[Leica] Manhattan harbor - World Trade Center

[jayanand at gmail.com (Jayanand Govindaraj)]

That is some story! I thought using substandard material is a third world
problem.
Cheers
Jayanand

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 4:01 AM, Lawrence Zeitlin <lrzeitlin at 
gmail.com>wrote:

> When she looked at the picture of Manhattan harbor showing the World Trade
> Center in the background, my wife reminded me of an incident that occured
> nearly 35 years ago. Wes Hurley, our neighbor, was Chief Engineer of the
> Port Authority. Early in 1967 while the buildings were going up, he came to
> our house, very agitated, looking for someone to talk to. He confided that
> tests run by his department showed that some of the concrete being used to
> construct the twin towers had failed strength tests and clearly was of
> substandard quality. He felt that the buildings would not be able to meet
> their objectives of withstanding a 200 year storm. He had a moral dilemma
> since he was near retirement and any complaint would cause a firestorm of
> criticism because his boss, Austin Tobin, then Director of the Port
> Authority was anxious to get the buildings erected as soon as possible.
> Anyway, Wes kept quiet and retired as soon as he was eligible. I had lunch
> with him a few times in the Port Authority executive dining room before he
> left and he said that he always felt uneasy going to his office in bad
> weather and called in sick when violent storms were expected to strike the
> city. The sudden buckling of both towers shows he may have been right.
> - - - - -
>
> >From the Wayback machine. Manhattan harbor small boat anchorage. Taken
> 1990
> with a Leica IIIc, 5 cm. Elmar. I don't know what film was used but it is
> quite grainy. Certainly not Kodachrome.
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Manhattan+harbor_+1990.jpg.html
>
> Larry Z
>
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