Speaker:
Laura Weinberg, Wife of WTC victim

My name is Laura Weinberg. I am speaking here today not as Founder of the Richard Aronow Foundation, but entirely as a personal matter as the wife of the late Richard Aronow. He left behind myself and our 5 year old developmentally disabled son, parents, a brother and sister

Richard considered his 23 year career in public service as contributing to regional development. He spent 5 years with Corporation Counsel and then 18 with the Port Authority Law Dept, where he was last a Deputy Chief, representing the Port Authority in the redevelopment of the International Arrivals Building, now Terminal 4, at Kennedy Airport. Please honor him with a legacy of improved building safety.

The architectural conception of the Twin Towers was fatally flawed, although beautiful. We need to learn at least two lessons for the sake of all people in skyscrapers: first, that structural supports and heavy construction are important and second that elevator safety should enable people to get out more effectively.

First, structural supports. I'm going to talk about the weaker building requirements last century regarding beam and column construction that allowed buildings in which open floors are suspended during; the consequences of requiring better structural supports: cost, evacuation after a partial building collapse, and the end of open floor plan buildings.

Richard was fond of the Twin Towers. I got queasy as he explained the creaks and groans and how the swaying in the wind meant his pictures were never straight on the wall. He showed me the curtain wall behind his desk and explained how it suspended each floor by trusses, so that it was wide open, without columns on the interior.

One day last year we were driving through Manhattan and I looked up and wondered aloud, "When these first skyscrapers become antiques maybe a hundred years from now, people will want to take one down, but they couldn't, could they? We discussed how you would have to implode it but that it spill onto the buildings around. We didn't imagine the grand towers of New York collapsing like cheap Soviet apartment blocks in an earthquake in the Republic of Georgia had, killing thousands!

Weaker building code requirements about columns and beams made both the construction of the Twin Towers, and their collapse, possible. Steel and glass towers are not made from a radical new building material that justified radical loosening of building codes in the second half of last century.

Compare pre-war apartments to post-war in desirability and price. About Rich's Cabrini Blvd pre-war apartment, we used to joke that you could set off a bomb in it and nothing would move. Some original ads for highrises called them fireproof. Our solid concrete floors and ceilings conducted the sounds of paws and kids. The building had no wide open spaces, like new luxury highrise loft residences do. Our walls had loads to bear! But solid walls prevented cockroaches from hiding inside. So any cockroaches in our kitchen couldn't be blamed on the neighbors! Older construction is better because codes required it.

Why not require more structural columns and walls again?

1. Cost for development. It would have cost more is a sorry excuse to put before families of people who died in a building collapse.
2. More structural supports would make higher skyscrapers cost more than buildings that are merely tall. We should ensure that tall buildings last longer during a partial implosion. Why? If rescue workers had more time to locate him, my husband wouldn't have been pinned in the basement, and firefighters still could have evacuated. Assuming a collapse of one floor onto another at the top of the building, you would add strength to each floor to hold that load, and cost to the structure.
3. More columns mean floors will not have as much open space. Compare the Lever Building to the Twin Towers and Lever feels cramped, but building codes aren't about aesthetics. I pity future residents of the new luxury loft highrise apartments downtown along West Street. They will move into a miniature World Trade Center in construction, with the potential for frequent residential fires. Give me my pre-war, concrete and brick beauty. Construction standards change, and can change back.

So after considering structural strength, let's look into elevator safety and design requirements

Richard was in an elevator in Tower 1 with the doors closed when the first plane hit and was with colleagues. They were in the basement, apparently not otherwise injured, until the tower fell down on them. I'm sure those friends were a team to the end, working to open the doors to walk the short distance to the exit. They weren't able to open the doors, and no one rescued them.

We cannot assume reliance on emergency personnel in a total building evacuation. Elevator safety design and protocols should enable those trapped to get out effectively and efficiently with no assistance. During the 1993 bombing WTC elevators were not in many cases evacuated for several hours. One gentleman whose widow I now know was stuck in a Tower 2 elevator in 1993 for 5 hours before being freed.

I implore you, drop bureaucratic blinders, and develop plans that integrate standards for complete building evacuations into the building planning and approval process. The code should pay attention to the evacuation of elevators and top floors. It means little for a heart patient that his building is ADA compliant when his office is 60 flights up from the street.

We must reexamine elevator safety and design solutions so that buildings withstand fire longer and people trapped can get out. Please develop a process to integrate strict evacuation standards into the building planning and approval process. Let's ensure that tall buildings do stand the test of time.

Thank you

Areas of Focus of the WTC Building Code Task Force