9/11 twin towers biography of william
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9/11 twin towers biography of william
American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
U.S.
After nine months of unrivaled access to the disaster site, our correspondent tells the inside story of the recovery effort.
This is the first installment in a three-part series
By William Langewiesche
Read part two here and part three here.
PART ONE: THE INNER WORLD
For thirty years the Twin Towers had stood above the streets as all tall buildings do, as a bomb of sorts, a repository for the prodigious energy originally required to raise so much weight so high.
Now, in a single morning, in twin ten-second pulses, the towers released that energy back into New York. Massive steel beams flew through the neighborhood like gargantuan spears, penetrating subway lines and underground passages to depths of thirty feet, crushing them, rupturing water mains and gas lines, and stabbing high into the sides of nearby office towers, where they lodged.
The phone system, the fiber-optic network, and the electric p