Closure
The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Recovery Mission
Chapter One
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
The day the World Trade Center died was the kind of day it was born for,
with the twin landmark towers outlined against a deep blue, cloudless sky.
It had cost $1.5 billion, 200,000 tons of steel, 425,000 cubic yards of
concrete, and six years to build the North and South Towers. They were
designated Building 1 and Building 2 upon completion in 1972, the crown
jewels of the sixteen-acre World Trade Center complex that included a
twenty-two-story Marriott Hotel (Building 3); two nine-story office
buildings (Buildings 4 and 5); the eight-story U.S. Customs House
(Building 6); and a forty-seven-story high-rise office building (Building
7) that was home to the new command center of the city's Office of
Emergency Management (OEM).
When the attack on 9-11 was over, both of the quarter-mile-high Towers and
Building 7 had collapsed. The Marriott Hotel and Buildings 4, 5, and 6
were damaged beyond repair, and ten other buildings had sustained major
damage. All that was left of the plaza ... read full excerpt from: Closure: The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Recovery Mission ebook
