way of the aircraft. Debris and fuel would likely have remained mostly outside the buildings or concentrated in more peripheral areas away from the building cores, which would then not have become unique failure points. In this scenario, the towers might have stood far longer, perhaps indefinitely. The fires were hot enough to weaken the columns and cause floors to sag, pulling perimeter columns inward and reducing their ability to support the mass of the building above. The South Tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. after burning for 56 minutes in the fire caused by the impact of United Airlines Flight 175 and the explosion of its fuel.

Architecture

Minoru Yamasaki was the lead architect for the tower, and Emery Roth & Sons were the associate architects. During the World Trade Center's construction, the structural engineers ended up following draft versions of New York City's 1968 building codes, which incorporated "advanced techniques" in building design. The Twin Towers used a tube-frame design, which required 40 percent less structural steel than conventional building designs. The structures were inspired by the architectural ethic of Le Corbusier and was the seminal expression of Yamasaki's gothic modernist tendencies. Yamasaki was also inspired by Islamic architecture, elements of which he incorporated in the buildings' design, having previously designed Saudi Arabia's Dhahran International Airport with the Saudi Binladin Group.

When completed in 1973, the South Tower became the second tallest building in the world at 1,362 feet (415 m), behind the North Tower. Its rooftop observation deck was 1,362 ft (415 m) high and its indoor observation deck was 1,310 ft (400 m) high. Each tower stood over 1,350 feet (410 m) high, and occupied about 1 acre (4,000 m) of the total 16 acres (65,000 m) of the site's land.

Facade

The Twin Towers' facades were made of high-strength, load-bearing perimeter steel columns which acted as Vierendeel trusses. Although the columns themselves were lightweight, they were spaced closely together, forming a strong, rigid wall structure. There were 59 perimeter columns, narrowly spaced, on each side of the building. In all, the perimeter walls measured 210 feet (64 m) long on each side, and the corners were beveled.. The perimeter structure was constructed of prefabricated modular pieces connected by spandrel plates. From the 7th floor to the ground level, and down to the foundation, the columns were spaced 10 feet (3.0 m) apart to accommodate doorways. All columns were placed on bedrock 65–85 feet (20–26 m) below the surface.

Structural features

The building's core housed the elevator and utility shafts, restrooms, three stairwells, and other support spaces. The core of each tower was a rectangular area 87 by 135 feet (27 by 41 m), and contained 47 steel columns running from the bedrock to the top of the tower. The South Tower's structural core was oriented with the long axis north to south. The core columns supported about half the towers' weight. All elevators were located in the core. Each building had three stairwells, also in the core, except on the mechanical floors. The large, column-free space between the perimeter and core was bridged by prefabricated floor trusses, which connected to the perimeter columns.

Hat trusses (or "outrigger truss") located from the 107th floor to the top of the North and South towers were designed to support a tall communication antenna on top of each building. The South Tower never had an antenna fitted. The framed-tube design using steel core and perimeter columns protected with sprayed-on fire resistant material created a relatively lightweight structure that would sway more in response to the wind. In designing the World Trade Center, Leslie Robertson considered the scenario of the impact of a jet airliner crashing into the building. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) found a three-page white paper that mentioned another aircraft impact analysis, involving impact of a jet at 600 mph (970 km/h), was indeed considered, but NIST could not locate the documentary evidence of the aircraft impact analysis.

Sprayed-fire resistant materials (SFRMs), gypsum wallboard, and vermiculite were used to provide fireproofing to the interiors. More fireproofing was added after a fire in February 1975, but after the 1993 bombing, inspections found fireproofing to be deficient. The 1968 New York City building codes did not require sprinklers for high-rise buildings, except for underground spaces, but the entire complex was retrofitted by 2001.

Tenants

Note: Floor numbers in  red  are part of United Airlines Flight 175's impact area during the September 11 attacks, with floors above this zone marked in  dark gray .

NOTE: Atlantic Bank of New York had moved out in July 2001, but they were still paying for the rent as of September 2001.

References

1. The collapse began at 9:58:59 a.m.; ergo it would not have been fully destroyed until 9:59.
2. The exact time is disputed. The 9/11 Commission report says 9:03:11, NIST reports 9:02:59, some other sources report 9:03:02.
3. NIST and the 9/11 Commission both state that the collapse began at 9:58:59 a.m., which is rounded to 9:59 for simplicity. If the Commission's claim that the South Tower was struck at 9:03:11 is to be believed, then it collapsed after 55 minutes and 48 seconds, not 56 minutes.

Citations

1. ^ "History of the Twin Towers". PANYNJ.gov. 2013. Archived from the original on December 28, 2013. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
2. Adams, Arthur G. (1996). The Hudson River Guidebook. Fordham University Press. p. 87. ISBN 0-8232-1679-9.
3. Final Report of the 9/11 Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (PDF) (Report). National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. July 22, 2004. pp. 7–8. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 16, 2021. Retrieved August 15, 2021.
4. Staff Report of the 9/11 Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (PDF) (Report). National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. September 2005 . p. 24. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 12, 2014. Retrieved August 15, 2021.
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6. "Timeline for United Airlines Flight 175". NPR. June 17, 2004. Archived from the original on August 24, 2021. Retrieved August 24, 2021.
7. ^ National Institute of Standards and Technology (2005). Final Reports from the NIST World Trade Center Disaster Investigation (PDF).
8. ^ 9/11 Final Report of the National Commission (2004). Collapse of WTC2 (PDF).{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
9. Grutzner, Charles (December 29, 1961). "Port Unit Backs Linking of H&M and Other Lines" (PDF). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
10. ^ Esterow, Milton (September 21, 1962). "Architect Named for Trade Center" (PDF). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
11. ^ Huxtable, Ada Louise (January 19, 1964). "A New Era Heralded". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
12. Gillespie (1999), p. 49.
13. NIST NCSTAR 1–1 (2005), p. 7.
14. Ingraham, Joseph C. (March 29, 1965). "Port Agency Buys Downtown Tract" (PDF). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
15. Gillespie (1999), p. 61.
16. World Trade Center Building Performance Study (2002), p. 1.2.
17. "Contracts Totaling $74,079,000 Awarded for the Trade Center" (PDF). The New York Times. January 24, 1967. ISSN 0362-4331.
18. ^ "Timeline: World Trade Center chronology". PBS – American Experience. Archived from the original on May 2, 2007. Retrieved May 15, 2007.
19. NIST NCSTAR 1–1 (2005), p. xxxvi.
20. Gillespie (1999), p. 134.
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22. Reeve, Simon (2002). The new jackals : Ramzi Yousef, Osama Bin Laden and the future of terrorism. Boston: Northeastern University Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-55553-509-4.
23. "Prosecutor: Yousef aimed to topple Trade Center towers". CNN. August 5, 1997. Archived from the original on October 12, 2008. Retrieved November 20, 2008.
24. Mathews, Tom (March 8, 1993). "A Shaken City's Towering Inferno". Newsweek. Archived from the original on October 30, 2008. Retrieved October 26, 2008.
25. Barbanel, Josh (February 27, 1993). "Tougher Code May Not Have Helped". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 20, 2008.
26. "Brookfield Loses Lease Bid". Toronto Star. February 23, 2001.
27. Bagli, Charles V. (March 20, 2001). "As Trade Center Talks Stumble, No. 2 Bidder Gets Another Chance". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on January 19, 2008. Retrieved November 20, 2008.
28. Smothers, Ronald (July 25, 2001). "Leasing of Trade Center May Help Transit Projects, Pataki Says". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on May 17, 2008. Retrieved November 20, 2008.
29. "Flight Path Study – American Airlines Flight 11" (PDF). National Transportation Safety Board. February 19, 2002. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 14, 2007. Retrieved April 24, 2014.
30. "Flight Path Study – United Airlines Flight 175" (PDF). National Transportation Safety Board. February 19, 2002. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 17, 2014. Retrieved April 24, 2014.
31. ^ Miller, Bill (May 1, 2002). "Skyscraper Protection Might Not Be Feasible, Federal Engineers Say". Orlando Sentinel. Archived from the original on December 3, 2013. Retrieved November 24, 2013.
32. Field, Andy (2004). "A Look Inside a Radical New Theory of the WTC Collapse". Fire/Rescue News. Archived from the original on June 19, 2006. Retrieved July 28, 2006.
33. Gross, John L.; Therese P. McAllister (2004). "Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of the World Trade Center Towers" (PDF). Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster NIST NCSTAR 1–6. National Institute of Standards and Technology. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 28, 2011. Retrieved November 24, 2010.
34. Wilkinson, Tim (2006). "World Trade Center – Some Engineering Aspects". Archived from the original on March 6, 2012. Retrieved July 28, 2006.
35. National Construction Safety Team (September 2005). "Executive Summary". Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers (PDF). NIST. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 27, 2008. Retrieved April 24, 2014.
36. NIST NCSTAR 1–1 (2005), p. xxxviii.
37. American Iron and Steel Institute (1964). "The World Trade Center – New York City". Contemporary Steel Design. 1 (4). American Iron and Steel Institute.
38. Darton (1999), pp. 32–34.
39. Grudin, Robert (April 20, 2010). Design And Truth. Yale University Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-300-16203-5. Archived from the original on May 27, 2016. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
40. Kerr, Laurie (December 28, 2001). "Bin Laden's special complaint with the World Trade Center". Slate Magazine. Archived from the original on September 19, 2015. Retrieved October 12, 2015.
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43. William Baker; Johnathan Barnett; Christopher Marrion; Ronald Hamburger; James Milke; Harold Nelson (September 1, 2002). "Chapter 2. WTC 1 and WTC 2". World Trade Center Building Performance Study. FEMA. p. 33. ... the loads initially carried by the damaged exterior columns were transferred by Vierendeel truss action to the remaining exterior columns immediately adjacent to the impact area.
44. ^ NIST NCSTAR 1 (2005), p. 6.
45. Goldberger (2004), p. 26.
46. ^ NIST NCSTAR 1 (2005), pp. 5–6.
47. ^ NIST NCSTAR 1–1 (2005), p. 8.
48. NIST NCSTAR 1–1 (2005), p. 9.
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61. NIST NCSTAR 1–4 (2005), p. 14.
62. "Hold Brothers Commemorates the 16th Anniversary of their WTC Tenantship". prweb. Retrieved January 30, 2018.

Sources

• Cudahy, Brian J. (2002), Rails Under the Mighty Hudson (2nd ed.), New York: Fordham University Press, ISBN 978-0-82890-257-1, OCLC 911046235
• Darton, Eric (1999). Divided We Stand: A Biography of New York's World Trade Center. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-01727-0.
• Gillespie, Angus K. (1999). Twin Towers: The Life of New York City's World Trade Center. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-2742-0.
• Glanz, James & Lipton, Eric (2003). City in the Sky. Times Books. ISBN 978-0-8050-7691-2.
• Goldberger, Paul (2004). Up from Zero: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-58836-422-7.
• "World Trade Center Building Performance Study". Federal Emergency Management Agency. May 2002. Archived from the original on April 30, 2011. Retrieved August 21, 2019.
• Lew, Hai S.; Bukowski, Richard W.; Carino, Nicholas J. (September 2005). Design, Construction, and Maintenance of Structural and Life Safety Systems (NIST NCSTAR 1–1) (Report). Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
• Evans, David D.; Richard D. Peacock, Erica D. Kuligowski; W. Stuart Dols; William L. Grosshandler (September 2005). Active Fire Protection Systems (NCSTAR 1–4) (Report). National Institute of Standards and Technology.
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External links

• Building: 2 World Trade Center - South Tower CNN

• 1973 establishments in New York City
• Buildings and structures destroyed in the September 11 attacks
• Lists of companies based in New York (state)
• Lists of tenants in the World Trade Center (1973–2001)
• Manhattan-related lists
• Office buildings completed in 1973
• Office buildings in Manhattan
• September 11 attacks
• World Trade Center