User:Quasipalm/WTC Timeline
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1942: Austin J. Tobin was appointed executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
1945: David Scholtz, a real estate developer and former governor of Florida, first proposes the concept of a "world trade center" near Wall Street to encourage trade activities in New York.
1946: The New York State legislature authorizes development of the proposed World Trade Center and appoints Winthrop Aldrich, chairman of the Chase Bank and relation of the Rockefeller family, to explore the concepts feasibility.
1948: New York has emerged as the world's largest center for manufacturing, wholesaling, and shipping, as well as becoming the world's financial and corporate capital.
1955: David Rockefeller announces a plan to construct the new headquarters for the Chase Manhattan Bank in Lower Manhattan. The building, known as 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, is intended to initiate the revival of the downtown financial district.
1956: The Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association is created, spearheaded by David Rockefeller.
1958: The Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association (D.L.M.A.) and David Rockefeller release a master plan for the transformation of Lower Manhattan, including traffic improvements and new housing, office buildings, and recreational facilities, including a new office complex dedicated to world trade. In November, Nelson A. Rockefeller is elected governor of New York.
1960: The D.L.M.A. releases the plan for a five-million-square-foot World Trade Center on the East Side of Lower Manhattan. The Port Authority is ordered to determin the concept's feasibility.
1961 March: The Port Authority releases its plan for a World Trade Center along the East River, featuring several office buildings and a major exhibition hall for industrial products. New Jersey governor Richard Meyner claims the proposed project will do little for his state.
Spring: The New York and New Jersey legislatures approve the joint Port Authority Trans-Hudson/World Trade Center bill. It is quickly signed by Governor Nelson Rockefeller and newly elected New Jersey governor Richard Hughes.
December: Responding to objections from New Jersey, the Port Authority relocates the World Trade Center site from the East River to a 16-acre parcel of land along the Hudson River. The new site is located above the Manhattan terminus of the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, a deteriorating commuter line which the Port Authority has agreed to take over, renovate, and rename the Port Authority Trans-Hudson line.
1962 Local businessmen in Lower Manhattan, many of them part of an electronics district known as "Radio Row," begin a series of legal and political challenges to the World Trade Center, whose development will eliminate their businesses. Their protests will continue for four years.
February: Port Authority employee Guy Tozzoli takes over the planning and operations of the enormous building project.
September 12: Encouraged by recent successes in the space program, President John F. Kennedy announces to the nation his intention that the United States land a man on the moon before the end of the decade, marking the start of what becomes the Apollo Project.
October: The Detroit-based architect Minoru Yamasaki is hired as primary designer of the trade center, working in association with Emery Roth & Sons, a New York architecture firm known for its speculative building projects.
1964 January: The completed design of the World Trade Center, consisting of twin 110-story towers along with four smaller structures surrounding a central plaza, is presented at a press conference at the New York Hilton.
1966 March: The New York State Court of Appeals turns back the final legal challenge to the World Trade Center, clearing the way for the project to proceed.
March 21: Demolition of existing structures on the site begins.
August 5: Contractors begin the construction project by sinking the giant concrete "bathtub" wall that will enclose the foundations of the towers and adjacent parking garages.
1968 August: Steel work begins on the north tower of the World Trade Center.
1969 January: Steel work on the south tower begins.
1970 April: While construction of the towers continues, scores of construction workers attack demonstrators protesting the Vietnam War in Lower Manhattan.
December 23: The final column of the north tower is hoisted into place on the 110th floor where the workers hold their traditional "topping-off" ceremony. That same week, the first tenants begin moving into the lower floors of the building.
1971 July 19: The topping-off ceremony is held on the south tower.
1972 Spring: After several years of criticism and attacks from New Jersey governor William Cahill, Austin Tobin decides to retire from the Port Authority.
1973 April 4: The Port Authority holds a dedication ceremony for the World Trade Center in the north tower. Austin Tobin does not attend.
1974 August 7: Just after 7am, a French wirewalker named Philippe Petit crosses the 131-foot divide between the tops of the two towers eight times, to the delight -- and terror -- of thousands of New Yorkers watching from below. Afterwards he is arrested and "sentenced" to perform free highwire acts for children in Central Park.
The 1,454-foot Sears Tower in Chicago opens, and surpasses the World Trade Center as the world's tallest structure by 100 feet.
1975 Summer: The observation deck opens on the 110th floor of the south tower, and quickly becomes one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city.
October: New York's fiscal crisis comes to a climax, threatening the city with bankruptcy, and bringing to a culmination years of growing social and economic troubles. In November, the Daily News summarizes President Gerald Ford's refusal to provide loan guarantees for New York with the headline: "Ford to City: Drop Dead."
1976 Spring: Reversing his earlier stance, President Ford agrees to guarantee emergency loans for the city, and New York begins its gradual recovery from the financial crisis.
May: Windows on the World -- called "the greatest restaurant in the world" by food critic Gael Greene -- opens its doors on the 106th and 107th floors of the north tower.
1977 May 27: George Willig, a 27-year-old toy designer from Queens, scales up the side of the north tower in three hours.
1980: A long economic boom begins, centered on Wall Street. It brings a flood of new investment, new construction, and new populations to New York. After years of financial losses for its owners, the World Trade Center begins to turn a profit, and is producing $187 million a year in net income by 1987.
1987 October 20: On "Black Monday," the long bull market comes to a sudden end when the New York Stock Exchange drops 508 points, the greatest single-day loss in its history.
1993 February 26: At 12pm, a group of fanatical Muslim fundamentalists detonate a van filled with 4,000 pounds of explosives in an underground parking garage beneath the north tower of the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than a thousand, while failing to structurally damage the towers. Six conspirators will be convicted of the crime and given prison sentences of 240 years apiece.
November: Rudolph Giuliani is elected mayor of New York.
1994 A new boom begins to take hold in New York, bringing an upsurge in economic activity. At the World Trade Center, the original port-related tenants and government agencies will be replaced by wealthy financial services companies, leasing multiple floors by 2001.
2000: The population of New York City, after falling for three decades, has increased since 1990 to top the eight million mark for the first time in the city's history.
2001 Summer: The World Trade Center buildings -- now among the most profitable parcels of real-estate on earth -- are sold to a private landowner, Larry Silverstein, for over a billion dollars.
September 11, 2001
- 8:46am American Airlines flight 11, flying from Boston to Los Angeles with 92 people on board, crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, ripping into multiple floors and igniting a massive fire.
- 9:02am
United Airlines flight 175, flying from Boston to Los Angeles with 65 people on board, crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center, damaging multiple floors and bursting into flames.
- 9:17am
The Federal Aviation Administration shuts down every airport in the New York City area.
- 9:21am
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey closes every bridge and tunnel in the New York area.
- 9:40am
The Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A.) halts all flight operations at American airports, and orders every commercial airliner to land immediately, marking the first time in U.S. history that air traffic nationwide has been suspended.
- 9:58am
The south tower of the World Trade Center collapses.
- 10:28am
The north tower of the World Trade Center collapses.
- 5:20pm
7 World Trade Center collapses.
- September 14: President Bush visits the World Trade Center site. Federal officials release names of the 19 hijackers.
- December: A viewing platform opens at the site of the attack. Thousands visit.
2002
March: A pair of powerful upward-focused beams of light, located near Ground Zero and representing the twin towers, are trained on the skies each night throughout the month as a temporary memorial.
May: Workers conclude the recovery effort at Ground Zero. In 8-1/2 months, 1.8 million tons of debris have been moved to the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island.
May 28: The final girder from the World Trade Center is removed at a somber ceremony, marking the end of cleanup and recovery at Ground Zero.
August: Design plans for a new complex at the attack site are rejected and officials issue a request for new designs.
September: The number of people dead and missing at the World Trade Center is revised to 2,801, not including the hijackers.
