More clever innovations were needed to move thousands of people up and down the towers each day without turning the buildings into giant elevator shafts. The Otis Elevator Company solved the problem by pioneering a design that allowed workers and visitors with business on lower floors to ride local elevators up from the lobby, stopping on multiple floors, as they would in any tall building. But people destined for midlevel and upper floors took express elevators to a “sky lobby” on either the 44th or 78th floor, depending on their final destination. From the sky lobby, they boarded local elevators to their desired floor. This arrangement sharply reduced the size of the towers’ central core, which meant even more rentable office space. Among other construction advances, the towers’ engineers crafted revolutionary solutions to minimize swaying and vibration caused by powerful winds from the Hudson River.
All told, the design and structural innovations lowered the buildings’ weight, sped the pace of construction, dropped the cost of materials, and increased the anticipated return on what became a $1 billion investment, more than triple the initial cost estimates. Yet those and other advances came with an unwanted, largely overlooked price: they collectively made the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center more susceptible to fire, especially when compared with older buildings whose exteriors were clad in fire-resistant masonry, whose floors were divided into compartments like the hull of a ship, and whose skeletons contained thicker and more abundant steel.
Exacerbating the potential fire risk was a quirk of timing in revisions to the New York City Building Code. As a public agency, the Port Authority wasn’t required to comply11 with the code, but its top officials promised to meet or exceed the city’s standards at the trade center. During initial planning, that meant applying strict rules adopted in 1938. But in the mid-1960s, as the towers took shape, a revised, less stringent code moved toward enactment. Even before it took effect, Port Authority bosses told the engineers to follow the new standards’ more lenient, cost-saving rules.
The old code would have mandated six emergency exit stairwells in each tower. The Port Authority interpreted the new rules as requiring only three stairwells per tower. However, even under the new code, each tower should have included at least a fourth stairwell,12 to accommodate visitors to public spaces on the highest floors. Also, fire safety experts generally urge that stairwells in tall buildings be spaced as far apart as possible. But in each of the Twin Towers, the three stairwells were bunched relatively close to one another in the central core. That left them collectively more vulnerable to fire or other damage affecting the core and made them harder to reach for tenants and visitors working in desirable offices near the windows.
In addition, the old construction code required tall buildings to have a “fire tower,” one stairwell encased in masonry, with an entranceway that trapped and vented smoke away from the stairs. The new rules didn’t require fire towers, so the World Trade Center didn’t have them. Instead, each tower’s three central stairwells were encased in lightweight gypsum wallboard, making them far more susceptible to damage.
Also worrisome were the techniques used to stop or at least slow a fire from weakening the spindly steel frames that supported the towers’ floors. Because the floor system was so original, neither the new nor the old New York City codes included regulations that addressed the engineers’ plans to use sprayed-on fire retardants.13 Special tests could have determined those answers, but no one conducted them. In the end, Port Authority officials essentially guessed14 at what type of fire-resistant material to use and how much to apply to prevent the steel floor supports from buckling in a blaze. Initially, they insisted that the fireproofing was adequate, and that each floor was built to be airtight. If a fire did break out, they said, it would be locally contained and cause limited damage. Later, however, they installed a sprinkler system, too.
Construction of the towers took five years, slowed by strikes among elevator builders and tugboat operators, which delayed the delivery of steel. Occupancy began even before completion, although at first the twin giants primarily served the Port Authority and other public agencies. Over time they gained grudging acceptance and by 2001 attracted more than four hundred companies15 as tenants, from financial giants like Morgan Stanley, with more than eight hundred thousand square feet of office space in the South Tower, to one-person firms that enjoyed the prestige of the address but were crammed into nooks and crannies barely larger than a janitor’s closet.
As the towers rose into the clouds, their size demanded that attention be paid. Positioned on a diagonal from each other, the buildings stood 131 feet apart, about the distance of a third baseman’s throw to first. Each exterior wall spanned 208 feet. The North Tower rose 1,368 feet, an imperceptible six feet taller than its twin, and its flat roof sprouted a 360-foot television and radio antenna. On clear days, visitors to an indoor observation deck on the 107th floor of the South Tower could see parts of New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Windows on the World, in the North Tower, came with similar views plus fine wine and pricey food that earned mixed reviews. Some critics complained that the menu never lived up to the height.
The Twin Towers officially opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in April 1973, only to be dethroned as the world’s tallest by the Sears Tower in Chicago a month later. The towers loomed over a plaza that would be named in honor of Austin J. Tobin, the Port Authority’s longtime executive director. Eventually, the complex also would include four smaller, conventional office buildings, plus the Marriott hotel that was Ron Clifford’s meeting destination the morning of September 11.
Below the plaza was an underground shopping mall called the Concourse that connected the buildings in the complex. Deeper still were parking levels and a train station that served New Jersey commuters and provided connections to New York City subway lines. Surrounding the six underground stories were walls of concrete three feet thick and eighty feet deep, affectionately called “the bathtub.” The nickname was a misnomer: the walls didn’t contain water, they held back the Hudson River.
In August 1974, sixteen months after they opened, the towers had their true coming-out party. Tightrope artist Philippe Petit captivated the world with a dazzling, forty-three-minute, thoroughly illegal high-wire walk on a cable strung between the roofs. By making the twins his costars, casting them as strong, silent types in his death-defying show, Petit gave them the personality their design lacked. Soon indifference among hardboiled New Yorkers evolved into nodding familiarity and even grudging affection. Two years after Petit’s walk, a Hollywood remake of King Kong showed the great ape ignoring his old haunt, the Empire State Building. This time he leapt from the North Tower to the South Tower before his demise. Over time, the twins appeared in scores of other movies, instantly setting the scene in Manhattan. They graced countless photos and postcards, often paired with the Statue of Liberty as their leading lady.
After the towers withstood the 1993 bombing, Port Authority officials boasted about their durability, even as the agency upgraded and replaced fireproofing,16 added an air pressure system to limit smoke rising through the core, installed backup power for emergency lights, and improved stairwell lighting.
By the summer of 2001, occupancy remained high and the buildings’ future seemed assured. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center had endured early trials and a terrorist attack to become icons approaching a comfortable middle age. Still uninspiring, perhaps, but undeniable symbols of American ingenuity and financial might, as synonymous with New York as the Eiffel Tower was to Paris or the pyramids to Egypt.
Dressed and ready, shortly before 7 a.m. Ron kissed his wife, Brigid, goodbye, hopeful that when he returned they’d celebrate their daughter Monica’s birthday and his new business venture. The changed meeting location gave him extra time, so Ron indulged his love of the water, riding a commuter train to Hoboken, New Jersey, then taking a fifteen-minute ferry trip across the Hudson. The thunderstorm of the night before had passed, so Ron stoo
d on the deck under a cloudless late-summer sky, a leather bag containing his sales pitch hanging from his shoulder. He basked in the cool breeze and watched the rising sun illuminate the towers.
“How lucky am I?” Ron thought. “Who gets to do this?”
The ferry docked, and Ron strolled past the exclusive North Cove Yacht Harbor. He admired the gleaming vessels of the super-rich, who paid berthing fees that topped $2 million a year.17 Crew members in T-shirts swabbed teak decks as though they feared a captain’s lash. As Ron walked along a promenade by the yachts, a well-dressed man enjoying breakfast alfresco raised a glass to him and called out: “Nice suit.”
Shortly after Ron began his morning journey, a silver PATH commuter train from New Jersey squealed to a stop inside the cavernous rail station five stories beneath the World Trade Center. Out poured work-bound men and women, young and not so young, a diverse and divergent group from every rung on the corporate ladder.
Jostled by the crowd, Port Authority senior administrative assistant Elaine Duch stepped onto the platform in her white canvas sneakers. She held a purse in one hand and a tote bag in the other. Her dark blond hair fell on the shoulders of her smart blue jacket. Elaine’s cherished gold skirt with a blue paisley print, the one she’d laid out the previous night after swimming with her twin sister, Janet, swished with every hurried step.
Emerging from the subterranean gloom, Elaine ordered her morning coffee,18 with a whisper of milk, at a pushcart whose owner knew that she would circle back, frowning, if she opened it at her desk and found it wasn’t just right. Sunlight streamed through the cathedral-like windows inside the North Tower lobby as Elaine boarded an express elevator that rocketed skyward and deposited her at the 78th floor sky lobby. There she caught a local elevator up to her destination: the 88th floor.
Elaine reached her desk in the Port Authority’s real estate department a few minutes before eight. Ringing telephones and the hustle of colleagues rushing to meet deadlines heralded her arrival. Elaine said quick hellos, dropped her bags, and turned on her computer. Swamped by work, Elaine had no time to change out of her sneakers; her strappy black leather sandals stayed buried inside her tote bag with a new gadget: her first cellphone.
Elaine sipped her coffee, the perfect shade of mahogany, and dived into her day.
A mile and a half to the east, FDNY Captain Jay Jonas wolfed down a bowl of Wheaties19 and gulped black coffee in the kitchen of the Ladder 6 firehouse in Chinatown. He’d been awake nearly all night, busy with runs, and now Jay could only hope for a quiet day ahead.
Around eight thirty, a half hour before the changeover to the day shift, Jay joked around with the two younger firefighters from a different Manhattan ladder company, Scott Kopytko and Doug Oelschlager, who’d worked the overnight shift with Jay and his men. The pair said goodbye, leaving Jay to finish his breakfast.
Alone with his thoughts, Jay prepared for another shift as a captain, eight years into the role, still number eighteen on the promotion list.
Working on short sleep after his movie premiere, aspiring actor and temp worker Chris Young arrived by subway20 at the World Trade Center shortly after eight. He’d already swung by the Midtown office of Marsh & McLennan to grab the box of materials he had to deliver.
Chris blinked at the precise instant a guard took his photo for a visitor ID badge. Clipped to his shirt, it allowed him access to the North Tower’s 99th floor, one of eight floors where the giant insurance and financial services company rented space. Chris had previously worked a different temp job in the South Tower, so as he pushed through a lobby turnstile toward the elevators he anticipated the stunning views awaiting him.
The 99th floor was already a hive of activity at the start of the workday. Chris quickly found his temporary boss, managing director Angela Kyte. He handed her the box, but his job wasn’t done. Angela told him that a separate shipment of presentation materials hadn’t arrived, so he should track it down.
With a few phone calls, Chris discovered that a planned delivery the previous night had gone awry, but the materials were now on their way. He volunteered to wait, knowing that both Angela and his other supervisor, Dominique Pandolfo, intended to spend the entire day in the North Tower. Their absence from the Midtown office meant that he’d have nothing to do all day if he left now and went back uptown.
Angela surprised Chris by saying that she’d deal with the late arrival herself. He could take the subway back to Midtown.
At 8:30 a.m., Cecilia Lillo was hungry.21
The Port Authority administrator had lately grumbled to her paramedic husband, Carlos, that she’d been gaining weight while he kept fit by jogging after work. In the semiuseful way of husbands everywhere, that morning Carlos had executed a plan. During their shared commute, he bought one bagel for them to split, instead of their usual order of a full bagel each. Carlos had chosen her favorite, plain with butter, but it wasn’t enough. Now, hours before lunchtime, Cecilia’s stomach growled.
In her office on the 64th floor of the North Tower, Cecilia decided that she’d head up to the 86th floor to deliver a stack of ID cards to colleagues there, shoot down to the 43rd floor to graze through the public cafeteria, then return to her desk fully fueled.
First, though, Cecilia bumped into Nancy Perez, a vivacious Cuban-born Port Authority supervisor. Cecilia admired Nancy, whose nature was to look after people. Among other outside pursuits, Nancy learned sign language to teach karate to deaf children. In a hallway outside a ladies’ room, the two friends made lunch plans for a Cuban restaurant and strategized about how Cecilia could balance her desire to become pregnant with her ambitions for promotion.
Before heading upstairs, Cecilia circled back to her desk to check an email.
By 8:30 a.m., Moussa “Moose” Diaz had already put in a full day.
He awoke at the usual awful time: 2:40 a.m.22 That was the price he paid to work as an emergency medical technician in New York City while raising his family atop a mountain in upstate Monroe, New York. This would be Moose’s second day back at work after a three-week vacation, part of which he spent visiting Virginia with his wife, Ericka, a waitress, and their sons, eleven-year-old Greg and five-year-old Harrison.
Moose was thirty-six, nearly six feet tall, with a shaved head and soulful brown eyes. He had olive skin, inherited from his Cuban father and his Palestinian/Haitian mother. His mother had chosen his name, the Arabic equivalent of Moses. Calm and thoughtful, happiest with his family, Moose showered and dressed in his dark blue uniform with emt in white letters over his heart and fdny across his broad back. He moved silently through the darkened house to avoid waking Ericka and their boys.
Fortified by a protein shake, Moose slid into his 1993 Toyota Corolla and turned on the news radio station 1010 WINS. Still sleepy, he settled into his hour-and-fifteen-minute country-to-city commute to Crescent Street and Thirty-First Avenue in the New York City borough of Queens, home to Battalion 49, Astoria Station, ten miles across the East River from the Twin Towers.
Moose arrived early for his 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. shift at the EMTs’ cramped underground workplace, nicknamed without affection the Submarine. The good news was that Moose and his colleagues rarely spent much time inside; they served a working-class district of housing projects and factories with one of the heaviest emergency call volumes in the city. Some days it seemed as though everyone in Astoria dialed 9-1-1.
With more than an hour until sunrise, Moose went through a mandatory routine of making sure his ambulance, 45 Adam, had enough gas, plenty of bandages, and a working defibrillator. His trauma bag was stuffed with stethoscopes, gauze, and airway kits. At 5 a.m. sharp, Moose and his partner of two years, Paul Adams, logged on to the radio network so dispatchers would know they were ready, willing, and available.
Paul was thirty-five, a powerfully built five foot nine with a crew cut and a wild edge: the yin to Moose’s tranquil yang. After his father’s death two decades earlier, Paul had emigrated to Queens from Glasgow, Sco
tland, with his mother and two younger sisters. Although he still spoke with a slight burr, Paul had become a full-throated New Yorker with a ready supply of profanities. Single, a city EMT for ten years, when he wasn’t working or playing pool, Paul could be found in the air, piloting small planes.
Moose and Paul piled into their ambulance for the day’s first call, a pregnant woman suffering from blood loss and a possible miscarriage. As a precaution, they called for backup from another Astoria crew, 49 Victor, an ambulance staffed by two paramedics: Roberto Abril and Cecilia Lillo’s husband, Carlos Lillo.
Moose felt especially glad to see Carlos, whom Moose considered a mentor. Carlos had been two years ahead of Moose at Long Island City High School, where Moose was a wrestler and Carlos captained the gymnastics team. When Moose first arrived on the job, other EMTs and paramedics kept a cool distance. Then one day in the station locker room, a high-pitched voice announced to all within earshot: “Oh my God. I can’t believe it—Moose is here!” Moose immediately became part of the squad.
Having delivered the pregnant woman to Elmhurst Hospital by 8:30 a.m., Moose and Paul stood near the hospital’s emergency room, waiting to get their paperwork signed. Carlos lingered nearby.
As he neared the Marriott, Ron Clifford felt the streets around him pulse with controlled chaos. On any given workday morning, a million or more23 people rushed about Lower Manhattan to command, serve, live in, or visit the main engine of the world’s financial system. Stock traders and executives, secretaries and technology whizzes, public servants and messengers, food servers and custodians, retail clerks and tourists jostled for position, all under the watchful eye of police officers, “New York’s Finest,” who patrolled in cars, on foot, and on horseback, and firefighters, “New York’s Bravest,” ready for whatever emergency the day might bring.
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