Submitted by Marilyn Schwing

 

Lots of information on the WTC

 1. The WTC opened in 1970 after 8 years of construction.

 2. The WTC was the dream of David Rockefeller, chairman of the Chase
      Manhattan Bank, and
      Nelson Rockefeller, former Governor of New York.

 3. The Rockefellers wanted to name the towers after themselves, but
      the mayor of NY, John
      Lindsay, insisted on the World Trade Center.

 4. The city chose to build the WTC instead of building a new tunnel
      and large bridge
      over the Hudson River.

 5. The World Trade Center was designed by architect Minoura Yamasaki.

 6. According to Yamasaki, downtown Manhattan was the perfect place to
     erect the towers
     because there wasn't "a single building worth saving in the
     neighborhood."

 7. Owners of nearby buildings disagreed, and delayed demolition by
     three weeks with their
     protests.

 8. Sixteen blocks were cleared to house the completed WTC.

 9. More t! than 10,000 workers involved in building the complex.

 10. More than 60 of them died during construction.

 11. The excavation work displaced enough soil to create Liberty Park,
        where four 60-floor
        towers and four apartment buildings were constructed.

 12. The WTC's foundations were laid at 60 feet below ground level.

 13. The complex covered 16 acres when finished.

 14. In addition to the towers, five other office buildings made up
        the WTC complex.

 15. The WTC had 12 million square feet of space.

 16. Each floor was 50,000 square feet.

 17. The buildings had their own ZIP codes - 10047 and 10048.

 18. The towers were designed to look like a futuristic sculpture.

 19. The structure was revolutionary. Its main supports were
       external, lining the four
       corners of each tower.

 20. Critics condemned the completed buildings as "boring."

 21. When completed, the towers were 100 feet taller than the Empire
        State Building.

 22. Until the construction of Chicago's Sears Tower and the Petronas
        Towers in Kuala
        Lumpur, Malaysia, the twin towers were the world's tallest buildings.

 23. The North Tower's 347 foot radio tower technically allowed the
       WTC to still call
       itself the world's tallest building.

 24. The towers were different heights. The South tower was 1,362
        feet tall, and big
        brother North tower was 1,368.

 25. Sixty-eight miles of steel were used in the construction of the
        buildings.

 26. The concrete poured was enough to build a road from New York to
        Washington, D.C.

 27. The steel inside the WTC could have made three more Brooklyn
        Bridges.

 28. The Twin Towers had more than 16 miles of staircases.

 29. There were 43,600 windows.

 30. The windows were kept small to reduce the amount of heat ! or
       cold entering the
       building. Regular size windows would have made the heat unbearable in
       the summertime.

 31. The building's 600,000 square feet of glass was cleaned by an
        automatic machine.

 32. The building had 20,000 elevator doors.

 33. The WTC housed 239 banks of elevators, including one known as the
        fastest in the
        U.S.

 34. The main elevators traveled at 27 feet per second and could reach
        the top in under a
        minute.

 35. There were 828 emergency exit doors.

 36. 23,000 fluorescent light bulbs lit the interior.

 37. Originally, there were no light switches in the towers, because
        energy prices were
        one-third less than they are today. In 1982, switches were installed.

 38. 12,000 miles of electrical cable snaked through the building,
        supplying power to 15
        trading floors for stockbrokers.

 39. The 75,000 telephones were maintained by 19,600 miles of cable

 40. There were more than 300 computer mainframes on site.

 41. The WTC used more power in one day than most small American
        cities.

 42. Steam supplied by a plant on New York's East River was used to
        heat the buildings.

 43. The buildings housed 49,000 tons of air-conditioning equipment.

 44. More than 250,000 cans of paint were needed every year for upkeep
        of the Towers.

 45. The surrounding shopping center complex included 3,250,000 square
        feet of restaurants and stores.

 46. Six banks, five investment firms and three insurance companies
        called their headquarters there.

47. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had its
       headquarters in the building.

 48. American Express had three floors in the WTC.

 49. The WTC was home base for Bank of America.

 50. The trade center housed two top restaurants - the Windows on the
        World and Wild Blue.

 51. Windows on the World had one of the best vintage wine collections
        in the United States.

 52. More than 50,000 people worked in the twin towers.

 53. By 9 a.m. each weekday morning, the buildings had an average of
       35,000 employees at their desks.

 54. More than 200,000 people - half of them tourists - moved through
        the buildings each day.

 55. The South Tower had an observation deck that was visited by more
        than 26,000 people
        a day.

 56. An information sign at the top assured visitors that the buildings
        had been designed to withstand airplane crashes.

 57. The towers could be seen from at least 20 miles away.

 58. On a clear day, it was possible to see for 45 miles in every
        direction from the observation deck.

 59. The express elevator to the observation deck was the largest in
        the U.S. with a 55-person capacity.

 60. Every president since 1973 paid a visit! t to the landmark.

 61. President Ronald Reagan watched July 4th fireworks celebrations
        from the WTC on two occasions.

 62. Superstars Frank Sinatra, John Lennon, Mick Jagger and Liza
        Minelli all sang in WTC restaurants.

 63. Two New York TV stations incorporated the twin tower image into
        their logos.

 64. The towers served 10 New York TV stations with 10 antennas on the
        top.

 65. More postcards of the WTC were sent each year than any other
        building in the world.

 66. In 1974, a Frenchman, Phillipe Petit, strung a tightrope between
        the two towers and walked across.

 67. Three men successfully parachuted from the top of the towers.

 68. More than a dozen mountain climbers had scaled the building.

 69. In 1975 a jobless construction worker parachuted from the South
       Tower to publicize the plight of the unemployed.

 70. The most famous man to climb the building! was George Willig -
        who was arrested at the top.

 71. Willig was fined one penny for each of the 110 floors he scaled.

 72. Last year, a man in a micro-light aircraft crashed into the North
       Tower.

 73. In the concourse beneath the towers, there were more than 75
        stores.

 74. Each day, over 150,000 commuters passed through the three subway
        stations there.

 75. Eighty seven tons of food was delivered to the building each day.

 76. Over 30,000 cups of coffee were poured daily in the basement
        cafes.

 77. Twenty-two doctors had practices there.

 78. Seventeen babies were born on the site.

 79. Irv Silverstein recently bought the WTC for almost $3.2 billion.

 80. The WTC generated $110 million a year in profit.

 81. More than three dozen movies have been filmed there.

 82. The best known film to use the WTC as a location was the 1976
        remake of King K! Kong.

 83. The 1993 bombing of the WTC killed six people and injured 1,000
        more.

 84. 1,300 pounds of explosives ripped through the garage in the 1993
        attack.

 85. That bomb created a crater 16 feet deep and badly damaged inner
        support beams.

 86. Before the 1993 attack, there were three closed circuit television
        networks for security.

 87. After the bombing, the cameras were increased to 300 monitored by
        computers.

 88. More than 300 security guards worked there.

 89. The WTC featured security centers on 14 different floors and its
        own police station.

90. The entrance lobbies had 16 concierge desks and 12 X-ray machines.

 91. After the first bombing, no one could get inside the buildings
        without an I.D. check.

 92. It took an average of five minutes for a visitor to pass through
       security checks.

 93. Before the 1993 bombing, there were more than 1,000 parking!
        spaces beneath the buildings, 600 remained afterward.

 94. All vehicles using the parking lot had to show FBI security
        passes.

 95. On Sept. 11, the building was 95 percent full, with over 400
        tenants.

 96 New York Gov. George Pataki had an office in the WTC, but wasn't
       there when the disaster struck.

 97. Both the Secret Service and the FBI rented office space there.

 98. $110.3 million in gold and 120.7 million in silver is buried in
        the rubble.

 99. The combined weight of the towers was more than 1.5 million tons.

 100. Each tower was built to safely sway about three feet during
          strong wind storms.

 101. Blue Cross-Blue Shield, New York's largest health insurance
          company, moved into the building 3 years ago.

 102. Nine chapels serving six different faiths called the WTC home.

 103. Twenty-nine countries had trade mission offices in the
          buildings.

 104. Every major U.S. airline had ticket offices inside the WTC.

 105. It is the first skyscraper in the world destroyed by terrorists.