DISASTER RECOVERY, REHABILITATION AND RESTACK

VERIZON - Lower Manhattan Central Office
140 West Street, New York, NY


The tragic September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks upon the World Trade Center took an entire nation by surprise and left a tremendous wake of damage, death and destruction. The total collapse of the Twin Towers and 7 World Trade Center, severely damaged the adjacent Verizon Central Office located at 140 West Street, disrupting communications services to hundreds of thousands of residents, businesses and emergency management personnel in southern Manhattan.

At the time of its completion in 1926, the second largest building in lower Manhattan. At 32 stories high, with another 5 stories below grade, and nearly 1.2 million square feet of space, the building served as the original headquarters of the New York Telephone Company. Heralded since its completion, the now classical art deco design has gained the former Barclay-Vesey Building NYC Landmark status, with the entire façade, interior first floor lobby and entrances protected under these statutes.

Because of their close proximity and the devastating nature of the collapse of World Trade Center Towers 1 and 2, 140 West Street suffered severe structural and façade damage to its south face, with entire column bays destroyed as high as the 13th story. To the east, a mere 60’ away across Washington Street, stood a 47 Story building identified as 7 World Trade Center. When 7 WTC collapsed later that same day, it fell to the west, causing even more structural damage to the eastern portions of the first 9 floors of Verizon’s most critical equipment floors. The burning rubble from its remains piled seven stories high against and through the east façade of 140 West Street. While the sturdy Verizon building did remain standing, extreme damage was suffered in the surrounding streets by the collapsed steel and concrete, severely damaging Verizon’s underground cable vaults, and severing incoming Con Edison feeders, DC power and steam service, domestic water mains and sanitary sewage piping.

Within 24 hours of the disaster, William F. Collins, AIA Architects, LLP responded by providing guidance and strategic planning for the emergency relocation of over 2000 displaced employees from 140 West Street and another 450 employees from 5 floors Verizon occupied in 2 World Trade Center. WFC was immediately called upon to take a leadership role, directly overseeing, and coordinating a team of a dozen different design professional firms covering every major discipline, and integrating it all into one cohesive approach to the Disaster Recovery effort for 140 West Street.

Once the essential work of securing the facility, stabilizing the structure and ensuring the safety of their personnel was complete, Verizon set its sights on the rehabilitation of 140 West Street. As designers, our mission was clear: “…to create a State-of-the-Art telecommunications facility within the existing framework of a turn-of-the-century building.”