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There are two buildings that have been named 7 World Trade Center, one of which has yet to be completed.
1984-2001
The first building, built 1984 - 1986 and opened in March 1987, collapsed on September 11, 2001 in the September 11th terrorist attacks. It had 47 floors and was 570 feet (174 meters) in height. The architect was Emery Roth & Sons. The building stood north of the main World Trade Center complex, across Vesey Street. Larry Silverstein financed the project.
The Central Intelligence Agency's New York office was in 7 World Trade Center - as were a host of unrelated businesses.
This was the setting of the 1988 movie Working Girl.
Destruction of 7 World Trade Center
On the morning of September 11, the North Tower of the World Trade Center (1 WTC) across Vessey Street collapsed, showering tons of debris on 7 WTC as well as other buildings within or around the World Trade Center complex.
7 World Trade Center collapsed later, at 5:20pm. The cause of the collapse is disputed. Undoubtedly, the building was critically damaged by the September 11th attacks, but many (including conspiracy theorists) have questioned why it finally fell. A total of 42,000 gallons of Diesel fuel were stored in five tanks within the building, which could have caused the destruction.
In addition, two other factors must be considered: the unusual architecture of 7 WTC, and a fire that burned in the building for over seven hours. 7 WTC was built on top of an existing Con Ed substation, such that the building was cantilevered over the substation at the fifth floor. Fires resulting from the collapse of the neighboring 1 WTC tower likely weakened the structure at around this level, and because the firefighters were concentrating on rescue efforts at the Twin Towers site, 7 WTC was abandoned and fires were allowed to burn out of control. The sprinkler systems had likely failed when water pipes were damaged from the 1 WTC debris, and fireproofing is not designed to last for the number of hours the fire burned.
Others have speculated that the building -- which collapsed neatly into its own 'footprint' in a manner similar to that of a controlled demolition -- was intentionally demolished. In the PBS documentary America Rebuilds, Larry Silverstein, the owner of WTC7, was interviewed. In the video he says there was a "pulling" at WTC 7, which some people interpret as meaning that it was a controlled explosive demolition:
- "I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse."
Alternatively, the expression could simply refer to the decision to pull firefighting operations out of the building.
The FEMA report on the WTC collapse says:
- "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."
2005
The second building, a rebuilt replacement for the original, began construction in early 2002 and is to be complete by the end of 2005. The building will be 52 floors but with a narrower footprint at ground level than its predecessor as the course of Greenwich Street will be restored. The architect was David Childs of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. This building is not included in the World Trade Center master plan by Daniel Libeskind and thus does not share the new architectural design of the rest of the site.
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