WTC Building details, window, plans, etc

[rachel]

I found another brochure from it looks like 1995, advertising all the same locations as previous ones I listed.

[rachel]

Here's some of the office picts from WTC2. The company isn't quoted, just the uploader, a Jeff Lanka.

To me it doesn't look much like an active work environment, rather a hand full of people have been asked to stand around pretend they are doing something. All taken the same day, as it's the same people wearing the same clothes.

Anyway, this is the quote about what we are apparently looking at.

Here's a set that was linked on a thread on SSP, these were taken circa 1999 and are some good shots of what a typical office floor looked like. The office that I worked in on the 99th floor of the North Tower (Marsh McLennan) didn't look too different.

These are on the 58th floor of WTC2.

[rachel]

I've spotted something curious. Not sure if this one is part of the above pictures. It was posted separately, but that is the same guy with a beard.

58th Floor, Two World Trade Center [South Tower], circa 1999. By Jeff Lanka

It might really be that big, but I just noticed the angle on these to pictures look exactly the same. There are different details, but are they both the same area digitally manipulated to look different?





The pattern on the carpet even looks in the same place. I think they've manipulated the picture to add false depth in that second shot. That bit of card on the left, it's to hide where the table really ends, because otherwise it would look identical to the image above it; then they've cloned the white table top to extend it. That plug socket could have been pasted in, but I think it was moved between pictures so it looks different, and hence why the chair is in a different position. And saying that, there is no evidence of more than one chair in the preceding pictures.

[xileffilex]

Good stuff, Rachel.
Here's Lanka
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-lanka-2853013/
worked in WTC2 on the 58th floor, allegedly.
Bridge Information was a strange outlier in that tower, wedged between alleged corporate blocks of tenants....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... ade_Center
Bridge was taken over by Reuters less than 3 weeks after 9/11!

These internal pictures of the working environment remind me of the Nightingale "covid" hospitals, racked up in double quick time for zero patients in 2020....

Lanka rushed off to the NYT for a quote the next day....
https://archive.is/FBi0

Jeff Lanka, a computer programmer for Bridge Information Systems, who walked down from the 58th floor of 1 World Trade Center, said that all but 2 of about 200 employees who worked in the building had been accounted for, and those two had probably not been in the building when the plane hit.

well fancy that! [actually it was 2 WTC]

[xileffilex]

Bridge information Systems had well-documented offices on the 27th Floor of 3 World Financial Center at 200 Vesey Street in 2000.
Quite why they'd also have a presence on the 58th floor of a run-down building is incredible.

This guy worked there in 2000 at 3WFC [forex trading systems]
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm ... _id=229830
https://mergr.com/bridge-information-systems-overview
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-m ... -11283b25/

Peraps the 58th floor office was another "mailbox" to prop up the occupancy of the towers.

[rachel]

You know I was suggesting the two desk area pictures were taken of the same location, then manipulated to look like different parts of the office, well I've just noticed the same feel in the other photos.

i also think these two shots are of the same area, again manipulated. The first one having the real door frame, the second one has that metal thing pasted over it so it looks different, then they've extended the wall out using the same technique I suggested for the table in the previous post. I think they are using the people to hide manipulation, so I'm not convinced they are actually there.





I don't think that desktop with the stuff on and computer is really there in the first shot. The back of the computer look seriously dodgy, and the base looks too far back considering where they are trying to suggest the wall and windows are. If we look at the way the table is against the supposed wall, they've pasted a pen holder in front of the corner to hide the fact it doesn't go around the corner, but it still fits snug against the wall. They've done that rather than trying to edit the corner to make it look right, and exactly the same thing with that light next to the pen holder, placed to line up with the other corner to hide the tell.

And these two pictures look like they are the same area manipulated to pretend it is a different part of the office. And this begs the question, did they just paste in tower windows and none are actually taken in WTC2? Personally, I think the first picture looks like the real one, though the sudden change of direction for the lights in the background does not make sense, so that area looks dodgy. I do however think that's the same light in the foreground of both pictures.





This second picture, I now know why it looks off. Just look at the windows, where is the corner? There is no corner. And yet there is something about the table layout that points us to the same black corner line we see in the first photo. Look at the cubicle layout around it. I think the corner is really there in the first photo, but to the right of it, another image has been stitched on to increase the office size. And in the second photo, the whole window section looks like it has been pasted in to replace the original background. Again, the people have probably been added as a distraction to the photoshop mess going on behind them.

[rachel]

This is another interesting bit of information. First off we have a diagram explaining how the lifts work. Even if there were real floors in the building, this is the built-in excuse why you are never going to meet other people from other floors on your journey up to say the hairdressers on floor 44 of 1WTC.

Lets do a bit of a detail at floor 44 level, which we are told elsewhere is the level of the first of the two sky lobbies and compare it with the "blueprints" that are currently on sale, detail first post. The Skylobby is now listed as floor 43, not 44. This is the level which the Oval Room located at 1WTC was situated; and from meeting minutes, did appear to exist and could be booked by anyone.

But what I found, which might be a tell. The general floor heights have low ceiling, the ground, mezzanine and Observation Deck 2WTC and Windows on the World 1WTC being the exceptions. But we find out, the sky lobbies and what is termed now as mechanical levels have more generous ceiling heights than the other floors.

That would suggest to me the diagram that puts the sky lobby at floor 43 is wrong, it is floor 44 (as if that designation really matters). But the Oval Room was on floor 43, and being a conference area / bookable meeting room, they wouldn't want it to have pokey low ceilings. it would likely look professional, like its name sake. And here we have a ceiling height over twice that of a normal floor. So there could be a split level mezzanine area. I haven't been able to find any pictures yet.

And then above it, on the Skylobby of 1WTC, there is two hairdressers and the Skydive restaurant, again giving the feeling of activity. I'm wondering if there was an escalator between 43 and 44. I read there was internal stairs between two of the floors, I can't remember which, but it would make sense the Skydive restaurant was integral to the bookable meeting rooms, that's where you'd go for lunch. So you get the express lift up to 44 and then use an escalator to get to 43 from 44. I'll see if I can find confirmation of that.

[rachel]

This is the page I got that floor level picture from. It's a conversation, so how accurate I don't know. But it's about the mechanical floors. I've read in multiple places that the skylobbies were on floors 44 and 78. The fact there seems to be such an argument about what actual numbers the skylobbies were on does lean to the supposition it doesn't matter because they were never based on a reality of the actual real floors in the building.

WTCNick

Hello all, I just finished reading through this entire thread and have really enjoyed it. Especially the construction pictures and pictures before battery park city was built. I've been obsessed with the twin towers since I first saw them as a child in the early 90's. On that trip I went up to the observation deck for the first time of three the last being late July 2001. I've always read alot about the way they were constructed and love seeing pictures of the inside of the towers particularly places the tourist never got to see. I have always been intrigued by the stairwells and remember asking a security guard in july 2001 if I could go and look at one, hoping to look all the way up haha. I stayed with some friends at the Marriott world financial center that weekend and spent much time taking those massive towers in. I had no idea it would be my last time seeing them. And its still weird to think that they don't exist anymore. And of the destruction and loss of life that happened there a month later. I've seen the new wtc1 several times up close and although a beautiful building, its just not even close to the precense of the twins. One thing I did want to mention , several people have talked about the darker bands that were at the thirds of the buildings as being where the mechanical floors were? I always thought that these were the sky lobbies at floors 44 and 78? I'm almost positive I read that somewhere. Because there were definitely Windows in those darker areas. I just think the aluminum column covers were a bit narrower to give it that appearance, much like at the tops of the towers. Also if anyone has more pictures of random places inside the towers I'd love to see them! Thanks Nick

drumz0rz

The mechanical floors were on 7 (top of the tridents), 40, 73 and 105. The sky lobbies were one floor above the mechanical floors, at 41 and 74. The mechanical floors were specially designed and reinforced and had a total height of 26 feet, more than double the typical floor height of 12 feet. The sky lobbies were also slightly taller at 14 feet. The mechanical floors were where the bands could be seen.

WTCNick

Ahhhhh ok so those bands were the mechanical floor and sky lobby combined that makes sense. Thanks for explaining that I always wondered how the sky lobbies could be so tall when in pictures they looked pretty normal.

drumz0rz

The black bands are only the mechanical floors. They had vents instead of windows. The sky lobby was actually just above. Check out this photo which you can see it a lot clearer:



The sky lobbies had regular office space outside of the expanded transfer lobbies.

[xileffilex]

And then above it, on the Skylobby of 1WTC, there is two hairdressers and the Skydive restaurant, again giving the feeling of activity. I'm wondering if the there was an escalator between 43 and 44. I read there was internal stairs between two of the floors, I can't remember which, but it would make sense the Skydive restaurant was integral to the bookable meeting rooms, that's where you'd go for lunch. So you get the express lift up to 44 and then use an escalator to get to 43 from 44. I'll see if I can find confirmation of that.

Why on earth would they design a building in which you had to go all the way to the bottom from above floors 43/4 then take a local elevator back up to those levels? [as per earlier post] The elevator diagrams seem to suggest that's what happened.
A little information here


A comment takes us to a shot of the 43rd floor Port Authority restaurant in the linked video @4m55s
Carl Selinger must have had to take the lift from the 65th [allegedly] down to the ground floor then back up....


see also

some good links and comments there

[rachel]

Yes, I read about escalators between two of the floors, and we see a set of escalators between 43 and 44 on 1WTC.

I've highlighted them in orange. I'm guessing based on the direction of the escalators, the Oval Room is more likely to be situated in the area at the top that is cut off on the floor 43 plan, though I guess it might also be in the lower area that's missing.

If all the floors really existed, it's a curious design feature; because other than ground (and getting onto the roof of 2WTC), I'm under the impression from what I read, it is the only place in the two buildings that had escalators between floors.