The why of WTC7--Silverstein's blackmail

Thinking about WTC7 and watching the videos posted of the fires in the buildings, these thoughts came to mind:

The fire damage was rather extensive, but wouldn't have led to collapse.

However, it was enough to make the building effectively worthless--better to demolish it on-the-spot than have to dismantle it later, with all the costs and paperwork that would entail in NYC.

So Silverstein just had it quickly rigged to have it dropped that afternoon, to get rid of a headache. The Dutch demo expert, when he saw the simple layout of the column grid, said that a good team could have wired the building in a few hours.

Of course in view of what went on with the Towers, and his assumed complicity, Silverstein may have blackmailed the mayor to allow him to "pull it" quickly and blame the collapse on vague fire damage, and hope no one would look too closely and eventually forget about it.

So WTC7 falls in a CD late in the afternoon. That's why the fire dept. and the BBC knew. And why no mention of it in the official reports.

Moral of the story of WTC7: Never underestimate the deal-making abilities or the immorality of a NYC real estate mogul.

[typos]

[edit on 8-4-2007 by gottago]

They wired the building in a few hours, eh? I wish that I could just open up the yellow pages and find a demolition company that will show up on a few hours notice and rig my building with explosives. I wish that I could find a demolition company that would take explosives into a burning building and just make all of my headaches disappear.

It takes months to rig a building for demolition by explosives. It takes tons of explosives to demo a building like that. The planning stages of a job like that would take multiple weeks. You don't just call up a demolition company and have them come over and make your building fall down. It just doesn't work like that.

First of all, it's not like people with experience in these sorts of things have a shop in every city, usually an engineering team has to fly in and survey the building. Then, they spend time pouring over blueprints and figuring out how much explosive material it will take, and where to place the charges. A crew spends time boring holes and removing structural elements of the building to prepare it for the explosives. After all of that, the explosives are loaded into the building. The process can take months to complete. If you could find a building of similar size that had been wired for demolition, and shot (cleanly) in one day, I would be interested to hear about it.

Here's the video of the Dutch demolition expert saying it's entirely possible, given the simplicity of the structure.

And one could certainly argue that the area had a surfeit of demo experts on-site and ready to go to work.

Dutch CD expert on WTC7

Where in this video does he say that? I didn't see it.

Tell me, did one of demolition experts that you say were on scene just happen to have a couple of shape charges in the back of his pickup truck. Did they all of a sudden just decide to walk into a burning building and bring it down on a whim.

Where are these people, why haven't any of them talked yet? Surely, one of them would not be able to keep a secret like this, woulkd they?

Well I think it is a bit out of Silverstein's hands. Someone told him they were going to demolish the building, he in turn relayed the info to the Fire Chief. I think that this scenario is highly plausible.

You notice that it is Silverstein's buildings that end up all destroyed that day. It seems to me that Silverstein must have caught wind of something 'going down', he probably heard some rumours, then signed the lease.

He heard something much in the same way Aaron Russo was told about something vague in advance of 9/11, he was told *AN EVENT* will take place.

So it could also be that when Silverstein caught wind of this as I am sure he has connections, he could have also had the crew at the ready in case of such an emergency.

But I really think the decision was not by him, but he talked to the Fire Crew as if it was his own idea.

Why is it many people claim it would take months to wire a building for CD ??

The fact is when a building is to be CD most times the owners will have to CD company remove all recyclables such as copper, brass, wiring, plumbing fixtures, tiling, windows etc. these materials are then sold to offset the demolition costs.

A few years ago in my hometown a local train station was CD'd it was about 10 stories high and it took a month to remove the recyclables and 1 day to wire and drill for the charges and another day to place the charges. The owner of the CD firm was interviewed on local TV and he claims that for security reasons the charges are only installed the day of or night before the actual demo. This company only had 4 employees so WTC7 could easily have been rigged up the weekend beforehand or even the day of.

You're going to compare a train station to the Soloman Brothers building? Come on!

Did the demolition team just show up one day and wire the building? Or, were they doing some planning while the recyclables were being removed from the building?

It took more than two days to complete that project.

[edit on 4/8/07 by savage99]

Actually most mid-sized "box" office towers are built on a straightforward grid system, a very simple layout, and elementary to drop. They're the textbook case, CD-101.

Indeed an older stone & steel train station or beaux arts structure would be a much more complicated task to properly demolish.

Originally posted by savage99Did the demolition team just show up one day and wire the building? Or, were they doing some planning while the recyclables were being removed from the building?

It took more than two days to complete that project.

This related thread should give you some idea how fast they can take down a steel-framed box structure even with all the mandated prep work and asbestos removal.

Easy as pie.

Originally posted by gottago
The fire damage was rather extensive, but wouldn't have led to collapse.

You are an engineer?

Originally posted by gottago
So Silverstein just had it quickly rigged to have it dropped that afternoon, to get rid of a headache.

...uh...

Originally posted by gottago
Of course in view of what went on with the Towers, and his assumed complicity, Silverstein may have blackmailed the mayor to allow him to "pull it" quickly and blame the collapse on vague fire damage, and hope no one would look too closely and eventually forget about it.

Oh, okay. They rigged it. In the middle of a raging fire. After blackmailing the mayor to give the okay, even though the mayor didn't record this ANYWHERE so his word would be practically useless.
...Yeah, okay.

Originally posted by Johnmike

Originally posted by gottago
The fire damage was rather extensive, but wouldn't have led to collapse.

You are an engineer?

Oh, okay. They rigged it. In the middle of a raging fire. After blackmailing the mayor to give the okay, even though the mayor didn't record this ANYWHERE so his word would be practically useless.
...Yeah, okay.

You don't have to be an engineer to know that these were the first steel frame high-rise buildings ever claimed to have collapsed due to fire. And relatively manageable ones at that.

Go check out the Windsor tower Madrid inferno of 2005, or the First Interstate Bank fire in LA in 1988 and educate yourself about just what these structures can take. Windsor was a complete inferno that burned out totally, but the structure stood.

The NYCFD pulled out of WTC 7 at 11:30 am and let it burn unhindered for five hours. Why, with all those important offices to salvage--CIA, Secret Service, SEC, NYC emergency command center, etc.? It should have been a top priority to save the building.

Fires reached as low as the 7th floor, but would not have impeded entry into the building or through the basements. The WTC complex had extensive below-ground concourses.

Originally posted by gottago
Actually most mid-sized "box" office towers are built on a straightforward grid system, a very simple layout, and elementary to drop.

So that's a controlled demolition of the tallest building, (by some considerable margin), ever brought down in this way planned, rigged and executed in approximately 5 hours, not including time for the blackmailing process.

You know, I'm not sure about that...

[edit on 10-4-2007 by timeless test]

And this, in my opinion, is why CTers avoid the "why" and "how" of their 9/11 theories.

It is so easy to just say that Silverstein was behind it and that the buildings were wired and that there was blackmail...but when you really go step by step into what exactly would have had to occurred...the absurdity of it all is brought into high relief.

We have some demolitions experts here on ATS (I'm thinking specifically of Damocles)...I'd be curious to hear if they would ever accept a job that came with the rider:

The buildings on fire and you can't let anyone see you so you'll have to throw caution to the wind and just get it done.

Originally posted by Essedarius
And this, in my opinion, is why CTers avoid the "why" and "how" of their 9/11 theories.

It is so easy to just say that Silverstein was behind it and that the buildings were wired and that there was blackmail...but when you really go step by step into what exactly would have had to occurred...the absurdity of it all is brought into high relief.

We have some demolitions experts here on ATS (I'm thinking specifically of Damocles)...I'd be curious to hear if they would ever accept a job that came with the rider: The buildings on fire and you can't let anyone see you so you'll have to throw caution to the wind and just get it done.

Au contraire, I'm happy to reply to the "how" and the "why" of WTC 7 being brought down, and I'll keep it short and sweet.

The "why" is pretty obvious. Just check out the tenant list, and the owner. That's killing about a dozen birds with one stone, a major Vegas jackpot.

The "how" too. Let's go through the drill: Roof sags, center crimps, drops at freefall speed (i.e., no internal resistance) into its footprint. Well, any ideas what that might be? Fire, anyone?

As for getting demo experts to do it, you know what they pay private security personnel to work in Iraq? Starts at about $250,000 a year. Where there's a will there's a way money.

Originally posted by gottago
The "how" too. Let's go through the drill: Roof sags, center crimps, drops at freefall speed (i.e., no internal resistance) into its footprint. Well, any ideas what that might be? Fire, anyone?

I must have missed a bit there. Just "how" did they do it? In around 5 hours they bribed the Mayor, planned rigged and executed a world record demolition in a burning building that firefighters wouldn't dare go near. These guys should start a circus act.

Of course, we could see what your Dutch expert Danny Jowenko thinks about how it could be done in a burning building...

"...that's odd, I agree. I can't explain it" he says.

So he's pretty convincing then.



[edit on 10-4-2007 by timeless test]

Originally posted by gottago
The "why" is pretty obvious. Just check out the tenant list, and the owner. That's killing about a dozen birds with one stone, a major Vegas jackpot.

See you just explained the "what" again. The "why" would involve answering these questions:

1)
Why would any of the many tenants in WTC7 believe that an elaborate, high-risk explosion of their building be preferrable to simply quietly carting out whatever "evidence" is in there and destroying it without thousands of television cameras pointed at them?

2)
Why would a very rich man like Larry Silverstein subject himself and his legacy to INVASIVE scrutiny and possible conviction by every policing and insurance agency in the world just to make what would inevitably be a relatively small profit.

Where there's a will there's a way money.

The question is not whether there would have to be PAYOFFS to pull off 9/11...the question is whether Silverstein would have two dimes to rub together after he had paid off the Demolition Company, the mayor's office, FDNY, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.,...

Originally posted by gottago
You don't have to be an engineer to know that these were the first steel frame high-rise buildings ever claimed to have collapsed due to fire. And relatively manageable ones at that.

If you're ignorant, yes. But it was pummeled by pieces of the falling towers beforehand which caused structural damage.

Originally posted by gottago
Go check out the Windsor tower Madrid inferno of 2005, or the First Interstate Bank fire in LA in 1988 and educate yourself about just what these structures can take. Windsor was a complete inferno that burned out totally, but the structure stood.

Okay? I know a guy who got shot a lived. Does that mean anyone can take a tank round?

Originally posted by gottago
The NYCFD pulled out of WTC 7 at 11:30 am and let it burn unhindered for five hours. Why, with all those important offices to salvage--CIA, Secret Service, SEC, NYC emergency command center, etc.? It should have been a top priority to save the building.

Because it was too dangerous. There were so many people that died from the collapse of the first two towers that they decided that it wasn't worth the risk any longer.

Are you implying that the police department is part of some conspiracy now?

Originally posted by gottago
Fires reached as low as the 7th floor, but would not have impeded entry into the building or through the basements. The WTC complex had extensive below-ground concourses.

k

Originally posted by Essedarius
1)
Why would any of the many tenants in WTC7 believe that an elaborate, high-risk explosion of their building be preferrable to simply quietly carting out whatever "evidence" is in there and destroying it without thousands of television cameras pointed at them?

And if they'd carted out that evidence and the structure stood, what then?

And it was not elaborate; again, WTC 7 was a straightforward CD--a big box with a simple grid floorplan.

2)
Why would a very rich man like Larry Silverstein subject himself and his legacy to INVASIVE scrutiny and possible conviction by every policing and insurance agency in the world just to make what would inevitably be a relatively small profit.

The profit he's made off 9/11 is hardly small. It's in the billions. Good incentive on a leveraged investment. And if you're in on the ground floor of the conspiracy, well, you've got good friends to protect you. And everyone in the world? That's called hyperbole.

The question is not whether there would have to be PAYOFFS to pull off 9/11...the question is whether Silverstein would have two dimes to rub together after he had paid off the Demolition Company, the mayor's office, FDNY, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.,...

He didn't have to pay them, the ones that mattered were delighted he was willing to "do the deal." The FD & police were pawns--look at how they were manipulated and then slaughtered.

[edit on 10-4-2007 by gottago]

Originally posted by Johnmike

Originally posted by gottago
You don't have to be an engineer to know that these were the first steel frame high-rise buildings ever claimed to have collapsed due to fire. And relatively manageable ones at that.

If you're ignorant, yes. But it was pummeled by pieces of the falling towers beforehand which caused structural damage.

What to say to that? How about "free-fall speed"?

Really, if you can't get your head around the basic physics of how a damaged building would actually collapse outside of CD, I can't help you.

Originally posted by gottago
Go check out the Windsor tower Madrid inferno of 2005, or the First Interstate Bank fire in LA in 1988 and educate yourself about just what these structures can take. Windsor was a complete inferno that burned out totally, but the structure stood.

Okay? I know a guy who got shot a lived. Does that mean anyone can take a tank round?

A tank round? Again, go look up hyperbole in the dictionary. There was damage to one corner of the building. Scattered fires which were purposely left to burn. You obviously have no idea of the strength of modern steel highrises.

Originally posted by gottago
The NYCFD pulled out of WTC 7 at 11:30 am and let it burn unhindered for five hours. Why, with all those important offices to salvage--CIA, Secret Service, SEC, NYC emergency command center, etc.? It should have been a top priority to save the building.

Because it was too dangerous. There were so many people that died from the collapse of the first two towers that they decided that it wasn't worth the risk any longer.

Deja vu--I've heard this somewhere before...You aren't Larry Silverstein, are you? Or his secretary?

Are you implying that the police department is part of some conspiracy now?

No, they took their orders from Guilaini, just expendable and easily manipulated in the confusion.

Originally posted by gottago
And it was not elaborate; again, WTC 7 was a straightforward CD--a big box with a simple grid floorplan.

So why did Danny Jowenko, the Dutch CD expert who you referenced, say he cannot explain how it was done if it was so "straightforward"?