May 11-16, 1975: A Week at Disneyworld in Florida
	April 13-17, 1975: A Visit to North Carolina
	Return to Index for 1975

This week, I have another trip to New York City and, although I took my camera with me, I had only one afternoon when I was able to take the time to walk around and get a few pictures.

The Chicago North Side Lakefront

Just after taking off to the east from O'Hare this afternoon, the plane passed over the shore of Lake Michigan, and I was on the right side of the plane for a view down the lake shore towards downtown. The plane is crossing the lake shore at about Irving Park Blvd. after having passed over Wrigley Field. Just south of the plane is Belmont Harbor, and south of that you can see Diversey Harbor. And, of course, the picture features Lake Shore Drive prominently.

Lake Shore Drive (locally called just "The Drive" or, in a double-entendre, "LSD") is an expressway that runs alongside the shoreline of Lake Michigan through the city of Chicago, from 57th Street and the Chicago Skyway on the south to Hollywood Boulevard (about 5700 North). The Drive is actually part of US Highway 41.

Lake Shore Drive's origins date back to Potter Palmer, who coerced the city to build the street adjacent to his lakefront property to enhance its value. Palmer built his "castle" at 1350 N. Lake Shore Drive in 1882. The drive was originally intended for leisurely strolls for the wealthy in their carriages, but as the auto age dawned it took on a different role completely.

I could wish that the weather had been clearer, as the view of Chicago from the north is pretty incredible, but one has to take what one can get.

The 2.5-hour flight from Chicago to New York City was uneventful; flying is fun, but I am getting more and more blase about it. Later in the afternoon, as we were descending in towards our landing at LaGuardia, I discovered that the weather (and air quality) was about the same here.

The Verrazzano Narrows Bridge

The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge is a double-decked suspension bridge that connects Staten Island(R) and Brooklyn. It spans the Narrows, a body of water linking the relatively enclosed Upper New York Bay with Lower New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The bridge carries thirteen lanes of Interstate 278, with seven lanes on the upper level and six on the lower level. The span is named for Giovanni da Verrazzano, who in 1524 became the first documented European explorer to enter New York Harbor and the Hudson River. (Despite its number, this auxiliary Interstate highway does not connect to I-78.)

A bridge across the Narrows was first proposed in the late 1920s, and there were also both bridge and tunnel proposals through the early 1940s. In the late 1940s, urban planner Robert Moses championed a bridge across the Narrows, but various issues delayed the start of construction until 1959. The top deck of the bridge opened in 1964 and the lower deck in 1969. With a central span of 4,260 feet, it is (was, as of 1981) the longest suspension bridge in the world, and still has the longest main span in the Americas. All ships arriving at the Port of New York and New Jersey pass underneath the bridge and must therefore be built to accommodate the clearance under it.

Because of an error in the original construction contract, the bridge's name is spelled (and was officially named in 1960) as the "Verrazano-Narrows Bridge" (with only one "z"), despite the explorer's name having two "z"s. (NOTE: You will, I am sure, be relieved to know that after being misspelled for 58 years, the name of the bridge was officially corrected to "Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge" in 2018.)

The World Trade Center Towers One(L) and Two

On one of my walks at lunchtime from our client located just south of Midtown, I came down Hudson Street and got a great view of the World Trade Center some fifteen blocks south of me.

The western portion of the World Trade Center site was originally under the Hudson River, and it was on this shoreline, that the Dutch ship Tyger burned to the waterline in 1613, stranding the crew on the island for the winter; they built the first European settlement in Manhattan. The remains of the ship were discovered during excavation work in 1916. In modern times, the area became New York City's "Radio Row," named for the profusion of radio and electronics retailers and wholesalers, whose inventory often spilled out onto the street.

Although the idea of establishing a World Trade Center in New York City was first proposed in 1943, and the New York State Legislature passed a bill authorizing the development of plans for the project, nothing happened- at least not until David Rockefeller suggested that to help stimulate urban renewal in Lower Manhattan the Port Authority build a World Trade Center there.

One possible site was on the east side of Lower Manhattan near the South Street Seaport, but the then Governor of New Jersey objected to the plan. Since the Port Authority was a bi-state agency, both states needed to approve the expenditure of the planned $400 million project. The other site was on Lower Manhattan's west side, near New Jersey's Hudson and Manhattan Railroad (H&M) station. H&M ridership had declined substantially, what with the new auto tunnels and bridges, so the Port Authority offered a deeal. It would take over the H&M and move the World Trade Center project to the railroad terminal site- a more convenient location for New Jersey commuters arriving via PATH- as the H&M was newly-named. Radio Row business owners were bought out for $3,000 each and the area was completely demolished by the end of 1966. Taxing issues involving New York City were were resolved and the project could proceed.

In 1962, Minoru Yamasaki was selected as lead architect, and he devised the plan for two 80-story towers, but since the Port Authority required 10,000,000 square feet of office space, the design was changed to call for two 110-story towers. The final 1964 design showed square towers about 200 feet on a side; he designed narrow vertical windows rather than large glass panes; Yamasaki himself had a fear of heights and wanted office workers to feel secure. The building facades sheathed in aluminum-alloy were a striking reflection of the architectural ethic of Le Corbusier, Yamasaki incorporated Arabic elements and gothic modernist tendencies.

The taller a building is, the more elevators are needed to service it, and each elevator needs a shaft. Yamasaki and the engineers used a new system with two "sky lobbies"— floors where people could switch from a large-capacity express elevator to a local elevator that goes to each floor in a section. This system allowed express and local elevators to use the same shafts, and the final plan increased usable floor space by about 70 percent.

The World Trade Center Towers One(L) and Two

The tube-frame design introduced in the 1960s was used in the towers, and allowed more open floor plans. On the perimeter of each floor were high-strength, load-bearing perimeter steel columns (60 on each side); these formed a rigid wall structure to respond to lateral loads; this structure and the core columns dealt with the gravity loads. The perimeter structure constructed of pre-fabricated modular pieces, each consisting of three columns, three stories tall. Adjacent modules were bolted together at mid-span of the columns, and the joints between modules were staggered vertically. This was done to prevent one section from "sliding off" another, like layers on a wedding cake.

The core of each tower housed the elevator and utility shafts, restrooms, three stairwells, and other support spaces, and took up one-quarter of the floor space; the core support columns ran from bedrock to the top of the building. The large, column-free space between the perimeter and core was bridged by prefabricated floor trusses supporting 4-inch-thick concrete floors. The floors were connected to the perimeter columns with dampers that helped reduce the amount of sway felt by building occupants.

Groundbreaking for the construction of the World Trade Center took place on August 5, 1966. The construction site was 65 feet of landfill on top of bedrock, so a system had to be devised to shore up the walls of the "bathtub" in which the foundations of the buildings would be laid. This effort took over a year. In all, 1,200,000 cubic yards of excavated material were removed and used to expand the Manhattan shoreline to the west where Battery Park City was eventually built.

Construction work began on the North Tower in August 1968, and construction on the South Tower was under way by January 1969. The original Hudson Tubes, which carried PATH trains into Hudson Terminal, remained in service during the construction process until 1971, when a new station opened. The topping out ceremony of 1 WTC (North Tower) took place on December 23, 1970, while 2 WTC's ceremony (South Tower) occurred on July 19, 1971.

Extensive use of prefabricated components helped to speed up the construction process, and the first tenants moved into the North Tower in December 15, 1970, while it was still under construction, while the South Tower began accepting tenants in January 1972. When the World Trade Center twin towers were completed, the total costs to the Port Authority had reached $900 million. The ribbon cutting ceremony took place on April 4, 1973. (The four other low-rise buildings were constructed concurrently, and the last of them opened just last year. I did not have time to take a trip up to the observation deck in the North Tower, but I am looking forward to doing that on a future trip to the city.

The Empire State Building

On this same walk today, I found myself near Washington Square Park, and I could look north along lower Fifth Avenue to the Empire State Building in the distance.

The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper completed in 1931. The building is 1,250 feet high, not counting its roof antenna; its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of New York. It is this country's fourth-tallest building, although it was the world's tallest building for nearly 40 years until the completion of the World Trade Center's North Tower. (Sadly, it is the only building in the world that lost its title as tallest building in its city, regained it, and lost it again- all without any modifications having been made to it.)

Built on the site of an 18th-century farm and the 19th-century Waldorf Astoria Hotel, the design for the building was repeatedly changed to ensure it would be the world's tallest building when it was finished. Construction started on March 17, 1930, and the building opened thirteen and a half months later on May 1, 1931- a per-floor completion record that is unrivalled. Despite the publicity surrounding the building's construction, its owners failed to make a profit until the early 1950s. However, since its opening, the building's Art Deco architecture and open-air observation deck has made it a popular attraction, with around 4 million tourists from around the world visiting the building's 86th and 102nd floor observatories every year. Both those observatory floors are on my personal bucket list.

The Empire State Building is an American cultural icon and has been featured in more than 250 TV shows and movies since the film King Kong was released in 1933. A symbol of New York City, the tower has been named as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

New York City is one of those places that you have to really spend some time in to see much of. Just walking around on a few lunch hours doesn't get you very far, but I am lucky to have a job that brings me back here fairly frequently.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	May 11-16, 1975: A Week at Disneyworld in Florida
	April 13-17, 1975: A Visit to North Carolina
	Return to Index for 1975