World Trade Center

In one of the more quietly chilling sequences I've seen this year, World Trade Center construction manager Frank A. DeMartini explains how the twin towers were designed to not only withstand the impact of a fully loaded Boeing 707, but would probably hold up to multiple airplane collisions. In the upper right hand corner of the image, two lines of text read "Recorded: 1/25/2001" and "Missing: 9/11/2001." Nearly completed before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, World Trade Center offers a poignant, compelling, and often fascinating look at the design, construction, and maintenance of the late twin towers--the core of the former complex of buildings in lower Manhattan that, despite the name, actually had very little to do with world trade. In a moving and absolutely non-sensational way, host Harry Smith offers a post-9/11 introduction and brief comments between segments, but the real focus here is on the incredible engineering feat involved in erecting the 1,300-plus foot twin towers (which eclipsed the Empire State Building as the largest buildings in the world), from the ingenious method of stopping the New York harbor water from collapsing the excavation site walls to the choice of a sway-reducing exterior skeleton system. Combining interviews with WTC officials and employees and authors Eric Darton (Divided We Stand) and Angus Gillespie (Twin Towers), World Trade Center--although not originally intended as such--is a moving eulogy to architect Minoru Yamasaki's once shining spires. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)