World's 5th-Tallest Buildings Housed Offices, Retail Shops
By Greg Schneider and David S. Hilzenrath
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
For three decades the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center stood as the symbol of American economic might, as powerful an icon for capitalism as the Statue of Liberty is for freedom.
The two 110-story buildings defined the Manhattan skyline at the turn of the millennium the way the Empire State Building did in an earlier era. But their presence was more than symbolic.
The complex was a city within a city, with 50,000 workers and 150,000 others passing through on a typical workday. It represented one-tenth of all office space in Lower Manhattan.
Scores of corporations had offices there, including financial services giant Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., the biggest single tenant, with one-eighth of the space in the south tower.
The complex was a major home to the insurance companies Empire HealthChoice Inc. and Marsh USA Inc., the law offices of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, and Cantor Fitzgerald Securities. It was also a top tourist draw, with observation decks, a simulated helicopter tour of Manhattan and a famous restaurant, Windows on the World.
"The twin towers stood for America in the same way that Big Ben stands for England," said Angus Kress Gillespie, author of the 1999 book "Twin Towers: The Life of New York City's World Trade Center."
"If you're trying to poke America in the eye, this is the way to do it."
When terrorists tried to bring the buildings down in 1993 by planting bombs in a parking garage beneath them, the business world reeled at the notion that it could be the target of a new kind of war. That bombing killed six people and injured more than 1,000, but after extensive renovations -- and with greatly increased security -- the towers reopened.
"Some people I know never went back again, or they couldn't get back into an elevator again," said Neil Lagala, who survived the 1993 bombing and continued working there for six years as an engineer with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
"I did have a feeling way back in my mind that we were still a target -- these guys didn't finish the job, and I felt they would make an example of the trade center . . . but everybody felt that they shouldn't give in to the terrorists."
Just two months ago, two real estate companies, Silverstein Properties of New York and Westfield America of Los Angeles, won a bidding contest to lease the towers and their underground mall from the Port Authority for 99 years at a price of $3.25 billion. The authority had rejected earlier overtures from would-be buyers.
The World Trade Center was more than an American phenomenon; it was also what its name suggested -- a concentration of commercial forces from around the world. It housed banks from Germany, Japan, Chile and Taiwan; investment companies from Asia, Europe, South America; and even the China Chamber of Commerce.
The Royal Thai Embassy had three offices in one tower and managed to track down all 20 of its employees yesterday. All were safe, but two were hospitalized. "We're just relieved to have located them," Ambassador Tej Bunnag said. "But the shock hasn't gone away."
Officials from other tenants spent the day wracked with uncertainty.
Empire HealthChoice, which provides health insurance to thousands of New Yorkers under BlueCross/BlueShield, had 4,200 employees on several floors in one tower. Empire's other facilities in Albany, Staten Island and Long Island were transformed into emergency call centers in an effort to contact employees.
Morgan Stanley had about 3,500 people in its World Trade Center offices, with more than two-thirds of them in the south tower. Chairman Philip Purcell said in a message on the company's Web site that he had "limited information" about the fate of the employees. But he added that "in spite of this tragedy, all of our businesses are functioning and will continue to function."
A spokesman for RLI Insurance Co., based in Peoria, Ill., said all five of the employees who worked for the company at its corner office on the 80th floor of the north tower were accounted for and unhurt.
"The three people who were there grabbed their briefcases and ran down the stairwell," spokesman Mike Quine said. "Skip Orza, one of our vice presidents, found one of the World Trade Center's maintenance men lying on the stairs, burned. He helped him get out of the building. . . . We do a lot of business with folks in the south tower, though, and we think a lot of them are dead."
Rockville-based Weisenberger, a Thomson Financial company, has accounted for all 10 of its employees at 195 Broadway, which is "right in the shadow of the World Trade Center," said a shaken-sounding William Chambers, the company's president.
The twin towers, developed by the Port Authority, supplanted the Empire State Building as the world's tallest buildings when they were dedicated in 1973. They held the title until Chicago's Sears Tower claimed it the following year. Before yesterday, they were the world's fifth-tallest.
Construction began in the late 1960s, and the first of the towers opened in 1970. President Richard Nixon sent a message for the 1973 ribbon-cutting.
The towers cost $1.1 billion to build, according to Eric Darton, author of "Divided We Stand: A Biography of New York's World Trade Center."
The center quickly became a magnet for publicity seekers. In 1974, a French high-wire artist strung a tightrope between the towers for an aerial performance. In 1975, a man jumped off, opened a parachute and drifted to a safe landing.
Darton said yesterday that the destruction of the landmark "reminded me of the Hindenburg tragedy -- how something that appears to be so solid could be so unsubstantial, ultimately."
"It was an excellent target to impact the maximum amount of psychological trauma," he said.
Few could grasp the fact that such a hole was so violently ripped in the city's commercial heart.
"It's a beautiful area, actually -- the Financial Center and the river. It was a beautiful area. Now you look at it today and there's nothing there. It's unbelievable," said Lagala, the former Port Authority engineer. "I saw when those buildings were being built, I could see them from my home. And now it's all gone."
The Empire State Building is once again the tallest building in New York.
Staff writers Sandra Fleishman, Renae Merle, Ellen McCarthy, Carrie Johnson, Daniela Deane, Kathleen Day, Amy Joyce and Steven Pearlstein contributed to this report.