The preliminary 1993 "bombing" of the World Trade Center

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xileffilex
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The preliminary 1993 "bombing" of the World Trade Center

Unread post by xileffilex »

The 1993 "bombing" of the WTC was a warm up act for the 2001 production.

Some ABC footage has been gathered together from that earlier event, showing some obvious crisis actors, duping witnesses and plenty more scripted responses of the familiar kind. Quite some drill! Fabulous. 30th anniversary next February!


Around 15:50 there's some footage from the shopping plaza underneath the WTC.

There are some 1981 still photos from the shopping center showing the exact spot here, The Big Kitchen in front of Nature's Pantry. Crazy!
https://wearethemutants.com/2019/04/04/ ... nter-1981/

References - Wiki article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Worl ... er_bombing

I wonder what the pregnant theme was? At 7:00 in the video, and then we see in the Wiki page that one of the "deaths" was pregnant Monica Rodriguez Smith, age 35,

Oddly, Monica Smith, from Ecuador, also appears on the 9/11 memorial
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/969 ... nica-smith
https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blo ... born-child

Widowed husband Edward Smith popped up in the MSM in 2013 for the 20th anniversary
https://abcnews.go.com/US/world-trade-c ... d=18561435
after the events of Feb. 26, 1993, Smith said, it was hard to stay in New York. Shortly after the bombing, he moved to Arizona and later to California.
"There were too many reminders, it was too much," he said.
Smith now resides in Phoenix, but makes a trip to New York every year for the memorial in February.
Little information about how he has spent the intervening years.
Building Engineer Alan Reis from 1:56[in ABC video clip] was still around in 2013 "finishing the job" and struggling to keep the tears back.... And still gatekeeping for the his second "survival" in 2018. Still at work, apparently.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-reiss-932068b

More about this key player Reiss here:

https://portfolio.panynj.gov/2016/09/11 ... en-of-911/
It was Reiss who went to the morgue to recover the personal effects of Monica Rodriguez Smith, the pregnant woman who died in the 1993 bombing with her seven-month unborn child. Reiss would later face down opposition to inscribing “unborn child” on the 9/11 Memorial on panel-73, with the rest of the names of the thousands lost on 9/11..... Reiss expedited death certificates. [for 9/11 victims]...
Did he now?

I covered Reiss here in the old forum:
https://fakeologist.com/forums/topic/wt ... lan-reiss/


Short Cluesforum thread on the 1993 event:
http://cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?f= ... c580b3d168
xileffilex
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Re: The preliminary 1993 "bombing" of the World Trade Center

Unread post by xileffilex »

A few crumbs showing the presence of at least one inconsequential firm in pre-1993 twin towers...
Evelyn Elizabeth Ryan-Roberts
I remember as a child in the backseat as my parent's car driving home circa 1969 from upstate in the summertime that they were building these. And then later working in 1WTC circa 1974 on the 48th fl. For Gdynia America Line . A Polish cargo line. The building creaked on windy days.
tower under construction
Image

confirmation March 1977
https://magazines.marinelink.com/Magazi ... ves-209479
Centromor is the Polish organization that deals with the export of ships and ship-related equipment, as well as the import of these products. In North America, Gdynia America Line are agents for Centromor, with offices at One World Trade Center, New York, N.Y. 10006. Zdzislaw Pienkawa, formerly director of production for the Polish Yards is the Centromor representative in the U.S.

The visit of the United Polish Shipyards group concluded with a reception given by Capt. Tadeusz Draczkowski, chairman of the board, Gdynia America Line, held in their honor at the Top of the World Club, World Trade Center, with leading members of the shipping and ship design community in attendance.
xileffilex
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Re: The preliminary 1993 "bombing" of the World Trade Center

Unread post by xileffilex »

Evelyn [above] says that the Gdynia America Line had offices on the 48th Floor of WTC1.
The following 1976 link says that the above mentioned Zdzislav Pienkawa, Centromor representative in the U.S., at Gdynia America Line, Inc.,had an address at One World Trade Center, Suite 3557, New York, N.Y.

10048.
https://magazines.marinelink.com/Magazi ... ies-211020
This might suggest the 35th floor. My conjecture is that the suites might be mailboxes.

Zdzislav worked in New York from 1975-1982. He died in 2000 in Gdansk.
https://gdansk.gedanopedia.pl/gdansk/?t ... 5%BCeglarz

Flat earth warning... translated from above....
In 1973, as a captain, he and the crew of the yacht "Otago" (including his 18-year-old daughter Iwona) took part in the first regatta around the Earth: the Whitbread Round the World Race, taking thirteenth place.
seems like Iwona died 2 years later.
Iwona Pieńkawa died in a car accident near Nidzica shortly before her 20th birthday. She was buried at the Srebrzysko cemetery in Gdańsk .
hmmm
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iwona_Maria_Pie%C5%84kawa
He was married to Maria née Kamińska (born 1931), father of ► Iwona (1955–1975), Renata (born 1958), a graduate of the 1st Secondary School in Gdańsk, Teachers College at Columbia University and SUNY at Stone Brook (Stone Brook University, New York, USA) and lecturer at Smith College (Northampton, Massachusetts, USA) and Kazimierz (born 1964), computer scientist and IT manager.
Did GAL really have an office in the empty tower in the 1970s?
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Re: The preliminary 1993 "bombing" of the World Trade Center

Unread post by rachel »

xileffilex wrote: Wed Feb 02, 2022 6:45 am Oddly, Monica Smith, from Ecuador, also appears on the 9/11 memorial

One of the videos I watched, not sure if I posted it up, relatives of the 1993 bombing were made up to have their loved ones names recorded on the 911 memorial. So there is a reason for that...Equity, and all that jazz.

I was looking at that first video; is it standard issue in New York for firefighters to wear mascara and eyeshadow?

Screenshot 2024-02-11 at 01.28.18.png
Screenshot 2024-02-11 at 01.30.40.png
Screenshot 2024-02-11 at 01.31.23.png
Screenshot 2024-02-11 at 01.44.53.png
Screenshot 2024-02-11 at 01.46.58.png

Not to be outdone, the office staff join in.

Screenshot 2024-02-11 at 01.39.37.png
Screenshot 2024-02-11 at 01.43.07.png
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Re: The preliminary 1993 "bombing" of the World Trade Center

Unread post by rachel »

I'm part way through something on a different thread, but since I'm referring to the 1993 bombing, I thought I'd add what I'm referring to here.

I found a handy little interactive timeline for the 1993 WTC Bombing. I figured if I'm correct, there would be something like this that wasn't drowned out by "terrorisms". So let's copy some choice information from it.
Morning, February 26, 1993

A Wintry Friday in New York
Friday, February 26, unfolds as a cold day in New York City, with temperatures lingering in the mid-20 degrees Fahrenheit. Approximately 50,000 people are inside in the World Trade Center complex, with more than 40,000 of them in the Twin Towers.

The main public attractions of the towers—the Windows on the World restaurant high in the North Tower, the Observation Deck atop the South Tower, and the mall on the belowground concourse level—are operating normally. Windows on the World’s luxurious dining room is open to visitors eager to experience what New York magazine once called “The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World.” The Observation Deck welcomes kindergartners on a field trip from Public School 95 in Brooklyn, among many other tourists looking for the best elevated views in the city.

On the same morning, a group of terrorists led by Ramzi Yousef drives a van loaded with a 1,200-pound urea nitrate bomb into lower Manhattan. Their destination is the World Trade Center.

Around 12:00 P.M.

Terrorists Plant the Bomb
A group of terrorists led by Ramzi Yousef drives their bomb-laden van into the vast public parking garage below the World Trade Center complex. After parking the vehicle on the B-2 level and lighting the bomb’s fuse, cut long enough to provide them a head start of several minutes, the men escape the garage in a car driven by an accomplice.

Inside the garage
There were six belowground levels at the World Trade Center, including parking facilities to accommodate approximately 2,000 vehicles.

1993_Garage.jpg

12:18 P.M.

The Bomb Explodes
An explosion rips through the B-2 level of the belowground parking garage, opening a crater 150 feet wide and several stories deep underneath the North Tower and adjacent Vista International Hotel. People on the top floors of the towers and in surrounding buildings feel the force of the explosion. Six people near the bomb are killed: John DiGiovanni, Robert Kirkpatrick, Stephen A. Knapp, William Macko, Wilfredo Mercado, and Monica Rodriguez Smith, who is pregnant. More than 1,000 people are injured, most suffering from smoke inhalation as they evacuate the towers.

So we've got 26/2/1993, I guess we've got a possible 66 and 999, but not really a signature number. They plant the bomb at noon, and it explodes at 12:18. That's more of a signature as we have a reduction of 3x9. The interactive site is giving the idea here that "there were six below-ground levels at the World Trade Center". I'm with Aaron Dover, I don't believe that, in all of the other literature I've read and posted up, that underground "parking facilities to accommodate approximately 2,000 vehicles" is never claimed to be under the towers specifically, rather it is under the WTC complex as a whole, and seems more to relate to the Vista International Hotel, 3 WTC, than the towers.

I'm going to jump forward to the part that interests me, I mean the facts that make it onto the timeline about the evacuation.
Around 1:00 P.M.

Police Department Begins Helicopter Rescues

Some in the towers, unable to make a lengthy descent down dark stairwells, move to the top floors under the direction of first responders and Port Authority staff. From the rooftops, and over the course of several hours, the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit helicopter crews airlift 28 people to safety. Television news outlets capture the rooftop rescues on-screen, airing the footage again and again.

Helicopter landing
NYPD Emergency Service Unit (ESU) helicopter crews land on the roof of the North Tower to rescue evacuees. Timothy Farrell, an ESU sergeant who rappels onto the roof, later describes searching the uppermost floors: “Floor by floor, I would only run into a couple of people. A lot of people had gone down, but some people really stayed put. It was only a couple of dozen in all of those 10 floors. I sent those people to the roof, told them there was a police officer up on the roof, and that’s where I wanted them to at least gather. We’d all be in the same spot.”

Helicopter rescue notes
Port Authority Police Department Officer Thomas McHale takes notes while assisting in the South Tower rooftop evacuation. The notes specify whether helicopter evacuees are male (marked with the letter M) or female (marked with F). McHale also notes the health conditions of some people, including pregnancies and cardiac issues.

1993_CT.2013.19.1_A.jpg

1:30 P.M.

Towers Go Dark
Detonation of the bomb causes rolling power failures at the World Trade Center. Around 1:30 p.m., all electricity in the complex is shut off. Emergency generators, ventilation systems, and public address systems become inoperable, along with the elevators. With no windows or emergency lights in the stairwells, people still in the towers evacuate in the dark. Their slow progress means a full evacuation will take hours.

Most New York City broadcast stations transmit their over-the-air signals from the antenna on the North Tower. When the electricity goes out, the stations lose their feeds. By the middle of the afternoon, only WCBS is still on the air, using backup equipment at the Empire State Building.

Evacuation flashlight
Michael Hurley, Port Authority Observation Deck supervisor, on the 107th floor of the South Tower, uses a flashlight to lead trapped tourists, including approximately 30 elementary school students on a field trip, out of dark, smoke-filled stairwells. After four hours on the roof, the tourists are escorted down the stairs to street level while Hurley stays to search for others. Hurley is airlifted from the roof by helicopter later that night.

1993_C.2009.291.3.jpg

"You couldn’t walk down a step until the person in front of you walked down a step."
Jeannine Ali, a Dean Witter employee, remembers the slow evacuation in a South Tower stairwell.

“There was smoke coming through the vents. You felt the earth shake. We felt the bomb. We didn’t know what it was. The person who was my best friend, I remember holding her hand. The stairs were packed. You couldn’t walk down a step until the person in front of you walked down a step. I mean, we were literally back to back to back. And I remember us counting because there wasn’t the same number of steps on each landing, and you couldn’t see. So we were counting out loud, and people were yelling at us for doing that. We held each other. I held the rail, she was at the wall, and we would count: ‘Okay, this one’s eight, this one’s seven, this one’s eight, this one’s seven.’ And there were people up above, and we’d be yelling, ‘We need some light!’ But, you know, there were very few flashlights, and it was pitch-black, pitch-black.

When we got down to, like, the 14th or the 17th floor, somebody had pried one of the entryways open. And I remember there was a light coming through—there was a little bit of light coming through the stairway, and as we passed it, my girlfriend said to me, ‘Ew, your nose is all black.’ And I’m like, ‘Ew, what’s that?’ And when we got down, we realized all our faces were black.”

Around 5:00 P.M.

Most Civilians Have Evacuated the Towers
More than four hours after the explosion, most of the 40,000 people inside the towers have slowly made their way down dark, smoke-filled staircases and, finally, out of the World Trade Center complex. Some evacuees believe a transformer exploded or electrical fire occurred.

We had to take turns holding the flashlight, just for a little bit of a glow.
Robert Small, who worked for Dean Witter in the South Tower, talks about the evacuation process.

“We decided to leave, but there were no lights. And going down the stairs in total darkness, someone had a pen flashlight that you had to hold with your thumb. We had to take turns holding the flashlight, just for a little bit of a glow. You had to count the stairs as you went down. You had to keep your hand on the shoulder of the person in front of you and just rely on them to tell you that they hit a platform because there would be, like, two flights to every floor. It was a zigzag stairwell. So you had to let the person behind you know ‘landing,’ and then turn.

We did Batman trivia on the way down. We had to identify all the bad guys and who played the villains, so that kind of got us through the trip down. And then of course when we got outside, everyone had the raccoon face from breathing in all the smoke that we couldn’t see because we were in total darkness.”

1993_C.2012.371.1.jpg

We went down in groups of ten, and it was dark. It was dark.
Linda Horan, an employee of Fiduciary Trust, describes evacuating from the 94th floor of the South Tower. It takes her approximately two and a half hours to exit safely.

“Finally, somebody from Security, I think, came and said that you have an option. You can either start going down the stairs, or you can wait until the Fire Department gets up here and then go. So that’s what we did, we waited. And I guess they got up to us about three o’clock, and that’s when they gave groups of us flashlights. We went down in groups of ten, and it was dark. It was dark. So you really took your time.”

I think we can see the "1993 WTC Bombing" was a full evacuation drill complete with power cuts to see what would be the actual fallout from a major incident. The "terrorisms" was an excuse to test the systems in place in a more robust way than the complex's own fire drill. We can imagine the people giving witness testimonies were specifically put in place to assess what an evacuation would be like if the power was cut. Likely they wouldn't have a full understanding about what was to happen, just that it was a drill, and that what they were being asked to do, they should do safely while taking note for a later debriefing.

I suspect whatever the status of the buildings before this drill, the results from it condemned them for demolition because of an inherent design flaw regarding the ability to evacuate that could not be fixed via renovation. This was the same problem with Grenfell Tower, which only had the one stairwell and lift shaft in the middle of the building.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower
Grenfell Tower

The 24-storey tower block was designed in 1967 in the Brutalist style of the era by Clifford Wearden and Associates, with the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council approving its construction in 1970, as part of phase one of the Lancaster West redevelopment project.

The 67.3 m (221 ft) tall building contained 120 one- and two-bedroom flats (six dwellings per floor on 20 of the 24 storeys with the bottom four, the podium, being used for non-residential purposes). The floors were named ground, mezzanine, walkway and walkway+1, floor 1, floor 2 etc. It housed up to 600 people.

The tower was built to the Parker Morris standards. Each floor was 22 by 22 m (72 by 72 feet), giving an approximate usable area of 476 m2 (5,120 square feet). The layout of each floor was designed to be flexible as none of the partition walls were structural. The residential floors contained a two bedroom flat at each corner, in between which on the east and the west face was a one bedroomed flat. The core contained a stair column and the lift and service shafts. One-bedroom flats were 51.4 m2 (553 square feet) in area and two-bedroom flats were 75.5 m2 (813 square feet).

The building was innovative, as most LCC tower blocks used traditional brick work for infill whereas here precast insulated concrete blocks were used, giving the walls an unusual texture. The ten exterior concrete columns were also unusual. In addition, other tower blocks of this era had four flats per storey, rather than six.

The original lead architect for the building, Nigel Whitbread, said in 2016 in an interview with Constantine Gras, which was later partially repeated in The Guardian, that the tower had been designed with attention to strength, unlike the collapsed Ronan Point tower of the same period, "and from what I can see could last another 100 years." He described it as a "very simple and straightforward concept. You have a central core containing the lift, staircase and the vertical risers for the services and then you have external perimeter columns. The services are connected to the central boiler and pump which powered the whole development and this is located in the basement of the tower block. This basement is approximately four metres deep and in addition has two metres of concrete at its base. This foundation holds up the tower block and in situ concrete columns and slabs and pre-cast beams all tie the building together".

A fire broke out on 14 June 2017, which killed 72 of Grenfell's residents. Emergency services received the first report of the fire at 00:54 local time. It burned for around 24 hours. Initially, hundreds of firefighters and 45 fire engines were involved in efforts to control the fire, with many firefighters continuing to attempt to control pockets of fire on the higher floors after most of the rest of the building had been gutted. Residents of surrounding buildings were evacuated due to concerns that the tower could collapse, though the building was later determined to be structurally sound.
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