Society

The 59-storey Citigroup Center was inaugurated in 1977. At the time, it was the seventh-tallest skyscraper in the world.

While New York is synonymous with architectural daring, the city was, in the greatest of secrecy, the scene of one of the most shocking scandals in modern engineering, reports JVTech. It turns out that for almost 20 years, a possible structural flaw, which could have led to a catastrophic collapse, was concealed from the eyes of the world.

The Citigroup Center was designed by engineer William LeMessurier and architect Hugh Stubbins. To support the building's structure, a system of steel beams joined by bolts as opposed to welding was used. Welding was too expensive and time-consuming. The apparent minor modification was made during construction, and proved to be extremely serious. 

In 1978, Diane Hartley, an engineering student at Princeton University, made a terrible discovery. During research for her thesis, she uncovered the building's major flaw and concluded that its vulnerability to diagonal winds posed a real threat to New York. 

Hartley immediately contacted LeMessurier, who confirmed her concerns. The bolts, which replaced the welds originally planned, “risked giving way under the pressure of high winds, leading to a potential collapse of the skyscraper. A veritable time bomb in the heart of Manhattan”, says JVTech. 

In secret, a rescue mission was devised. In order to reinforce the structure of the Citigroup Center, workers toiled for months on end, during the dead of night. During the day, the public continued to stroll the building's aisles, unaware of the risk involved. 

In 1995, an article in The New Yorker exposed the affair, praising the courage and transparency of LeMessurier and Hartley. 

(MH with AsD - Source : JVTech - Illustration : Unsplash)