A 9/11 Site Worthy of an Unbiased Jury

What Was Building 7?

Building 7 was one of New York City�s larger buildings. A sleek bronze-colored
skyscraper with a trapezoidal footprint, it occupied an entire city block and
rose over 600 feet above street level.
Built in 1985, it was formerly the headquarters of the junk-bond firm Drexel
Burnham Lambert, which contributed to the Savings and Loans collapse, prompting
the $500-billion taxpayer-underwritten bailout of the latter 1980s. At the time
of its destruction, it exclusively housed government agencies and financial
institutions.  It contained offices of the IRS, Secret Service, and SEC.

It also housed then-Mayor Giuliani�s Office of Emergency Management, and its
emergency command center on the 23rd floor. This floor received 15 million
dollars worth of renovations, including independent and secure air and water
supplies, and bullet and bomb resistant windows designed to withstand 200 MPH
winds. (1) The 1993 bombing must have been part of the rationale for the command
center, which overlooked the Twin Towers, a prime terrorist target.

How curious that on the day of the attack, Guiliani and his Entourage set up
shop in a different headquarters, abandoning the special bunker designed
precisely for such an event. (2) 

References:  (1) Terrorism and Anti-Terrorism,Gotham Gazette,9/12/01 
(2) Giuliani Improvises After Command Center Gets Hit,Washington
Technology,10/08/01
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Building 7's Location

Building 7 occupied a city block immediately north of the suberblock occupied by
the World Trade Center complex. WTC 1 through WTC 6 were on the superblock
bounded by West, Church, Liberty, and Vassey Streets. Building 7 occupied a
block wedged between the Verizon and U.S. Post Office buildings across Vassey
Street from the WTC complex.

It straddled an electrical substation that filled the first two stories of about
half the block.
People who have heard of Building 7 tend to assume that �ancillary damage� from
the collapses of the Twin Towers had something to do with Building 7�s collapse.
It is important to note that Building 7 was no closer to the towers than any of
several other large buildings outside of the WTC complex.

The wall of Building 7 closest to the WTC complex was 300 feet from the nearest
wall of the North Tower. It appears that nearly all of the heavy fallout from
the disintegration of the North Tower landed short of Building 7. Building 6
stood between the North Tower and Building 7.
Building 7 was the only of the 7 buildings with a World Trade Center address
that was on a different block. It, along with the 6 other buildings, were
completely or largely destroyed on September 11th.  No buildings outside of the
two turquoise zones in the map to the right suffered more than superficial
damage.
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The Fires in Building 7

Fires supposedly broke out in Building 7 following the impact of Flight 175 with
the South Tower. Small fires burned inside the building throughout the day until
its sudden collapse at 5:20 PM.
Photographs of the building�s north side show only small, barely visible fires.
Fires with flames emerging from the building were only seen in an isolated
section of the 11th floor on the east face of the building. (In contrast, other
skyscraper fires have exhibited emergent flames throughout several floors.)
FEMA�s report claimed that significant fires were visible on the building�s
south side, without providing any evidence. The photograph below, taken in the
afternoon, shows the upper half of Building 7 from the south. There are no signs
of fire.

Despite the fact that the fires in Building 7 were insignificant compared to
other office fires, a decision was made not to fight them. The government has
never explained that decision.

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The Vertical Collapse of Building 7

Building 7 collapsed in a nearly perfectly vertical motion at near the rate of
free-fall. The first sign of the collapse is the falling of the penthouse,
immediately followed by the falling of the whole facade, as seen from either the
north and south. The middle of the building�s north wall fell slightly faster
than its edges.

The straight-down fall of the building�s top can be clearly seen in photographs
and videos. In the pair of images above, note that the position of Building 7�s
right wall remains in almost exactly the same horizontal position despite having
fallen over 100 feet.

Dust engulfed the building when the roof had fallen to within about 15 stories
of street level.
The nature of the collapse past that point can be inferred by the shape of the
rubble pile and the fact that it was covered by the remains of the exterior
walls. This means that, not only did the building continue to fall vertically
until the end, the outer walls were pulled inward so that they fell on top of
the rubble pile.

In short, Building 7 imploded. Buildings are not designed to implode.  They are
designed to remain standing. To achieve a precisely vertical collapse, in which
the remains of the building fall inward, is the objective of controlled
demolition.

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Videos Show Building 7's Vertical Collapse.

The survival of several video recordings of Building 7's collapse, though of low
resolution, allow study of the building's motion and the time of collapse.

Each of the following videos shows the entire visible portion of the building
falling with a vertical precision otherwise seen only in controlled demolition.
Moreover, they show that the collapse took only about 6.5 seconds from start to
finish. That rate of fall is within a second of the time it would take an object
to fall from the building's roof with no air resistance.

video broadcast by CBS - 1.4MB - mpeg This 36 second video shows Building 7 from
an elevated vantage point to the distant northeast.
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Building 7's Rubble Pile

Less than seven seconds after Building 7 began to implode, all that was left of
the steel skyscraper was a rubble pile. The rubble pile is notable for several
features:

* its location - It was exactly centered around the vertical axis of the former
building.

* its size - The pile from the 47-story building was less than two stories high.

* its tidiness - The pile was almost entirely within the footprint of the former
building

What does the shape of the rubble pile indicate about the events leading to the
collapse of building 7?

Consider the rubble piles produced by other collapses. The only examples of
total collapses of steel frame highrises (excepting WTC 1, 2, and 7) involved
either severe earthquakes or controlled demolition.

Total collapses due to earthquakes are extremely rare. The rubble piles of the
few documented cases had none of the above features.

Total collapses due to controlled demolition generally have all of the above
features. In fact, to achieve such a small, consolidated rubble pile is one of
the main objectives of a controlled demolition.

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The Destruction of Building 7's Remains

Engineering is a science that melds theory and experience to create robust
structures. Unintended structural failures are rare events that warrant the most
careful scrutiny, since they test engineering theory.

That is why the NTSB carefully documents aircraft crash scenes, and preserves
the aircraft remains, frequently creating partial reconstructions in hangers. If
an investigation reveals a mechanical or design fault, the FAA usually mandates
specific modifications of equipment or maintenance procedures system-wide, and
future aircraft are designed to avoid the fault.

Unintended structural failures are less common in steel frame highrises than in
aircraft. Being the only such building in history in which fire is blamed for
total collapse, Building 7�s remains warranted the most painstaking examination,
documentation, and analysis.

Building 7�s rubble pile was at least as important as any archeological dig. It
contained all the clues to one of the largest structural failures in history.
Without understanding the cause of the collapse, all skyscrapers become suspect,
with profound implications for the safety of occupants and for the ethics of
sending emergency personnel into burning buildings to save people and fight
fires.
There was no legitimate reason not to dismantle the rubble pile carefully,
documenting the position of each piece of steel and moving it to a warehouse for
further study.

No one was thought buried in the pile, since, unlike the Twin Towers, Building 7
had been evacuated hours before the collapse.

The pile was so well confined to the building�s footprint that the adjacent
streets could have been cleared without disturbing it.

Yet, despite the paramount importance of the remains, they were hauled away and
melted down as quickly as possible. The steel was sold to scrap metals vendors
and most was soon on ships bound for China and India. Some of the smaller pieces
and a few token large pieces of steel marked �save� were allowed to be inspected
at Fishkills landfill by FEMA�s  BPAT volunteers.

This illegal evidence destruction operation was conducted over the objections of
attack victims� family members and respected public safety officials. Bill
Manning, editor of the 125 year old Fire Engineering Magazine, wrote in an
article condemning the operation:

(1) Did they throw away the locked doors from the Triangle Shirtwaist fire? Did
they throw away the gas can used at the happy land social club fire? ... That�s
what they�re doing at the World Trade Center.

The destruction and removal of evidence must stop immediately.

Dr. Frederick W. Mowrer, an associate professor in the Fire Protection
Engineering Department at the University of Maryland, was quoted in the New York
Times as saying: (2)  I find the speed with which potentially important evidence
has been removed and recycled to be appalling.

Officials running the "cleanup operation" took pains to make sure the structural
steel didn�t end up anywhere but in blast furnaces.

They installed GPS locater devices on each of the trucks hauling loads from
Ground Zero at a cost of $1000 each. One driver who took an extended lunch break
was dismissed.  (3)

References:
(1) Firefighter Mag Raps 9/11 Probe,, 
(2) The Towers,New York Times,12/25/01 
(3) GPS ON THE JOB IN MASSIVE WORLD TRADE CENTER CLEAN-UP,securitysolutions.com,
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The Investigation of Building 7's Collapse

What did the government do to investigate the unprecedented collapse of a steel
frame building from fires? It gave FEMA the sole discretion to investigate the
collapse, even though FEMA is not an investigative agency.

FEMA assembled a team of volunteer engineers, the Building Performance
Assessment Team (BPAT), to write the World Trade Center Building Performance
Study. The engineers were not granted access to the site of the catastrophe.
Rather, they were allowed to pick through some pieces of metal that arrived at
the Fishkills landfill.

Most of the steel was never seen by the part-time investigators.  It had been
sold to scrap metal vendors, and was being shipped out to overseas ports as
quickly as the newly constructed infrastructure could handle.

FEMA�s BPAT, the only official organization that reported on Building 7�s
collapse, was completely indecisive. Their report stated The specifics of the
fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at
this time. Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive
potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence.
Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue.

The report was published in May of 2002, just after the last building remains
had been scrubbed from Ground Zero.

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FEMA's WTC Building Performance Study

The only government entity that purported to examine the collapse of Building 7
was the Building Performance Assessment Team (BPAT) composed of volunteer
engineers selected and supervised by FEMA.

In May of 2002, BPAT published their World Trade Center Building Performance
Study Chapter 5 of the report is devoted to Building 7. The report makes
unsubstantiated claims and uses a variety of deceptive techniques to make the
total collapse of Building 7 due to fires seem less implausible than it is. A
copy of Chapter 5 marked up by an anonymous author exposes many of these
deceptions.

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The Silence Surrounding Building 7

The American Public was treated to wall-to-wall television coverage of the
September 11th attack throughout the day and for nearly the entire following
week. Yet most Americans remember only two skyscrapers collapsing in Lower
Manhattan on the day of the attack: the Twin Towers. The total collapse of the
third huge skyscraper late in the afternoon of September 11th was reported as if
it were an insignificant footnote. The television networks played video of the
jets impacting the Twin Towers hundreds of times. But most people never saw
video of Building 7�s collapse.

Building 7 was neither hit by an airplane nor heavy fallout from the collapse of
either of the Twin Towers. If you believe the official story that it collapsed
from fires, it would be the first case in history in which fires leveled a steel
frame building.  Shouldn�t that have been newsworthy, given its implications for
building safety and rescue and firefighting operations? Incredibly, it is
virtually impossible to find any mention of building 7 in newspapers, magazines,
or broadcast media reports after September 11th.
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What Caused Building 7's Collapse?

The answer to this question would appear to be the greatest question in
engineering history. In over 100 years of experience with steel frame buildings,
fires have never caused the collapse of a single one, even though many were
ravaged by severe fires. Indeed, fires have never caused the total collapse of
any permanent steel structure.

What was done answer this most important question? The only official body that
admits to having investigated the curious collapse of Building 7 is FEMA�s
Building Performance Assessment Team (BPAT), who blamed fires for the collapse
but admitted to being clueless about how fires caused the collapse.

People who have seen buildings implode in controlled demolitions are unlikely to
be as challenged as FEMA�s team in understanding the cause of Building 7�s
collapse. They will notice, upon watching the videos, that Building 7�s collapse
showed all of the essential features of a controlled demolition.
Despite having the appearance of a controlled demolition, is it possible that
Building 7 could have been destroyed by some combination of damage from tower
debris, fuel tank explosions, and fires? 

Let�s consider the possible scenarios.

The evidence does not support the idea that Building 7 was damaged by fallout
from the tower collapses, nor that there were diesel fuel tank explosions. Fires
were observed in Building 7 prior to its collapse, but they were isolated in
small parts of the building, and were puny by comparison to other building
fires. Let�s imagine, contrary to the evidence, that debris from the tower
collapses damaged Building 7�s structure, that diesel fuel tanks exploded, and
that incredibly intense fires raged through large parts of the building. Could
such events have caused the building to collapse?  Not in the manner observed.
The reason is that simultaneous and symmetric damage is needed to produce a
collapse with the precise symmetry of the vertical fall of building 7. This
building had 58 perimeter columns and 25 core columns. In order to cause the
building to sink into its footprint all of the core columns and all of the
perimeter columns would have to be broken in the same split-second.

Any debris from the towers impacting Building 7 would have hit its south side,
and any columns damaged by it would almost certainly be perimeter columns on its
south side. Any fuel tank explosion would only be able to damage nearby
structure. The rapid fall-off of blast pressures with distance from the source
would preclude any such event from breaking all of the columns in the building.

(Furthermore the very idea of a tank of diesel fuel exploding taxes the
imagination, since diesel fuel does not even begin to boil below 320 degrees F.
1) Fires have never been known to damage steel columns in highrise buildings,
but if they could, the damage would be produced gradually and would be localized
to the areas where the fire was the most intense.

No combination of debris damage, fuel-tank explosions, and fires could inflict
the kind of simultaneous damage to all the building�s columns required to make
the building implode. The precision of such damage required to bring Building 7
down into its footprint was especially great given the ratio of its height to
its width and depth. Any asymmetry in the extent and timing of the damage would
cause such a building to topple.
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Fires Versus Steel Buildings

The official explanation that fires caused the collapse of Building 7 is
incredible in light of the fact that fires have never caused a steel frame
building to collapse, before or after September 11th.
Steel-frame highrises (buildings of fifteen stories or more) have been
widespread for over 100 years. There have been hundreds of incidents involving
severe fires in such buildings, and none have led to complete collapse, or even
partial collapse of support columns.

Recent examples of highrise fires include the 1991 One Meridian Plaza fire in
Philadelphia, which raged for 18 hours and gutted 8 floors of the 38 floor
building; (1) and the 1988 First Interstate Bank Building fire in Los Angeles,
which burned out of control for 3 1/2 hours and gutted 4 floors of the 64 floor
tower. Both of these fires were far more severe than any fires seen in Building
7, but those buildings did not collapse. The Los Angeles fire was described as
producing "no damage to the main structural members".  (2)

Research indicates that even if a steel frame building were subjected to an
impossible superfire, hundreds of degrees hotter and far more extensive then any
fire ever observed in a real building, it would still not collapse. Appendix A
of The World Trade Center Building Perfomance Study contains the following:

In the mid-1990s British Steel and the Building Research Establishment performed
a series of six experiments at Cardington to investigate the behavior of steel
frame buildings. These experiments were conducted in a simulated, eight-story
building. Secondary steel beams were not protected. Despite the temperature of
the steel beams reaching 800-900 C (1,500-1,700 F) in three of the tests (well
above the traditionally assumed critical temperature of 600 C (1,100 F), no
collapse was observed in any of the six experiments).

In actual building fires, steel beams and columns probably never exceed 500 C.
In extensive fire tests of steel frame carparks conducted by Chorus Construction
in several countries, measured temperatures of the steel columns and beams,
including in uninsulated structures, never exceeded 360 C. (3) 

References
(1) One Meridien Plaza,,
(2) Interstate Bank Building Fire Los Angeles, California (May 4, 1988),, 
(3) Fire Resistance of Steel Framed Car Parks,corusconstruction.com,
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Controlled Demolition

Buildings do fall vertically like Building 7, when destroyed by controlled
demolition.
The controlled demolition of large structures is a well developed art and
science. Removing a tall building from an urban landscape without damaging
adjacent structures�a considerable engineering feat�is a task that a handful of
controlled demolitions companies specialize in. One such company is Controlled
Demolition Inc., which, incidentally, was subcontracted by Tully Construction to
coordinate the removal of rubble from Ground Zero and the disposal of the
structural steel in the months following the attack.

The steel skeletons of buildings like WTC 7 are extremely robust.

They are designed to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes, and are
over-engineered to handle several times the maximum loads anticipated during
their lifetimes. Such steel skeletons have local structural integrity. An event
that destroyed one portion of the structure would not case distant portions to
shatter. If some force obliterated the load-bearing columns well below the top
of a 600-foot tall skyscraper, the top of the building would topple like a tree,
not smash its way down through intact floors and into its foundation.

Controlled demolition destroys vertical steel structures while overcoming their
tendency to topple onto adjacent real-estate. It does so by shattering the steel
skeleton through the precisely timed detonation of explosive charges.

Demolitions are large undertakings with high stakes. The number of charges
required is at least the number of columns times some fraction of the number of
floors. An error in timing of the detonations could cause expensive collateral
damage.

Most demolitions seek to implode the building, causing the mass to move toward
the center, resulting in a tidy rubble pile. In tall buildings this is typically
done by shattering the interior structures of the building first or ahead of the
exterior structures.

That causes the interior mass to fall first, pulling outer structures toward the
center. Pieces of the outer walls end up on top of the rubble pile.

Building 7�s documented vertical plunge and tidy rubble pile with exterior wall
fragments on top are exactly the kinds of results that controlled demolitions
achieve through careful engineering.
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