WTC1 Tallest Building in Western Hemisphere

> Looks big, right....

Looks AWESOME!

Thanks for posting here Scott, you da man!

Cheers,

Radar

The Spire...up close.

Some of it is hidden below the derrick deck...

SWEET!

LOVE IT!!!!!

Wow!
No way I could handle those heights without passing right out.

I would have figured they would have hung all the glass panels by now.

BTW: that's some really nice resolution you have on that camera Scott.
E

The Spire...up close.

Somebody has to ask: How do they get the cranes down when they are done?

(We don't see much high rise construction here in quakely land.)

Sheesh, from up there you can see me waving to you in CT!!...lol

But is it plumb???

But is it plumb ?? 🙂 Thanks for the great photos, Scott.

Plumb Or Straight, Cannot Have Both

Because of the height of the WTC, the plumb line varies.

We did the math on the original WTC when I was in college, but I could not do it now.

Paul in PA

Getting The Crane Down

The photo shows 2 cranes on top. A derrick near the corner, that lifts things to the deck and a tower crane that takes things from the deck to the spire.

Typical tall building crane dissassembly is to dismantle the tower crane and lower it via the derrick. Then a smaller derrick is lifted up and used to dismantle and lower the larger one. At some stage in the WTC process a derrick will be used to dismantle the exterior elevator. The last derrick has to be small enough that when dismantled it can come down in an interior elevator.

Scott,

I do not recall that an exterior elevator was used on WTC 1 or 2, but I only visited after the towers were topped out. We were up to the 74th? floor North tower via interior elevators and that floor was just a shell with windows. I believe the tower was occupied to the first sky lobby.

Question, is this the highest elevation for an exterior elevator?

Is that elevator strong enough to carry the weight on it's columns or are the loads cantilevered off the main building?

Paul in PA

Getting The Crane Down

The exterior cranes here are self-climbing. (Up and down.)

Plumb Or Straight, Cannot Have Both

> Because of the height of the WTC, the plumb line varies.
>
Paul - can you elaborate without getting into the math?

Ken

Plumb Or Straight, Cannot Have Both

Or with math, if you can find it.

Plumb Or Straight, Cannot Have Both

Wouldn't the building need to grow wider as it went higher?

Plumb Or Straight, Cannot Have Both

I calculate about 65 parts per million wider (0.007 per 100 ft base width) at 1400 ft height, based on the radius from center of earth.

The potential curvature of the plumb line would also be very small and depend (I think) only on the irregularities in gravity. There wouldn't necessarily be any curvature if gravity was uniform in the area.

What a shot!!! Thanks for posting, glad I stopped in today.

That's the best picture I've seen in a long time - hands down.

The Spire...up close.

Thanks Scott. I wore my tee shirt with pride at the local bowling alley last night.