A Potentially Disastrous Design Error

Written by Alan Bellows on 31 October 2006

This is a classic Damn Interesting article which originally appeared on 12 April 2006

Citicorp Center in New YorkWith its

distinctive forty-five degree diagonal crown, the Citicorp building is one of the most
recognizable skyscrapers on the New York City skyline. At fifty-nine stories, it’s the
third tallest building in midtown Manhattan, and at the time of its completion it was the
seventh-tallest building in the world. At ground level, the huge skyscraper almost seems
to hover above Lexington Avenue, held aloft by four massive, 114-foot-tall stilts which
are located at the center of each side rather than on the corners. This unusual architecture
was one of necessity– the structure had to be built around the landmark St. Peter’s
Church– but the design left room for a serious engineering flaw which went completely
unnoticed during its construction and initial use. Had the weakness not been accidentally
discovered and secretly fixed, the mighty skyscraper could have been toppled by a stiff
gust of wind without any warning.

The building’s structural skeleton was designed by an engineer named William J.

LeMessurier (pronounced “La Measure”) in the early 1970s. Making room for the St.
Peter’s church was a difficult problem, but LeMessurier was a highly capable and
creative engineer. His design called for the building to sit atop nine-story-tall stilts, one
centered on each side with a specific geometry in the structure’s framing to take
maximum advantage of the oddly placed support columns. It also had a single, narrower
column in the center which housed the building’s elevator banks and provided additional
strength to the framing. This design made room for the church under the building’s
northwest corner, and gave the giant structure a graceful, almost levitating effect.

The concept as delivered by LeMessurier was quite sound, in fact it was elegant and
technically brilliant. At only 25,000 tons, the steel superstructure of the building was
remarkably light compared to other skyscrapers, such as the Empire State Building’s
60,000 ton skeleton. Because of the stilted design and low weight, his plans also included
a tuned mass damper, a 410-ton block of concrete housed in the upper floors of the
building, floating on a thick film of oil and controlled by an automatic system. This
substantial piece of stabilizing equipment was intended to cut the building’s sway in half
by converting the kinetic energy of swaying into friction.

LeMessurier first became aware of the building’s weakness in 1978, about a year after its
completion. An engineering student contacted him to ask some technical questions about
the design, which he was delighted to address. The student’s professor had expressed
doubts regarding the strength of a stilted skyscraper where the support columns were not
on the corners. “Listen, I want you to tell your teacher that he doesn’t know what the hell
he’s talking about,” LeMessurier told the student, “because he doesn’t know the problem
that had to be solved.” He went on to explain how the building’s framing geometry
worked perfectly with the stilts in such positions, allowing it to withstand very forceful
winds, even from a diagonal angle.

But the conversation got him thinking, and he started doing some calculations on just
how much diagonal wind the structure could withstand. He was particularly interested in
the effects of an engineering change made during construction which had seemed benign
at the time: numerous joints were secured with bolts rather than welds. Normally such a
change was acceptable, but the Citicorp Center’s design was unusually sensitive to
diagonal winds, which the builders hadn’t realized. The results of his calculations were
troubling.

The force of wind upon a building’s flat surfaces is

enormous, measured in thousands or millions of pounds. Wind pushing against a tall
building has a great deal of leverage against its base, but gravity does much of the work
in holding a building together via compression. This makes a building secure against
wind so long as the joints are strong enough to resist whatever wind force is not
countered by gravity. LeMessurier worried that the bolts in the Citicorp Center’s joints
were insufficiently strong for the task.

He took his calculations to fellow engineer Alan Davenport, who was an expert on the
behavior of buildings in high-wind conditions. Davenport found that seventy-mile-per-
hour gusts would be sufficient to break the bolts holding the joints, resulting in structural
failure. Such winds were not unknown in New York, indeed storms with such strength
occurred about once every sixteen years on average. Hurricane season was fast
approaching, and now only two men in the world knew that Citicorp’s new $175 million
tower and its occupants were vulnerable to destruction by catastrophic collapse.

Horrified, LeMessurier fled to his island hideaway on Sebago Lake to refine the findings
and consider his options. Because he faced possible litigation, bankruptcy, and
professional disgrace he contemplated suicide, but he was struck with the realization that
he held the information to initiate extraordinary events which could save thousands of
lives. The following day he started making phone calls. After speaking with corporate
lawyers and consulting with Leslie Robertson– an engineer who helped design the World
Trade Center– LeMessurier went to Cambridge to inform Hugh Stubbins, Jr., the
building’s architect. Stubbins winced when he heard the news.

Together they flew to New York City to confront the executive officers of Citicorp with
the dilemma. “I have a real problem for you, sir,” LeMessurier said to Citicorp’s
executive vice-president, John S. Reed. The two men outlined the design flaw and
described their proposed solution: to systematically reinforce all 200+ bolted joints by
welding two-inch-thick steel plates over them.

Work began immediately, and continued around the clock for three months. Welders
worked all night, and carpenters labored during the day. In case of imminent disaster, an
evacuation plan was put in place for the surrounding area, but the general public knew
nothing of the circumstances… the press was on strike at that time, so news of the repairs
did not disseminate to the populace. About halfway into the repairs Hurricane Ella
formed, and it appeared to be on a collision course with Manhattan, but fortunately the
storm veered out to sea rather than testing the limits of the half-repaired building. The
reinforcements were completed in September of 1978, and the entire structure was re-
evaluated for safety. Following the repairs, the building was found to be one of the most
sturdy skyscrapers in the world. Despite the success, the crisis was kept hidden from the
public for almost twenty years, until an article appeared in the New Yorker in 1995.

Citicorp Center standing over St. Peter's

churchAs for LeMessurier, the executives at Citicorp asked no more than the $2 million
his insurance policy covered, despite the fact that the repairs alone cost over $8 million. It
is generally thought that his forthrightness so impressed the executives that they decided
to keep their lawyers at bay. It is clear that it takes a lot of character to admit one’s own
mistakes, but in accepting responsibility for this flaw and then leading the repair effort,
the character shown by William J. LeMessurier was nothing short of heroic.
Unfortunately, the amount of damage caused to New York City by a falling skyscraper is
now well known, but in 1978 the idea was still unthinkable. Imagine, however, if such an
imposing structure had been blown over by nature itself, from a gust of wind in a storm.
Had this engineering gaffe not been identified and resolved, such a catastrophic event
might have become a horrifying reality.