by georgecmu on 6/15/25, 3:40 PM with 39 comments
by socalgal2 on 6/15/25, 6:20 PM
The bottom floor of a 100 story building is holding up 99 floors of weight. The base of a 100 story building it really thin relative to it's height. If I built anything out of legos to the same dimensions it would not be structurally sound. Well, the legos at the bottom would easily hold the weight). Yea I know reinforced steel and concrete is not legos. Other examples though, every piece of furinture I own has some degree of wobbliness. It's easy to see how the pyramids hold up. It's not so easy to see how the Vancouver House Building stays up (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_House). The one in the article as well just looks, at the bottom, like it has to tip over eventually. (not saying it will, only that it looks like it)
I'm not in any way denying science. I'm only in awe that more builings don't fall down. Bridges too. I'm surprised to some degree an 93 year old steel bridge being sprayed with salt water for the entire time hasn't had its cables snap.
Maybe a need a physics simulation game like 3d world of goo that lets me see how such structures hold togehter.
by tiffanyh on 6/16/25, 12:45 AM
by gosub100 on 6/15/25, 5:34 PM
by paulpauper on 6/15/25, 7:20 PM
by georgecmu on 6/15/25, 4:00 PM
by neilv on 6/15/25, 7:44 PM
> There was some truth in all this. [...] At the time, LeMessurier viewed this piece of information as one more nail in the coffin of his career, but later, recognizing it as a blessing in disguise, he passed it on to Citicorp as the possible basis of a cover story for the press and for tenants in the building.
Seems questionable to lie to conceal that kind of catastrophic risk.
Knowing that the skyscraper would fail in some kinds of winds is information that could be used by rational people to help protect themselves and their businesses.
> Shortly before dawn on Friday, September 1st, weather services carried the news that everyone had been dreading—a major storm, Hurricane Ella, was off Cape Hatteras and heading for New York. At 6:30 a.m., an emergency-planning group convened at the command center in Robertson's office. "Nobody said, ‘We're probably going to press the panic button,' " LeMessurier recalls. "Nobody dared say that. But everybody was sweating blood."
> As the storm bore down on the city, the bank's representatives, DeFord and Dexter, asked LeMessurier for a report on the status of repairs. He told them that the most critical joints had already been fixed and that the building, with its tuned mass damper operating, could now withstand a two-hundred-year storm. It didn't have to, however. A few hours later, Hurricane Ella veered from its northwesterly course and began moving out to sea.
I see gambling people.
Presumably, some were gambling to avoid temporary public disorder in the city, or temporary disruption to general commerce there.
But it sounds like others of them wanted cover up a scandal in which they and the company were now implicated. And they were willing to gamble with other people's lives and businesses to do so.
by belter on 6/15/25, 7:03 PM
by neilv on 6/15/25, 7:58 PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:53rd_St_Lex_Av_td_08_-_Ci...
by Mountain_Skies on 6/16/25, 12:24 AM
by dbrumbaugh on 6/16/25, 6:40 PM
by sdoering on 6/15/25, 10:10 PM
by pylua on 6/15/25, 6:21 PM
by dtgriscom on 6/16/25, 12:25 AM
by throwaway2562 on 6/15/25, 7:08 PM
