In a message dated 5/22/2003 6:33:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes:
No word from the professor on whether the fireproofing, floor trusses and thin-set travertine will be awarded a Bronze Star.
The travertine (Nelson Rockefeller's favorite stone, I believe), at least where it had been used as stair treads coming up out of the PATH station, was very badly worn when I first saw it about 1977 (when the WTC was 4 years +/- old). The treads were subsequently replaced with granite.
The other thing about steel is that it is NFG in a fire. We saw photos in architecture school of some building where a steel beam had melted in a fire and was wrapped around a charred wooden girder. Several years back I inspected the interior of the Meridian building in Philadelphia, opposite City Hall, several months after it had a fire that killed several firemen and burned for days. There was one level with a sort of bowl in the middle of the floor, where the concrete floor slab and steel beams beneath had deflected 6' or 8'. On the other hand, the building Owner was trying to claim the building as a total loss, and we (on behalf of the insurers) determined that although the beams were in many (if not most) cases bent all to hell and needed without question to be removed and replaced, the much heavier (thicker) columns showed no evidence of having deflected in the fire and could have remained in place as framing for a rebuilt building. The whole thing was ultimately demolished, but I suspect more as a result of a lousy rental market in Phila at the time and the building having been technologically out of date.
Ralph