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Wednesday,January22,2014
CitigroupCenter,Part2.Thedisasterthatalmosthappened.
Citigroup Center (601 Lexington Avenue) wasbuilt in 1977. The
building site is located onthe east side of Lexington Avenue
betweenFiftythird and Fiftyfourth Streets shared
theblockwithSt.Peter's LutheranChurch.On itscompletion the Citicorp
building was theseventhtallest building in the world. You
canreadthebeginningofthestoryinmyoldpost.
To reduce the building costs original design'swelded joints were
changed to bolted jointsduring construction. As designed, the
buildingcould sustain a direct, straighton hit fromhurricanelevel
winds. But if hurricanespeedwinds hit two of the four outer
wallssimultaneouslyata45degreeangletherewasthepotentialforfailureduetotheboltsshearing.Unfortunately,theconstructioncompanynevertested
it. If the building's tuned mass damper went offline, the necessary
wind speeds werepredictedtooccurevery16years.
Theproblemwas found in June1977at
thebeginningofhurricaneseason.Thebuildingwas
incriticaldanger.Theproblem had to be corrected quickly. Having
59storybuilding in themiddle ofManhattanwhichwas at risk ofsuch
damage was a very big problem. The
structuralengineerLeMessurierdidnotpubliclyreporttheproblemhereportedtheproblemdirectlytoCiticorp.The
engineer and Citicorp agreed to do the repairs afterhours, and not
tell anyone. It took threemonths for
thesecretworkmentoweldmetalsteelplatesovertheboltedon brackets.
Twothousand Red Cross workers were
alsobroughtintoassistwiththeevacuationplanifneeded.
Two months after thesecret job had been
started thestrongesthurricaneon recordEllawas formed inCanadian
waters. By September 1, Ella reached winds of 125
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Postedbyyelenalinetskayaat7:43PM
Labels:skyscraperLocation:601LexingtonAvenue,NewYork,NY10022,USA
mphandreachedCategory4status.
The hurricane became stationaryfor about 24 hours, and
laterfortunately turned to thenortheast away from the coast.The
press was on strike at thattime, so news of the repairs didnot
broadcast to the public.
ThereinforcementswerecompletedinSeptemberof1978,theentirestructurewasreevaluatedforsafetyandbuildingwasfoundtobeoneofthemoststurdyskyscrapersintheworld.
The crisis was kept hidden from the public for almost 20 years.
It was publicized in a lengthyarticlein"TheNewYorker"in1995.
The article entitled "The FiftyNine Story Crisis" focuses on the
ethicaland moral obligations of individuals and companies involved
in theconstructionofaskyscraper.
In2002,oneofthecolumnswasreinforcedwithblastresistantshieldsofsteelandcopperaswellassteelbracingtoprotectthebuildingduetothepossibilityofaterroristattack.In2009after30yearsofbeingknownsimplyasthe"CitigroupCenter,"the
building was renamed : "601 Lexington Ave." The bank with
theheadquartersat399ParkAvenue,occupies just three floors in
the59storybuilding,thesamebuildingwhereIworknow.
"Ella"path
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