I've remained mostly an observer on the edges of the debate about the WTC, in part because, having been a resident in the city at the time, and having deep personal involvement in the aftermath, I've found it difficult to be sufficiently objective in forming an opinion. I'm also a highly skeptical person by nature -- which to me means questioning both sides with equal rigor, and there's frankly too much math I can't follow well for me to be able to truly assess the deeper arguments from either side. However, based on the evidence I have been able to evaluate to my satisfaction, I have come to believe that the probability of LIHOP is strong, and to suspect even more is possible.

Because I don't go very far into the world of WTC discussion, it's possible this has come up before and I haven't seen it. However, I don't recall anyone mentioning it in the many pages of threads on the subject I've read here, and a search turned up no references that I could find.

In 1835, a fire broke out in lower Manhattan which resulted in the destruction of a large portion of the Financial District. According to wiki -- and I am trying to find better sources and more corroboration, but it seems to be a matter of plain record:

Attempts to blow up buildings in its path (a technique later regarded as counterproductive) were thwarted by a lack of gunpowder in Manhattan. Firefighters coming to help from Philadelphia said they could see signs of the fire there.

About 2 a.m. Marines returned with gunpowder from the Brooklyn Navy Yard and blew up buildings in the fire's path...

So we have, a bit more than a hundred years previously, a massive disaster in the same part of Manhattan where deliberate demolition was employed. To me, it seems like a possible answer to those who question whether explosives could have been pre-implanted within the towers -- without myself feeling like I know enough to take a position on that, I'm curious what people make of this historic event and how it may or may not relate to the events of September 11, 2001.

Also notable about the Great Fire of 1835:

Insurance was not forthcoming because several insurance company headquarters burned, bankrupting those companies.

and

Since the fire occurred in the middle of an economic boom caused by the recent opening of the Erie Canal, the destroyed wooden buildings were quickly replaced by larger stone and brick ones that were less prone to widespread major fires. The fire also prompted construction of a new municipal water supply, now known as the Old Croton Aqueduct, and a reform and expansion of the fire service.

A suspicious mind might find the presence of a plan which (erroneously) presumed an ability to control the fire, combined with the usefulness of the fire for 'upgrading' the city in one horrific swipe suggestive of the possibility that the fire was set intentionally. And such a mind might make note that despite the 'counterproductive' remark, the idea of being prepared for sudden yet controlled demolition is not only plausible, but already part of the city's history...and that humans have a tendency to repeat failed behaviors with adapted methods, much more often than they truly abandon bad ideas and wholly replace them.

And of course, it was the last Great Fire in New York, there having been more than one, precisely as a result of the improvements made afterward. In other words, while destructive, the WTC fire did not cause the amount of utter devastation to the entire island of Manhattan the way previous massive burning catastrophes did. Is that because modern building materials and firefighting abilities are advanced enough to prevent a fire from burning out of control in a densely packed city? Or did they control it more tightly this time -- again, repeating a failed strategy with adapted tactics? I don't know, what do you think?

I guess the reason it has been the last great fire is that buildings have been built differently since then. Try to set brick on fire, or concrete. And it worked quite well, I can not recall any of the buildings catching fire except those who have been dosed in jet fuel and WTC 7.

Of course buildings can still catch fire, but the ammount of combustible material has been greatly reduced and is distribuited in a manner that it does not spread as easily from building to building.

Originally posted by Cassius666
I guess the reason it has been the last great fire is that buildings have been built differently since then. Try to set brick on fire, or concrete. And it worked quite well, I can not recall any of the buildings catching fire except those who have been dosed in jet fuel and WTC 7.

Of course buildings can still catch fire, but the ammount of combustible material has been greatly reduced and is distribuited in a manner that it does not spread as easily from building to building.

Yes, one of my points was that it allowed them to fireproof the city all at once by simply wiping out the dangerous structures in place, and that a suspicious mind might find the usefulness of this suggestive.

Primarily, though, I think about this: say you thought you could stop a fire by blowing up buildings with gunpowder-based weapons from the outside, as was done by the Marines in this Great Fire. You saw that doesn't work so well, but being a primate with a brain that likes to kid itself about how advanced it is, you stick with the general theme, and while you're doing all your fireproofing, you decide -- as engineers do tend to do, after all -- that a backup system might also be useful to build in to some of the bigger potential "splashers" -- a system which would allow them to fall into their own footprint rather than all over the tightly packed and extremely crucial Financial Distract (again). See, one of the key points of this historically factual event is that they weren't prepared for the controlled demolition they wanted to do.

Anyway, I don't know whether WTC 7 was "pulled", but it does surprise me that this easily discovered information isn't cited more often in discussions about the building, where detractors often seem to suggest that the very idea of using controlled demolition on a nearby building in the event of a massive fire would never be considered, when in fact it's been verifiably employed in some form in the same neighborhood not very long ago.