> > Here are some interesting statistics about 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 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 lightbulbs 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 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 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
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