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World Trade Center Site

World Trade Center site

The World Trade Center site, also known as Ground Zero or The Pile, is the large plot of land on which the World Trade Center complex of New York City stood until the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack. The land is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. A permanent memorial will be part of the site. However, it could take many years as there is much ongoing disagreement between the Port Authority, the families of the victims and city politicians as to what type of memorial it should be.

Reconstruction plans

Six land-use plans, created under Port Authority guidelines, were released in July 2002 to great public scorn. The guidelines demanded that all commercial space destroyed had to be replaced even while streets were opened through the site, greatly limiting the possible designs. However one of the most popular options, rebuilding the Twin Towers, was ignored by authorities, partly at the insistence of WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein. He is not comfortable with new office buildings taller than 70 floors and dreads the short-to-medium term vacancy risk of rebuilding the giant Twin Towers. His chief architect, David Childs of Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill, publicly denounced the original Twin Towers and the superblock as out of place and lacking in street activity or aesthetics. The July 2002 designs met with near-universal disapproval, forcing the government to restart the design process nearly from scratch but with the same guidelines. A popular element from the designs was an open parkway connecting the site to Battery Park, with line of sight to The Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty] Seven new designs were presented and winnowed to two candidates, one from Studio Daniel Libeskind, and one from the THINK architectural group, led by Rafael Viñoly, Shigeru Ban, Frederic Schwartz, and Ken Smith. While Libeskind's proposal (which largely repeated the July 2002 "Memorial Plaza" plan with more unusually-shaped buildings) was not accepted by the public, Michael Bloomberg and George Pataki preferred both the design and Libeskind's approach to dealing with the necessities of the project to the THINK group. The THINK proposal was championed by The New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp. A public poll sponsored by the official planners saw the choice of "Neither" win comfortably over the THINK plan, with the Libeskind plan last. On February 26, 2003, Studio Daniel Libeskind's design was announced as the winning design. The design includes office buildings and a Wedge of Light which he claimed would honor the victims of the terrorist attacks by allowing sunlight into the footprint of the towers between 8:46AM and 10:28AM EST every September 11; shadow analysis has cast great doubt on this. Also the footprint of the towers will be largely preserved amid a huge sunken pit. Planning review continues, with many citizen groups of many angles strongly opposed to proceeding with this plan for various reasons. September 11 The Libeskind proposal includes a 541 m - 1776-foot high tower. The chosen height in feet is a reference to 1776, the year that the United States Declaration of Independence was signed. In July, Larry Silverstein, whose real estate company was given the lease to the WTC two months before the September 11 attacks, convinced Libeskind to hire David Childs of Skidmore Owings & Merrill as a co-architect of the proposed 1,776-foot tower, which Governor Pataki calls the 'Freedom Tower'. A draft design for the tower released December 19, 2003 has already encountered stiff criticism and as of January 2005 it was still unclear that building the spire according to the Libeskind design was even possible [http://archinect.com/news/article.php?id=13466_0_24_0_M].In May 2005 a thorough redesign of the tower was ordered after safety concerns raised by the police department. Donald Trump raised eyebrows in May 2005 when he endorsed rebuilding the site with the Twin Towers 2 alternative rebuilding plan, and in June 2005 was one of the first to sign its petition to encourage Governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, Larry Silverstein, and the Port Authority to re-think the Freedom Tower design and consider rebuilding the towers.

Legal disputes

Cost estimates for rebuilding the WTC site range from $10 to $12 billion. This was a major motivation behind Larry Silverstein's ongoing insurance trial. During the court proceedings, he insisted that the collapse of the Twin Towers were two separate attacks, thus entitling him to $6.8 billion, double the payment he made when he bought insurance for the complex in July 2001. His insurers disagreed, saying that the attacks were a single event, entitling Silverstein to half that amount. Silverstein was defeated in a court trial where the jury found most of the insurers limited to a single payout. With this verdict, which was read in May 2004, Silverstein lost $2.4 billion in insurance money. The dispute over $1.1 billion held by the remaining insurance companies was resolved by a jury in December 2004, when it was decided that the September 11, 2001 attacks constituted two separate attacks. Currently, the World Trade Center site is accessible by subway and PATH trains at the new—and temporary—World Trade Center station. Much to some survivors' and victims' families' chagrin, the new PATH station uses the same track alignment as the old, meaning that the tracks pass through the south tower's footprint. [http://www.hudsoncity.net/tubes/divideondowntownstation.html] It is unlikely this will change when the permanent PATH World Trade Center station is completed.

WTC 9/11 Memorials


- Reflecting Absence WTC site (proposed)
- International Freedom Center adjacent to WTC site (abandoned)
- Tribute in Light WTC site (temporary performance)

External links and references

Politics


- [http://www.newstatesman.com/200509050004 "Ground zilch: how Al-Qaeda defeated New York"], New Statesman, 5 September 2005
- [http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/03/nyregion/03REBU.html?ex=1401595200&en=935183cee9a4bd49&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND City Proposes Swapping Land to Control Trade Center Site], The New York Times, August 3, 2002.
- [http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/05/nyregion/05SILV.html?ex=1401595200&en=935183cee9a4bd49&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND Trade Center Developer Is Portrayed in Court as Calculating], The New York Times, February 5, 2003
- [http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/03/nyregion/03REBU.html?ex=1401595200&en=935183cee9a4bd49&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND From Political Calculation, a Sweeping Vision of Ground Zero], The New York Times, March 3, 2003.
- [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/29/opinion/29rich.html?ex=1401595200&en=935183cee9a4bd49&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND Op-Ed: Ground Zero Is So Over], by Frank Rich, The New York Times, February 27, 2003.

Designs


- [http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/19/nyregion/19APPR.html?ex=1401595200&en=935183cee9a4bd49&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND AN APPRAISAL: Rediscovering and Celebrating the Vertical Life], The New York Times, December 19, 2002.
- [http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/28/arts/design/28DESI.html?ex=1401595200&en=935183cee9a4bd49&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND DESIGN REVIEW: A Goal for Ground Zero: Finding an Urban Poetry], The New York Times, January 28, 2003
- [http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/05/nyregion/05REBU.html?ex=1401595200&en=935183cee9a4bd49&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND Two Finalists Are Selected for the Void at Ground Zero], The New York Times, February 5, 2003.
- [http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/26/arts/design/26NOTE.html?ex=1401595200&en=935183cee9a4bd49&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK: Designers' Dreams, Tempered by Reality], The New York Times, February 26, 2003.
- [http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/26/nyregion/26REBU.html?ex=1401595200&en=935183cee9a4bd49&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND Panel Makes Unexpected Choice for World Trade Center Site], The New York Times, February 26, 2003.
- [http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/27/nyregion/27REBU.html?ex=1401595200&en=935183cee9a4bd49&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND Libeskind Design Chosen for Rebuilding at Ground Zero], The New York Times, February 27, 2003.

Groups


- [http://restorewtc.com/ Website documenting the politics behind the WTC rebuilding process.]
- [http://www.put.com/wtc World Trade Center Restoration Movement]
- [http://teamtwintowers.org/ Team Twin Towers]
- [http://www.twintowersagain.org/ TwinTowersAgain.org]

Other


- [http://unix.rulez.org/~calver/pictures/wtc-photo.jpg Aerial Large Picture (9000 pixel)]
- [http://www.lichtensteiger.de/WTC.html WTC/September 11 site by Ralph Lichtensteiger]
- [http://www.lichtensteiger.de/WTCbox.html WTC-Box by Ralph Lichtensteiger]
- [http://www.triroc.com/wtc/ A plan for rebuilding new Twin Towers]
- [http://www.projectrebirth.org/index.html Project Rebirth, a work-in-progress time-lapse motion picture project of the World Trade Center site from March 2002, up to the complete recontruction of the area in the future.] (on the terraserver image the towers are intact) Category:World Trade Center
- [http://www.geocities.com/buildingpreservationtech/index.html An outstanding World Trade Center and Memorial proposal]

World Trade Center

:This article is about the World Trade Center complex in New York City. For the many other buildings around the world similarly named, see world trade center. The World Trade Center in New York City (sometimes informally refered to as the WTC) was a complex of seven buildings designed by American architect Minoru Yamasaki and leased by Larry Silverstein from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey around a central plaza, near the south end of Manhattan in the downtown financial district. The complex contained 13.4 million square feet of office space, almost four percent of Manhattan's entire office inventory [http://www.buildings.com/Articles/detail.asp?ArticleID=341]. Best known for its iconic 110-story Twin Towers, after having survived a bombing on February 26, 1993, all of the original buildings in the complex were destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks; two collapsed (1 and 2) and the others (3, 4, 5, 6) were damaged beyond repair. Building seven of the World Trade Center also collapsed (see 7 World Trade Center for details).

Overview

7 World Trade Center 7 World Trade Center The complex towers were designed by Japanese American architect Minoru Yamasaki with Antonio Brittiochi, and was one of the most striking American implementations of the architectural ethic of Le Corbusier, as well as the seminal expression of Yamasaki's gothic modernist tendencies. Constructed in the early 1970s under the auspices of the semi-autonomous Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the WTC had its ribbon-cutting ceremony on April 4, 1973. Ultimately the complex came to consist of 7 buildings, but its most notable features were the main twin towers. On any given day, some 50,000 people worked in the towers with another 200,000 passing through as visitors. The complex was so large that it had its own ZIP Code: 10048. Although the towers became an undeniable icon of New York City, they were not without their flaws and were troubled in many ways. Initially conceived (as the name suggests) as a complex dedicated to companies and organizations directly involved in "world trade," they at first failed to attract the anticipated clientele; during the WTC's early years various governmental organizations became key tenants. It was not until the 1980s that the city's perilous financial state eased, after which an increasing number of private companies - mostly financial firms tied to Wall Street - became tenants. Moreover, the immense "superblock" plaza they sat upon, which replaced a more traditional, dense-packed neighborhood, was regarded by some critics as an inhospitable environment that disrupted the intricate flows of traffic typical of Manhattan. For example, in his book The Pentagon of Power, the technical historian Lewis Mumford denounced the center as an "example of the purposeless giantism and technological exhibitionism that are now eviscerating the living tissue of every great city." However, the spectacular views available from the WTC's observation deck (located on top of the South Tower) and the Windows on the World restaurant (located on top of the North Tower) made up for its flaws, by offering city-dwellers and tourists alike a perspective on the region that became central to the city's identity.

The Twin Towers

Windows on the World Windows on the World Windows on the World Each of the WTC towers had 110 stories. Tower One (the North Tower, which featured a massive antenna) stood 1,368 ft (417 m) high, and Tower Two (the South Tower, which contained the observation deck) was 1,362 ft (415 m) high. The length and breadth of the towers were 208 ft (63.4 m) x 208 ft (63.4 m). When the towers were completed in 1972 and 1973, respectively, they were the tallest buildings on Earth, 100 feet (30 m) taller than the Empire State Building. Their size was the subject of a joke during a press conference unveiling the landmarks. Minoru Yamasaki was asked: "Why two 110-story buildings? Why not one 220-story building?" His response was: "I didn't want to lose the human scale." Another joke was that the towers looked like the boxes that the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building came out of. However, the WTC towers held the height record only briefly. As the building neared completion in 1973, work had already begun on Chicago's Sears Tower, which ultimately reached 1,450 ft (442 m). With the World Trade Center's destruction, the Empire State Building again became the tallest building in New York, after spending almost 30 years as the third-tallest. Empire State Building To solve the problem of wind sway or vibration in the construction of the towers, chief engineer Leslie Robertson took a then unusual approach - instead of bracing the buildings corner-to-corner or using internal walls, the towers were essentially hollow steel tubes surrounding a strong central core. The 208-foot wide facade is, in effect, a prefabricated steel lattice, with columns on 39-inch centers acting as wind bracing to resist all overturning forces; the central core takes only the gravity loads of the building. A very light, economical structure results by keeping the wind bracing in the most efficient place, the outside surface of the building, thus not transferring the forces through the floor membrane to the core, as in most curtain-wall structures. The core supported the weight of the entire building and the outer shell containing 240 vertical steel columns called Vierendeel trusses around the outside of the building, which were bound to each other using ordinary steel trusses. In addition, 10,000 dampers were included in the structure. With a strong shell and core such as this, the exterior walls could be simply light steel and concrete. Together the massive core and lighweight shell for structural integrity, Robertson creating a tower that was extremely light for its size. This method of construction also meant that the twin towers had the world's highest load-bearing walls. Of the 110 stories, eight were set aside for technical services (mechanical floors), in four two-floor areas evenly spread up the building. All the remaining floors were free for open-plan offices. Each tower had 350,000 m² (3.8 million ft²) of office space, ample room for companies to set up shop. Altogether the entire complex of seven buildings had 1.04 km² (11.2 million ft²) of space. During the 1990s some 500 companies, especially financial firms, had offices in the complex, including Morgan Stanley, Aon Corporation, Salomon Brothers, and the Port Authority itself. The twin towers were also the first supertall buildings to use sky lobbies, spaces where commuters can switch from one local elevator to another. Located on the 44th and 78th floors of each tower, those sky lobbies enabled the elevators (each tower had 104) to be used efficiently while taking up a minimum of valuable office space. Five smaller buildings stood around the 16 acre (65,000 m²) block. One was the 22-floor Vista Hotel, later a Marriott Hotel, that was squeezed between the two towers. Three low-rise buildings in the same hollow tube design as the towers also stood around the plaza; they housed the US Customs Service and the US Commodities Exchange. In 1987, a 46-floor office building called 7 WTC was built north of the block. Under the block was a highly profitable underground shopping mall, which in turn led to various mass transit facilities, particularly the New York City subway system and the Port Authority's own PATH trains connecting Manhattan to Jersey City. The excavation of the foundations of the building, known as the Bathtub, located on the former Radio Row, was particularly complicated since there were two subway tubes close by needing protection without service interruption. A six-level basement was built in the foundations. The excavation of about 1 million cubic yards (760,000 m³) of earth and rock created a $90 million real estate asset for the project owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which helped offset the enormous loss in revenues which came from the tax breaks given to the Trade Center itself. The soil was used to create 23 acres (93,000 m²) of landfill in the Hudson river next to the World Trade Center site, which became the site of Battery Park City (still under development). One of the world's largest gold depositories was stored underneath the World Trade Center, owned by a group of commercial banks. The 1993 bomb detonated close to the vault, but it withstood the explosion, as did the towers. One source estimates the 1993 value of the gold at one billion dollars, believed to be owned by Kuwaiti interests. That same source claims that when the World Trade Center was destroyed, the amount of gold "far exceed[ed] the 1993 levels." The gold was finally recovered in its entirety in late 2001. See World Trade Center site for information on the reconstruction.

Observation Deck and Windows on the World

World Trade Center site Although the majority of space in the WTC complex was off-limits to the general public, 1 WTC (north tower) had a restaurant on the 107th floor called "Windows on the World", and 2 WTC (south tower) featured a public observation area aptly named "Top Of The World." When visiting the observation deck, visitors would first pass through security checks instated after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Next, visitors were whisked to the 107th floor indoor observatory and greeted with a 360 degree view of the New York City skyline. Weather-permitting, visitors could take two short escalator rides up from the 107th floor and visit the outdoor portion of the observation deck. At a height of 1,362 feet (415 m), visitors were able to take in a view of the North Tower and New York City unlike any other. On a clear day, it was claimed that visitors could see up to 45 miles (72 km) in any given direction. Windows on the World, was an elegant restaurant known as a place for big celebrations, such as weddings. In its last full year of operation, the year 2000, Windows reported revenues of $37.5 million United States dollars, making it the highest-grossing restaurant in the United States.

1993 terrorist attack

::Main article: 1993 World Trade Center bombing On February 26, 1993 at 12:17 PM, a Ryder truck filled with 1,500 pounds (682 kilograms) of explosives was planted by terrorists and detonated in the underground garage of the north tower, opening a 30m hole through 4 sublevels of concrete. Six people were killed and over a thousand injured. Six Islamist extremist conspirators were convicted of the crime in 1997 and 1998 and given prison sentences of 240 years each. According to a presiding judge, the conspirators chief aim at the time of the attack was to de-stabilize the north tower and send it crashing into the south tower, toppling both landmarks. To commemorate the bombing of the tower, a reflecting pool was installed with the names of those who had been killed in the blast. Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, relief workers found a single fractured piece of this fountain; to date it is the only remaining part of the 1993 memorial that survived the collapse of the towers.

2001 terrorist attack

reflecting pool reflecting pool ::Main Article: September 11, 2001 attacks The twin towers and 7 World Trade Center collapsed in a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, when two commercial jetliners were deliberately crashed into the twin towers. The four smaller buildings were also severely damaged in the debris and were later demolished. For details on this terrorist attack, see September 11, 2001 attacks; for details of the towers' collapse, see Collapse of the World Trade Center. For details of the tenants at the time of the attack, see One World Trade Center tenants and Two World Trade Center tenants. As of February 2005, a total of 2,749 death certificates related to the WTC attacks had been filed. All but 13 persons died on September 11; of the 13 persons who were injured on September 11 and died subsequently, three persons died in other states, one each in Massachusetts, Missouri, and New Jersey. Of these 2,749 people who died, 2,117 (77%) were males and 632 (23%) were females. Remains of 1,588 of the 2,749 people who died at the World Trade Center, or 58%, were identified on the basis of recovered physical remains. The median age for these victims was 39 years (range: 2--85 years); the median age was 38 years for females (range: 2--81 years) and 39 years for males (range: 3--85 years). Three people were aged <5 years, and three were aged >80 years.

Two World Trade Center tenants

Rebuilding

The World Trade Center is slated to be rebuilt as a new mixed-use complex of buildings called Memory Foundations, including the 1776 ft (541 m) Freedom Tower. The height of 1776 ft (541 m) was chosen as a reference to the year of American independence. The new 7 World Trade Center is now under construction, and has recently been "topped-off" (meaning the structural steel has reached the full height of the building). The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the agency tasked with coordinating the reconstruction of the WTC site sponsored an international design competition for the World Trade Center Memorial in spring 2003. The winning design, Michael Arad and Peter Walker's Reflecting Absence, was chosen in January 2004. Reflecting Absence The Norwegian architecture company Snøhetta was chosen for design of the Freedom Cultural Center on the northwest corner of the site. The Cultural Center will contain the Freedom Center which will attempt to trace the history of freedom and the Drawing Center. While the master plan has been named Memory Foundations, the future site will continue to use the name of the World Trade Center, as will the New York City Subway and PATH train stations that serve the complex. A temporary PATH station, largely following the layout of the original, is the first part of the complex to have re-opened. On November 22, 2004, New York Republican Governor George Pataki named the living former presidents as honorary members of the board rebuilding the World Trade Center. On May 18, 2005 Donald Trump, long-time opponent of the Freedom Tower design, held a press conference where he endorsed the alternative "Twin Towers II" proposal for rebuilding the Twin Towers with a design closely resembling the originals, but with various safety, structural, and technological improvements, and one story taller. ([http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/19/nyregion/19trump.html New York Times]). On June 29, 2005, a redesigned Freedom Tower was unveiled which more closely resembled the character of the fallen towers. The new design also boasted several safety improvements over previous proposals. However, as of September 11, 2005, no progress has been made in building a new tower, and disagreement still exists over such features as what should appear there, for e.g., how relevant the Freedom Centre's depictions is to it. June 29

Bayonne TV Tower

When the World Trade Center collapsed, many of New York's radio and television broadcasting facilities were destroyed. As a permanent replacement for them, a 609.6 meter high TV tower at Bayonne, New Jersey was considered. A transmission site away from the coast would have allowed a much larger reception zone than the original WTC facilities. In spite of this advantage, the plans seem to have been cancelled.

World Trade Center pregnancy studies

There is scientific speculation that exposure to various toxic products and the pollutant air surrounding the Towers after the WTC collapse may have negative effects on fetal development. Due to this potential harm, a notable children's environmental health center is currently analyzing the children whose mothers were pregnant during the WTC collapse, and were living or working near the World Trade Center towers. The staff of this study assess the children using psychological testing every year and interviews the mothers every six months. The purpose of the study is to determine whether there is significant difference in development and health progression of children whose mothers were exposed versus those who were not exposed after the WTC collapse.

World Trade Center buildings

Bayonne, New Jersey on the 2004 anniversary of the September 11 attacks.]]
- 1 World Trade Center (North Tower)
- 2 World Trade Center (South Tower)
- 3 World Trade Center (Marriott WTC Hotel)
- 4 World Trade Center
- 5 World Trade Center
- 6 World Trade Center (US Customs House)
- 7 World Trade Center

Media

Movies

(See also: Skyscrapers in film)
- The 1972 film The Hot Rock includes footage taken from a helicopter flying toward the World Trade Center, still under construction.
- The 1976 remake of King Kong has the giant ape climbing the World Trade Center, as opposed to the Empire State Building. See: King Kong (1976)
- The 1978 blockbuster "Superman: The Movie" shows Superman and Lois Lane flying around Metropolis (which was filmed in New York) and passing by the twin towers numerous times. The towers would be seen as well in all Superman movie sequels.
- The 1979 film Meteor shows the twin towers hit by a meteor fragment.
- In the 1981 film Escape from New York, the lead character lands a glider on the roof of the World Trade Center.
- The 1983 film Trading Places includes an exteral shot of the towers (at the plaza level) where, presumably, the commodities trading floor featured in the climax of the film is located.
- The 1989 film Ghostbusters 2 features many New York cityscapes in which the WTC can be seen, including two very prominent shots. In one scene Dan Aykroyd's character Ray Stantz accidentally causes a blackout and the lights in all of New York City, including the WTC go out. Another notable shot is when Peter MacNicol's character Janosz Poha takes on the form of an old woman ghost and flies through the New York City skyline to steal a child as part of the chief villain's grand plan.
- The 1989 film Back to the Future II features a view across New York harbour of the WTC towers in 2015 on the cable tv station "The Scenery Channel".
- Macaulay Culkin visits the outdoor observation deck of the WTC and snaps a photograph of the view during a montage in the 1992 film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
- In the 1993 movie Super Mario Bros., the Twin Towers become the "Koopa Towers" in the film's parallel dimension, which is a dinosaur-laden Manhattan run by antagonist King Koopa (Dennis Hopper). One of the towers features a sharpened top and both are adorned with Koopa's signature "K" symbol.
- The 1997 made-for-television film Path to Paradise: The Untold Story of the World Trade Center Bombing chronicled the events leading up to and shortly after the 1993 attack.
- The 1998 film Armageddon shows a scene where the twin towers are being hit by meteor fragments.
- The 1998 disaster film Deep Impact shows the massive tidal wave that destroys Manhattan pushing the towers up against each other.
- The 2000 film Little Nickys poster and VHS/DVD covers show the World Trade Center in the background of Adam Sandler and Mr. Beefy (an English bulldog) sitting on a bench in Central Park.
- The release of the movie Spider-Man was delayed until 2002 following the events of 9/11, so that shots of Spider-Man spinning a web between the two towers could be removed using computer-generated imagery.
- The 2001 film American Pie 2 features Shannon Elizabeth's character calling Jason Biggs' character from a pay phone in New York City, with the towers in the background. In reality, the scene was shot in Los Angeles and the towers were digitally inserted in post-production.
- In the 2001 Steven Spielberg film Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), the WTC towers are shown standing 2,000 years into the future after humanity has ceased to exist. This is noted to have been the last major film in which the towers were portrayed prior to their destruction on September 11, 2001.
- The finale of the 2002 film Men in Black II was set to take place atop one of the WTC buildings. Due to the tragic fate of the towers, it was modified prior to release.
- The end segments of the movie Vanilla Sky feature the Twin Towers still standing in the panoramic city background.
- In 2002 the first 9/11 dramatization Stairwell: Trapped In The World Trade Center showed a number of different shots of the towers. The footage was shot in 1999 and was originally going to be used in a movie about about the 1993 bombing of the world trade center. The movie which was entitled Hellevator was shelved after 9/11.
- Action star Jackie Chan was scheduled to film a movie that featured him as a window-washer who worked on The Twin Towers, but was forced to delay the start of the picture due to the filming of Rush Hour 2. Had Rush Hour 2 not been delayed, many believe Mr. Chan would have been filming the action/comedy, entitled Nosebleed, during the time of the attacks.

Television


- The pilot of the TV series The Lone Gunmen, first aired March 4, 2001, had the gunmen thwarting a plot to fly a jet into the World Trade Center. In the episode, a faction of the U.S. government is behind the plot; they hope to blame the attack on another country's dictator and use it as an excuse to start a war with him. [http://www.insidethex.co.uk/transcrp/tlg179.htm Transcript of pilot episode]

Cartoons


- In the 1997 episode of The Simpsons entitled The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson, Homer is forced to deal with a mountain of parking tickets issued while his car sat illegally for months in the plaza of the WTC. Particular comic relief is provided when Homer, desperately needing to use the restroom, races by stairs to the top of the North Tower only to discover the only working bathroom is in the South Tower Observation Deck, which he is forced to again access by stairs. Also in the episode, two men in opposite towers begin arguing with each other, which was tipped off after one proclaimed, "Sorry, they put all the jerks in Tower One." A man apparently residing a few floors above the brawling men (as evidenced by a clothesline strung across the towers) finally yells at them to shut up.
- In the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon the WTC often is seen. One of the most famous incidents in the series is the episode Enter: The Fly, which begins with the TMNT flying in their blimp over New York City, searching for Shredder. April O'Neil said that Shredder was seen on the roof on one of the two WTC buildings, and the TMNT find Shredder and Baxter Stockman there. However, Shredder and Baxter Stockman manage to escape.

Comic books


- In the 1989 Damage Control, the twin towers were damaged when a giant robot fell on them. Damage Control, a construction company that specialized in repairing superhero-related damage, had the towers repaired (although visibly crooked) by the end of the issue.
- The 2004 comic Ex Machina detailed the life of Mitchell Hundred, formerly the world's first and only superhero, who was elected mayor of New York City in the wake of his saving hundreds of lives during the collapse of the north tower, and in preventing the collapse of the south tower.

Computer and video games


- The 1999 city building simulation game SimCity 3000 features the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center as free landmarks which could be built in a city. However, both towers are apparently portrayed as the South Tower: Each of the towers featured a rooftop observation deck, but lacked the massive antenna. As the 2003 sequel SimCity 4 no longer features the World Trade Center in the game, third party modders recreated the entire complex, including 3, 4, 5 and 6 WTC, for the game and released the lot to the public on 11 September, 2004 in Simtropolis, a SimCity 4 fan site.
- The first map of the 2000 game Deus Ex, set in 2052, encompasses Liberty Island and a bombed Statue of Liberty. The section of the New York City skyline containing the Twin Towers is absent, to reduce memory requirements for the map. The reason that the developers gave, if anyone asked, was that they had been destroyed by terrorists. "We just said that the towers had been destroyed too. And this was way before 9-11. Years. That's kind of freaky."[http://pc.ign.com/articles/386/386515p3.html]
- Shortly after the attacks, the now defunct Westwood Studios pulled all remaining copies of the 2000 real-time strategy game Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, whose box contained artwork of New York City under attack by invading Soviet forces; notable buildings depicted under attack included the World Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty. The single player campaign of the game also contains a pair of missions in which the player was instructed to destroy The Pentagon and capture the World Trade Center. Westwood retooled the box art before re-releasing the game.
- In response to the tragic events of September 11th, Microsoft announced that future versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator would not include the Twin Towers in the game's New York City skyline. A patch was also made available to remove the WTC buildings from the existing versions of the simulator. More disturbing however was the speculation that the flight simulator found by the FBI on the laptop of the would-be 20th hijacker was indeed Microsoft's offering.

See also


- Collapse of the World Trade Center
- Twin Towers 2
- World Trade and Convention Centre
- George Willig
- 50 Tallest buildings in the U.S.
- List of Skyscrapers

External links


- [http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON001.htm New York Architecture Images- World Trade Center]
- [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/wonder/structure/world_trade.html PBS - Building Big: Databank: World Trade Center]
- [http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project "Complete 9/11 Timeline" by Center for Cooperative Research]
- [http://www.emporis.com/en/bu/sk/wt/ Emporis - Special Coverage of the World Trade Center in New York City]
- [http://www.wirednewyork.com/wtc/ Wired New York - The World Trade Center]
- [http://www.aviewoncities.com/nyc/wtc.htm A View On Cities - World Trade Center, New York City]
- [http://www.greatgridlock.net/NYC/nyc3b.html#73 NEW YORK SCRAPERS - INTERNATIONAL STYLE III]
- [http://www.renewnyc.com/ Lower Manhattan Development Corporation]

Articles


- [http://www.buildings.com/Articles/detail.asp?ArticleID=341 Four Percent of Manhattan's Total Office Space Was Destroyed in ... - NEW YORK, Sept. 24]

Photos


- [http://www.internet-esq.com/worldtradecenter/index.htm World Trade Center Photos] by Robert Swanson
- [http://hereisnewyork.org/gallery/thumb.asp?categoryID=2 Here Is New York - Gallery]
- [http://www.GreatBuildings.com/buildings/World_Trade_Center.html World Trade Center - Minoru Yamasaki - Great Buildings Online]
- [http://www.internet-esq.com/worldtradecenter/index.htm World Trade Center Photos]
- [http://www.insecula.com/salle/panorama_MS00902.html/ View from the top]
- [http://www.insecula.com/musee/photo_M0064.html/ Pictures]
- [http://ericdarton.net/ New York's World Trade Center: A Living Archive]
- [http://www.emporis.com/en/il/pc/?id=100329&aid=23&sro=1 Emporis World Trade Center photos]
- [http://www.nycfoto.com/albumHome.php?albumID=32 NYCfoto.com] - Main WTC Photo Gallery at NYCfoto.com
- [http://www.nycfoto.com/showPage.php?albumID=49 NYCfoto.com] - Views from World Trade Center
- [http://www.nycfoto.com/showPage.php?albumID=52 NYCfoto.com] - Photos of World Trade Center interiors
- [http://www.everent.com/360/PosterProject/WTCTour.asp Virtual 360° View From WTC Outside Observation Deck]

Tenants


- [http://www.boston.com/news/daily/13/tradecenter_north.htm World Trade Center North tenants] - from boston.com
- [http://www.boston.com/news/daily/13/tradecenter_south.htm World Trade Center South tenants] - from boston.com

Other


- [http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,34255,00.html World Trade Center Facts, FOX News, September 12, 2001]
- [http://www.teamtwintowers.org Rebuild the Twin Towers]
- [http://www.restorewtc.com/ Website documenting the politics behind the WTC rebuilding process]
- [http://www.geocities.com/londondestruction/wtc.html Twin Towers Tribute Essay]
- [http://www.sonicmemorial.org/ The Sonic Memorial Project]
- [http://www.googleearthhacks.com/dlfile662/The-former-World-Trade-Center-in-New-York.htm WTC plug-in for Google Earth]
- [http://www.archive.org/details/world_trade_center Film workprint showing construction of WTC towers]
- [http://www.buildthememorial.org World Trade Center Memorial]
- [http://www.cruzate.com/nyhell Original footage of the WTC attacks]

Webcams


- [http://www.earthcam.com/cams/newyork/groundzero/camera2.php World Trade Center Site / Ground Zero Webcams] New York Category:New York City history Category:Destroyed landmarks Category:demolished buildings Category:Former buildings and structures of the United States Category:New York City skyscrapers Category:Skyscrapers over 350 meters Category:Buildings and structures in Manhattan ko:세계 무역 센터 ja:ニューヨーク世界貿易センタービル simple:World Trade Center



Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is a bi-state agency (operated pursuant to an interstate compact) that runs most of the regional transportation infrastructure including the bridges, tunnels, airports and seaports within the New York-New Jersey Port District. This 1,500 mile² (3,900 km²) District is defined as a circle with a 25 mile (40 km) radius centered on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. Established on April 30, 1921 as the Port of New York Authority, the name of the agency and its form of operation were changed to their present form in 1972. Airports operated by the Port Authority include JFK and LaGuardia both of which are located in the Borough of Queens in New York City, Newark Liberty International located jointly in the cities of Newark, New Jersey and Elizabeth, New Jersey and Teterboro Airport in Teterboro, New Jersey. The Authority also operates the Downtown Manhattan Heliport. Other facilities managed by the Port Authority include the Lincoln Tunnel, Holland Tunnel and the George Washington Bridge, which connect Manhattan and northern New Jersey; the Goethals Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing (previously the Arthur Kill Bridges, currently the Staten Island Bridges); the Bayonne Bridge; the Port Authority Bus Terminal and the George Washington Bridge Bus Station; the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) rapid transit system linking lower and midtown Manhattan with New Jersey; the AirTrain Newark system linking Newark International Airport with the Northeast Corridor rail line of NJ Transit and Amtrak; the AirTrain JFK system linking JFK with Howard Beach(Subway) and Jamaica (Subway & LIRR); the NY/NJ port; and a number of real estate projects including the World Trade Center site. The Port Authority currently specializes in transportation, but it was founded to manage the Port of New York itself. Originally the port facilities were in New York and Brooklyn, but now virtually all the docks and wharves are in Newark and Elizabeth. The Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal was the first in the nation to containerize and is now the fifteenth busiest in the world. It moved over $ 100 billion in goods in 2003. The Port Authority also operates its own 1,600-member police department which is responsible for providing safety and deterring criminal activity at Port Authority-owned and operated facilities. Although the Port Authority does run a good portion of the transportation structures, some bridges, tunnels and other transportation facilities are operated independently of the Port Authority, including the Staten Island Ferry by the New York City Department of Transportation, bridges, tunnels, buses, subways and commuter rail by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and buses, commuter rail and light rail by New Jersey Transit. Eighty-four Port Authority employees including Executive Director Neil D. Levin and 37 Port Authority police officers were killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. The collapse of the World Trade Center deprived the Port Authority of its official base of operations. The Port Authority archives were also destroyed in the attacks. On November 24, 2003, the World Trade Center PATH station resumed operations.

Governance

The Port Authority is a financially self-supporting public agency that receives no tax revenues from any state or local jurisdiction and has no power to tax. It relies almost entirely on revenues generated by facility users, tolls, fees, and rents. The Governor of each state appoints six members to the Board of Commissioners, subject to state senate approval. Board Members serve as public officials without pay for overlapping six-year terms. The Governors retain the right to veto the actions of Commissioners from his or her own state. Board meetings are public. The Board of Commissioners appoints an Executive Director to carry out the agency's policies and manage the day-to-day operations.

Executive Directors


- Eugenius H. Outerbridge
- Neil D. Levin

External link


- [http://www.panynj.gov/ Official website] Category:intermodal transportation authorities Category:Transportation in New York City Category:Transportation in New Jersey Category:U.S. interstate compacts New York

July 2002

2002 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December A timeline of events in the news for July, 2002. See also:
- Afghanistan timeline July 2002

July 31, 2002


- The Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate begins hearings on the proposed invasion of Iraq
- The Stock Market continues its recovery from the Stock market downturn of 2002
- In Mexico Pope John Paul II canonizes St. Juan Diego an Indian who had a vision of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe.

July 30, 2002


- Pope John Paul II canonizes Pedro de San Jose Betancur.
- Greek electronic game ban: The bill 3037/2002, a controversial attempt to fight illegal gambling, is declared a law in Greece.

July 29, 2002


- England beats India in the first cricket test match of the series.

July 28, 2002


- Cyclist Lance Armstrong wins his fourth consecutive Tour de France.

July 27, 2002


- Ukraine airshow disaster: A Sukhoi Su-27 fighter plane crashes into a crowd at an airshow in Lviv in Ukraine, killing at least 78 people and injuring many more.
- A series of bomb blasts have rocked the Christian districts of the city of Ambon in Indonesia in what appears to be a continuation of violence between Christian and Muslim inhabitants. Over the past 5 years more than 5000 people have been killed in this conflict.
- Nine American miners have been rescued from a mine in Pennsylvania, after frantic drilling by rescuers.
- The Homeland Security Bill passes the United States House of Representatives, in a form that appears to kill Operation TIPS.

July 25, 2002


- A US proposal to delay adoption of a new United Nations anti-torture pact was defeated 15-29, after which the pact was adopted by the Economic and Social Council. The US cited concerns that, if adopted by the General Assembly, American state prisons and other facilities may become subject to inspection.
- Open source: Streaming media company RealNetworks has announced that it will support the free software Ogg Vorbis audio compression technology as part of its new open-source initiative. This will provide a mass market for the Vorbis technology, allowing it access to network effects which may make it a serious competitor to Microsoft's closed technologies.

July 24, 2002


- First near-earth object to be given a positive rating on the Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale for potential Earth collision is (89959) 2002 NT7 with a potential impact on February 1, 2019.
- US Congressman James Traficant was expelled from the House of Representatives on a vote of 420 to 1. Traficant had been convicted of ten federal counts of corruption.
- The major Millennium Challenge 2002 wargame run by the United States armed forces begins.

July 23, 2002


- Recent celebrity deaths: Chaim Potok, novelist dies of cancer at age 73
- 40 years ago today, Telstar transmits the first trans-Atlantic television signal.

July 22, 2002


- A few hours after the spiritual leader of Hamas, Ahmed Yassin, offered to halt all suicide attacks in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, an Israeli F-16 jet dropped a bomb into a densely populated residential area of Gaza City. Fifteen people were killed, including Salah Shehade (the leader of Hamas's military wing, the Izz ad-Din el-Qasam Brigades), and more than 100 others were wounded. Nine of the dead were children, including Mohammed al-Huwaiti (aged 4), his brother Subhi (aged 3), Ayman Mattar (aged 1) and Dunya Rami Mattar (aged 3 months). The United Nations swiftly condemned the action as a flagrant violation of international law. Ariel Sharon, Israel's Prime Minister, said it was "one of our biggest successes," though the Prime Minister's office later added, "it is well known he regrets the killing of civilians." [http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/07/23/hanna.gaza.otsc/]
- An earthquake (magnitude 4.7) hits parts of Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
- Accounting scandals: WorldCom has filed for bankruptcy protection, in the largest corporate insolvency ever.
- Harry Potter. The director for the third Harry Potter film has been announced as Mexican-born Alfonso Cuaron. Cuaron will start directing "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" next year.
- Politics of the Netherlands. A new cabinet is sworn in, with Jan Peter Balkenende replacing Wim Kok as Prime Minister. He heads a coalition of three parties: Christen Democratisch Appèl, Lijst Pim Fortuyn and Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie. One of the state secretaries of the new cabinet resigned a few hours later.

July 18, 2002


- Patents: Forgent Networks has asserted that it owns and will enforce patent rights on the widely-used JPEG image compression standard which is used widely on the World Wide Web. The announcement has created a furore remisicent of Unisys' attempts to assert its rights over the GIF image compression standard.
- Muslim missile engineer Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam is elected president of India, to be sworn into office July 25.

July 15, 2002


- John Walker Lindh, the so-called "American Taliban", pled guilty to two charges, and prosecutors dropped the rest. He will be sentenced in October.

July 14, 2002


- French president Jacques Chirac misses a would-be assassin's bullet during Bastille Day celebrations.

July 10, 2002


- Michel Brunet, a paleontologist at the University of Poitiers, France, announced in the journal Nature that a 7 million-year-old skull found in the desert of Chad is the earliest hominid fossil ever found. But he was immediately met by a firestorm of criticism from other scientists who claim that it is merely the skull of a female gorilla.

July 9, 2002


- George W. Bush gives a stern speech addressing American accountancy scandals.
- Recent celebrity deaths: Rod Steiger, American actor, aged 77.

July 8, 2002


- Organization of African Unity disbanded, African Union created.

July 5, 2002


- Recent celebrity deaths: Ted Williams, baseball player, aged 83.
- Luisa Rivers Murder Children dead.

July 2, 2002


- Nicotine water is ruled illegal by the Food and Drug Administration.
- Entertainment - Yahoo! Internet Life magazine folds.
- Medicine - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the United States will be headed by an infectious disease expert.
- Technology - A US federal judge decided that Microsoft is not required to reveal its lobbying contacts.

July 1, 2002


- A Russian Tupolev Tu-154 airliner and a Boeing 757 operated by DHL collide at 35,000ft over Uberlingen, due to failure of correct communication from ground-to-air. The 69 people aboard the Tupolev (mainly Russian schoolchildren) and the two pilots of the Boeing are all killed.
- 2002-07

Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill

The architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP (SOM) was formed in Chicago in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings; in 1939 they were joined by John Merrill. They opened their first branch in New York City in 1937. SOM is one of the largest architectural firms in the United States. Their primary expertise is in high-end commercial buildings, as it was SOM which led the way to the widespread use of the modern "glass box" skyscraper. Some architectural critics have dubbed the firm "The Three Blind Mies", citing the similarity of many of their buildings to the works of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Their most famous architects were Gordon Bunshaft, Myron Goldsmith, Bruce Graham, Fazlur Khan, and Walter Netsch. The company claims to have completed 10,000 projects and maintains offices in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, London, Hong Kong, and Sao Paulo.

Notable SOM buildings


- Individual buildings and the town plan for Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1942
- Lever House, New York, 1952
- Various buildings on Illinois Institute of Technology's Main Campus, 1950s - 1970s
- U.S. Air Force Academy, 1958
- University of Illinois at Chicago's "Circle Campus", 1965
- Louis Jefferson Long Library at Wells College, 1968
- Bank of America Center, San Francisco, California, 1969
- John Hancock Center, Chicago, Illinois, 1969
- Weyerhaeuser Headquarters, Tacoma, Washington, 1971
- Haj Terminal, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 1972
- Sears Tower, Chicago, Illinois, 1973
- Carlton Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1973
- US Bank Building, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1973
- First Wisconsin Plaza, Madison, Wisconsin, 1974
- Enerplex, North Building, Princeton, New Jersey, 1982
- Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, 1982
- Jin Mao Building, Shanghai, 1998
- Embassy of the United States in Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada, 1999
- 7 South Dearborn (unbuilt), Chicago, 2000

Buildings under construction


- Freedom Tower, New York City
- second 7 World Trade Center, New York City
- Burj Dubai, Dubai
- Trump International Hotel and Tower, Chicago
- Ninoy Aquino International Airport's terminal three, Manila

External links


- [http://www.som.com/ SOM corporate site]
- [http://www.waltlockley.com/trust/trust.htm Review of the 1954 Manufacturer's Hanover Trust Branch Bank in NYC] Category:Architecture firms ja:スキッドモア・オーウィングズ・アンド・メリル

The Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty (dedicated on October 28, 1886), in full Liberty Enlightening the World, is an allegorical statue, given to the United States by the French Third Republic in the late 19th century, standing at the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbor as a welcome to all returning Americans, visitors, and immigrants alike. The sculptor was Frederic Auguste Bartholdi; Gustave Eiffel (of Eiffel Tower fame) created the armature. The copper statue of the goddess of Liberty was a gift of France, commemorating the centennial of the United States and as a gesture of friendship between the two nations. The pedestal was constructed by the United States. The Statue of Liberty is one of the most recognizable icons worldwide and is often used as a symbol that personifies the U.S., much like Uncle Sam. In a more general sense, the Statue of Liberty is used to represent liberty in general and is a favored symbol of libertarians.

Description

The Statue of Liberty is located on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, about 2000 feet (600 m) from Jersey City, New Jersey and 1-5/8 statute miles (2.6 km) southwest of the southern tip of Manhattan. (The island was officially called "Bedloe's Island" until 1956, but the name "Liberty Island" has been in popular use since the early 1900s.) The goddess of liberty holds a torch in her right hand and a tablet in her left. The tablet shows the caption "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI", the date of the Declaration of Independence. One of her feet stands on chains. The seven spikes in her crown represent the seven seas or seven continents. The height from ground to the tip of the torch is 305 feet (93 m); this includes the foundation and the pedestal. The height of the statue itself, from the top of the base to the torch, is 151 feet (46 m). The statue was built from thin copper plates hammered into wooden forms. The formed plates were then mounted onto a steel skeleton. Declaration of Independence The statue is normally open to visitors, who arrive by ferry and could climb stairs into her crown until September 11, 2001, which provided a broad view of New York Harbor. A museum in the pedestal — accessible by elevator — presents the history of the statue. At one time, the ladder in the right arm holding the torch was also open to the public, but it has for many years been restricted to staff use, for maintaining the lighting equipment in the torch. The statue and island were closed from September 11, 2001 to August 3, 2004 due to heightened security following the destruction of the World Trade Center. During this period, only the grounds of Liberty Island were open for visitation; the statue, museum, crown, and all outdoor observation decks remained closed. World Trade Center The Emma Lazarus poem "The New Colossus" was written for the statue, and engraved on a bronze plaque in 1903, 20 years after it was written. The plaque is located on a wall of the museum, which is in the base of the Statue. (It has never been engraved on the monument itself). In its famous culminating lines, Liberty says : "Give me your tired, your poor, :Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, :The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. :Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, :I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Although Liberty Island is closer to New Jersey than to New York, it has been part of New York since the issuance in 1664 of the colonial charter that created New Jersey (see [http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/states/nj01.htm charter text]). Portions of nearby Ellis Island that were formed by subsequent landfilling are, under a Supreme Court decision, part of New Jersey, but that decision had no effect on Liberty Island. The island is owned by the federal government and is administered by the National Park Service. (For additional details, see Liberty Island).

History

Liberty Island French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was commissioned to design a sculpture with the year 1876 in mind for completion, to commemorate the centennial of the American Declaration of Independence. Bartholdi had previously prepared in 1869 a scale model of a giant statue of a lady holding a torch, for the entry of the recently built Suez Canal. The idea for the commemorative gift grew out of the political turmoil which was shaking France at the time. The French Third Republic was still considered as a "temporary" arrangement by many, who wished a return to monarchism, or to some form of constitutional dictatorship which they had known under Napoleon I of France. The idea of giving a colossal representation of republican virtues to a "sister" republic across the sea served as a focus for the republican cause against other political opponents. Napoleon I of France Bartholdi had an authentic American model, it appears: the good-looking, recently widowed Isabella Eugenie Boyer, the wife of Isaac Singer, the sewing-machine industrialist. "She was rid of the uncouth presence of her husband, who had left her with only his most socially desirable attributes: his fortune and... his children. She was, from the beginning of her career in Paris, a well-known figure. As the good-looking French widow of an American industrialist she was called upon to be Bartholdi's model for the Statue of Liberty." (Ruth Brandon, Singer and the Sewing Machine: A Capitalist Romance, p. 211) It was agreed upon that in a joint effort the American people were to build the pedestal, and the French people were responsible for the Statue and its assembly in the United States. However, lack of funds was a problem on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In France, public fees, various forms of entertainment, and a lottery were among the methods used to raise the 2,250,000 francs. In the United States, benefit theatrical events, art exhibitions, auctions and prize fights assisted in providing needed funds. Meanwhile in France, Bartholdi required the assistance of an engineer to address structural issues associated with designing such a colossal copper sculpture. Gustave Eiffel (designer of the Eiffel Tower) was commissioned to design the massive iron pylon and secondary skeletal framework which allows the Statue's copper skin to move independently yet stand upright. Eiffel delegated the detailed work to his trusted structural engineer, Maurice Koechlin. Back in America, the site, authorized in New York Harbor by Act of Congress, 1877, was selected by General William Tecumseh Sherman, who settled on Bartholdi's own choice, then known as Bedloe's Island, where there was already an early 19th century star-shaped fortification. Fundraising for the pedestal, led by William M. Evarts, was going slowly, so Joseph Pulitzer (noted for the Pulitzer Prize) opened up the editorial pages of his newspaper, The World, to support the fund raising effort. Pulitzer used his newspaper to criticize both the rich who had failed to finance the pedestal construction and the middle class who were content to rely upon the wealthy to provide the funds. Pulitzer's campaign of harsh criticism was successful in motivating the people of America to donate. Financing for the pedestal, designed by American architect Richard Morris Hunt, was completed in August 1885, the cornerstone was laid on August 5, and pedestal construction was finished in April 22, 1886. When the last stone of the pedestal was swung into place the masons reached into their pockets and showered into the mortar a collection of silver coins. August 5 Built into the pedestal's massive masonry are two sets of four iron girders, connected by iron tie beams that are carried up to become part of Eiffel's framework for the statue itself. Thus Liberty is integral with her pedestal. The Statue was completed in France in July, 1884 and arrived in New York Harbor on June 17, 1885 on board the French frigate Isere. In transit, the Statue was reduced to 350 individual pieces and packed in 214 crates. (The right arm and the torch, which were completed earlier, had been exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1876, and thereafter at Madison Square in New York City.) The Statue was re-assembled on her new pedestal in four months' time. On October 28, 1886, the dedication of the Statue of Liberty by U.S. President Grover Cleveland took place in front of thousands of spectators. She was a centennial gift ten years belated. In 1916, the Black Tom Explosion caused $100,000 worth of damage to the statue, embedding shrapnel and eventually leading to restricting access of the torch to visitors. President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt rededicated the Statue of Liberty on its 50th anniversary (October 28, 1936). As with all historic areas administered by the National Park Service, Statue of Liberty National Monument, along with Ellis Island and Liberty Island, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. In 1984, the Statue of Liberty was added to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's list of World Heritage Sites. It is one of only four surviving man-made sites in the United States to be named as such, the others being Independence Hall, Pueblo de Taos, and the combined site of the University of Virginia and Monticello. Extensive renovations were performed before the statue's centennial in 1986, including a new gold layer on the torch, which now shines over New York Harbor at night. The Statue of Liberty was reopened to the public on July 5 after this extensive refurbishing. The centennial extravaganza lasted three days and drew 12 million people, and is said to have been the largest public event in the world as of that date. It was produced by Jeanne Fleming, a internationally renowned celebration producer and artist whose work includes New York's Village Halloween Parade. The guest list was unique. "We invited all the great statues of the world to her birthday party and created giant puppets to represent them," Fleming explains. "Each one arrived accompanied by native music."

Origin of the copper

New York's Village Halloween Parade Historical records make no mention of the source of the copper used in the Statue of Liberty. In the town of Visnes, near Stavanger, Norway, tradition holds that the copper came from the French-owned Visnes Mine. Ore from this mine, refined in France and Belgium, was a significant source of European copper in the late nineteenth century. In 1985, Bell Laboratories used emission spectrography to compare samples of copper from the Visnes Mines and from the Statue of Liberty, found the spectrum of impurities to be very similar, and concluded that the evidence argued strongly for a Norwegian origin of the copper.

Concern for security

On September 11, 2001 the Statue of Liberty was closed to the public to upgrade its security systems. On December 20, 2001 the exterior grounds were reopened to visitors. [http://www.nps.gov/stli/reopening/index.html] On August 3, 2004, the pedestal interior was reopened; however, the interior of the statue remains closed. Visitors are subject to restrictions, including personal searches similar to the security found in airports.

Jumps

On 2:45 p.m. on February 2, 1917, steeplejack Frederick R. Law successfully performed a parachute jump from the observation platform surrounding the torch. It was done with the permission of the army captain administering the island. According to the New York Times story the following day (p. 4) he "fell fully seventy-five feet like a dead weight, the parachute showing no inclination whatsoever to open at first," but he then descended "gracefully," landed hard, and limped away. The first suicide took place on May 13, 1929. According to the New York Times story the following day (p. 1), a witness said the man, later identified as Ralph Gleason, crawled out through one of the windows of the crown, turned around as if to return, "seemed to slip" and "shot downward, bouncing off the breast of the statue in the plunge." The body landed at a patch of grass at the base, just a few feet from a workman who was mowing the grass.

Smaller copies

parachute jump A smaller-scale copy of the Statue of Liberty is found in Paris, France, where it stands near the Grenelle Bridge on the Île des Cygnes, an island in the river Seine (). It looks towards the Atlantic Ocean and hence towards its "larger sister" in New York Harbor. From 1887 to 1945, Hanoi was home to another copy of the statue. Measuring 2.85 m tall, it was erected by the French colonial government after being sent from France for an exhibition. It was known to locals unaware of its history as Tượng Bà đầm xòe (Statue of the Open-Dress Dame). When the French lost control of French Indochina during World War II, the statue was toppled on August 1, 1945 after being deemed a vestige of the colonial government along with other statues erected by the French. From 1902 to 2002, visitors to Midtown Manhattan were occasionally disoriented by what seemed to be an impossibly nearby view of the statue. They were seeing a 37 foot (11 m) high replica located at 43 West 64th Street atop the Liberty Warehouse. In February 2002 the statue was removed by the building owners to allow building expansion. As of 2004 it is in storage at the Brooklyn Museum of Art awaiting relocation to the sculpture garden, announced for October, 2005. (See External links below). Duluth, Minnesota has a small copy on the west side of the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center, in the center of a clearing surrounded by pine trees where it may pass unnoticed. It was presented to the city by some of Bartholdi's descendants residing in Duluth. As of 2004 As of 2004 Between 1949 and 1951, approximately two hundred 100-inch (2.5 m) replicas of the statue, made of stamped copper, were purchased by Boy Scout troops and donated to various towns in the United States. The mass-produced statues are not great art nor meticulously accurate (a conservator notes that "her face isn’t as mature as the real Liberty. It’s rounder and more like a little girl’s"), but they are cherished, particularly since 9/11. Many have been lost or destroyed, but preservationists have been able to account for about a hundred of them, and BSA Troop 101 of Cheyenne, Wyoming has collected photographs of over 50 of them (see External Links below). There is a half-size replica at the New York-New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada (see [http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/las_vegas/vegas/nyny.jpg photo]). A 35 meter copy is found in the German theme park Heidepark Soltau, located on a lake with cruising Mississippi steamboats. Another replica is the Bordeaux Statue of Liberty. This 2.5 meter (8 ft) statue is found in the city of Bordeaux in Southwest France . The first Bordeaux statue was taken down and melted by the Nazis in World War II. The statue was replaced in 2000 and a plaque was added to commemorate the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks. On the night of March 25, 2003, unknown vandals poured red paint and gasoline on the replica and set it on fire. The vandals also cracked the pedestal of the plaque honoring victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The mayor of Bordeaux, former prime minister Alain Juppé, condemned the attack. There is another good replica in Northwest of France, in the small town of Barentin near Rouen. It was made for a French movie, Le Cerveau ("the brain"), directed by Gérard Oury and featuring actors Jean-Paul Belmondo and Bourvil. A bronze sculpture of the Statue of Liberty is on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York city. The city of Sioux Falls, South Dakota erected a replacement bronze reproduction standing 9 feet (2.7 m) tall in McKennan Park atop the original pedestal for a long-missing wooden replica. During the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989, Chinese student demonstrators in Beijing built a 10 m version of the Statue of Liberty to symbolize their struggle. They called it the Goddess of Democracy. In Japan, a small Statue of Liberty is also a well-known symbol of the Amerika-mura (American Village) shopping district in Osaka, Japan. Another replica 'Jiyuu no Megami' (自由の女神, lit. 'Goddess of Freedom', the Japanese name for the Statue) stands near the only beach in Tokyo at Odaiba. A 12 meter replica of the Statue of Liberty in Colmar, the city of Bartholdi's birth, was dedicated on July 4, 2004 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his death. It stands at the north entrance of the city. A smaller replica is standing in the Norwegian village of Visnes, where the copper used in the original statue was mined from. A replica stands atop the Hotel Victory in Prishtina, Kosovo. Two 12 meter replicas stand atop the Liberty Building in Buffalo,_New_York, nearly 108 meters above street level. A LEGO replica of the Statue of Liberty consisting of 2882 bricks and standing 90cm is a popular sculpture among LEGO enthusiasts. The statue went out of production, but due to popular demand was returned to sale.

The Statue of Liberty in popular culture

LEGO)]] During the 1940s and 1950s, the iconography of science fiction in the United States was filled with images of ancient, decayed Statues of Liberty, set in the distant future. The covers of famous pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories and Astounding Science Fiction all featured Lady Liberty at one time, surrounded by ruins or by the sediments of the ages, as curious aliens or representatives of advanced or degenerate humans of the future gazed upon her remains. The February 1941 cover of Astounding showed a primitive man and woman approaching on a raft a Statue of Liberty surrounded by wild growth. The Statue of Liberty has also been used as a symbol of protest, as shown in the album cover for the Dead Kennedys 1986 album Bedtime for Democracy. Bedtime for Democracy Perhaps the most famous appearance of the statue in cinema was in the ending of the 1968 film Planet of the Apes, where the statue appears decayed and half-buried in sand, serving as painful, undeniable proof to the film's protagonist, Taylor, that he has been on Earth the whole time. (This scene is parodied in the animated comedy Madagascar, the Mel Brooks film Spaceballs, the Kevin Smith film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and the animated television show The Simpsons.) It also appears in the beginning of the first sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes. A second episode of The Simpsons features the family visiting the Statue's crown, from which Bart yells at a boat full of immigrants to leave, claiming the United States is full. The head of the vessel turns to the passengers and says, "You heard the lady; get back inside." Liberty is shown against a dark nighttime backdrop of a futuristic, desolate Manhattan in Escape From New York. Liberty is seen in the background of the Nintendo Entertainment System game Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! when the character "Little Mac" and his trainer jog through a park. It also appears in the background of the first match in the Nintendo title Super Dodge Ball's "versus" mode. In the video game Parasite eve the opening cinematic displays a rotating view of "lady liberty" crying tears of blood while battles rage. In 1978, at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jim Mallon and Leon Varjian of the "Pail and Shovel Party" won election by promising to give campus issues "the seriousness they deserve." In 1979 (and again in 1980), they created their own version of the Planet of the Apes scene by erecting replicas of the torch and the top of the head on the frozen surface of Lake Mendota, creating a fanciful suggestion that the entire statue was standing on the bottom of the lake. Lake Mendota.]] New York and New Jersey have featured the statue on license plates. The statue was on the regular New York plate from 1986 until withdrawn in 2003. A [http://www.state.nj.us/mvc/cit_plates/lsp.htm New Jersey specialty plate], celebrating Liberty State Park has been available for many years and, unlike the New York plate, is still available as of 2005. In National Lampoon's European Vacation, Chevy Chase accidentally gets his jacket caught in the controls of an airplane, causing the jet to hit the Statue's torch, which falls loose. The Statue of Liberty was animated and walked through New York City in the film Ghostbusters II (1989). It is one of the sights Macaulay Culkin sees via binoculars from Battery Park in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and is also seen in the Bill Murray comedy Quick Change as he and friends search for a landmark. In the film Independence Day (1996) it was destroyed. In the 1998 movie Deep Impact, the statue is destroyed by a tsunami caused by a comet impact; its severed head is later seen floating down a submerged New York City street). This statue is also the stage for the climax in the films Saboteur (1942) and X-Men (2000). At the end of Men in Black II, Tommy Lee Jones' character utilizes the Statue's torch to neuralize the memory of the destruction of an alien spacecraft that was theoretically witnessed by thousands of New Yorkers. Much of the advertising for the film The Day After Tomorrow (2004) used an image of the Statue of Liberty nearly buried in snow and ice, after a storm surge and catastrophic climate change. The statue and its renovation scaffolding were also featured in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985) as the setting for a fight scene. The 1995 film Batman Forever featured a clone of the Statue in the harbor of the fictitious Gotham City. A helicopter operated by Tommy Lee Jones' villain character "Two Face" was intentionally flown into the false Statue in an effort to destroy Batman in the film's opening scene; while both Batman and Two-Face survived the crash, the face of the Statue did not. In the 1997 blockbuster film Titanic, Kate Winslet's "Rose" character looks up at the Statue as her rescue boat arrives in New York Harbor. A 2002 student film produced at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania involved the Statue being stolen from its pedestal and dropped onto the university's campus. Chester, Pennsylvania poster from World War II uses the statue's representation of America to demonize the Allies. The text reads "here are the liberators"]] 1989 unproduced scripts for the comic-book Watchmen, originally to be directed by Terry Gilliam, featured a terrorist group holding 40 hostages in the Statue itself. While the authorities agreed to the terrorists' demands, the super heroes (Watchmen) try to save all of them. The mission is a failure and the statue is destroyed, taking the lives of hostages and terrorists. As a result, a new legislation was approved to ban all costumed adventurers nationwide. Spanish comic-book Mortadelo y Filemón features, in one particular adventure, main characters, Spanish counter-intelligence agents, travelling to New York after discovering that two men are to bomb the "Statue of Liberty". After having lots of trouble in New York, they come back to Spain and find that the statue to be bombed is not on New York, but on a small Spanish town, the statue of Liberty Boñíguez, the major's wife. In the computer game Red Alert 2, the destruction of the Statue of Liberty is seen twice, once during the first allied mission and once during the introduction, though both scenes depict the same event from different perspectives. On April 8, 1983, CBS broadcast a program, the fifth of a series featuring illusionist David Copperfield, in which he made the statue apparently vanish. The effect took place at night. The program showed the statue from the point of view of an audience seated on a ground-level platform, viewing the statue through a proscenium arch. According to William Poundstone, the illusion involved closing curtains fitted in the arch; turning off the statue's floodlights; and slowly rotating the platform on which the audience was sitting. In a literal example of misdirection, the now dim, but not quite invisible, statue was no longer aligned with the arch. Thus, when the curtains were opened, the arch now framed darkness. Televised views from a helicopter showing the statue's "disappearance" were, according to Poundstone, views of a duplicate ring of lights, surrounding empty ground, that had been installed on Liberty Island for the illusion. The Japanese animation series Read or Die featured an action-packed air chase scene culminating in a showdown at the Statue of Liberty. The sequence included a character plummeting down the interior of the hollow statue. The Statue of Liberty has appeared on a fake $1,000,000 (million) dollar bill. (see [http://www.atlantaadvertising.com/page2.php] and [http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi?cid=484245&PAGE=PRODUCT&PROD_ID=848772&fp=F#].) The Statue is also often the first image used during the opening credits of the popular sketch-comedy show Saturday Night Live which proudly broadcasts its performance each week live from New York City. In fact, during the 1984-85 and 1985-86 seasons, an image of the statue surrounded in scaff