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Does Extra Security Make it Safe?

When it opened in 1931, the Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world. It reached 102 stories high, 1250 feet tall. It became the eighth wonder of the world, a symbol of New York's government, people, and achievements. In 1972 the building lost its title as tallest when Tower One of the World Trade Center was completed.

On September 11, 2001, the Empire State Building had to stand a little taller and bore a lot more weight on its shoulders as it became the tallest building in New York once again. Now, the thousands of people who come to work in the Empire State Building each day are asking Are we the next target?

The building has undergone drastic changes since September 11, and almost all of them are permanent. Security is stricter than it has ever been, and will remain that way. Tenants are afraid of bombs, airplanes, fires, building collapse, and biological terrorism. Building management said that they are doing everything that they can to prevent any harm coming to the Empire State Building. Many are wondering whether these efforts will be enough to stop someone with intent to kill.

"The attack on the World Trade Center caught everyone off guard," Lydia A. Ruth, Director of Public Relations of the Empire State Building, said. "Before, only visitors to the observation deck had to go through metal detectors. "We were a public building, we welcomed everyone." Now, every person that enters the building must show a photo identification, walk through a metal detector, be checked by a magnetometer, and have their bags viewed through x-ray screens, she said. According to Ruth, there were 70 security guards who worked in the building. Presently there are 100. There is also sophisticated video surveillance, she said, and cameras take peoples photos as they enter the building and are equipped to follow them throughout the building and onto the street.

After the bomb in the World Trade Center in 1993 the Empire State Building hired an explosive detection canine. Today the dog is still there, checking each package that arrives at the loading dock. The dog, accompanied by security, also walks throughout the hallways and checks the bathrooms on the floors each day. Plainclothed and uniformed, armed and unarmed guards monitor the building, as well as police officers.

Building identification cards have been available for four years, Ruth said, but not many tenants took up the offer. Now everyone is required to carry them. Ruth spoke of plans to make the building a closed building. This would mean that in about six months, the central elevator banks will be available only to tenants, who will have a microchip on their identification cards that allows them access to the building, Ruth said. The entrance on 34th street will be open for visitors, tourists and deliveries. Tenants will have to fax a list of their guests to the security desk, who will allow only those visitors up. "It will be slow and painful and everyone will complain," Ruth said, "but it is something we will do. Most other buildings are just checking packages. The Empire State Building is doing something right."

The building has seen an increase in evacuations since September 11th, Ruth said. On that day, the building was evacuated by elevator. On September 12th, a bomb threat was received, but it was late at night, and only building personnel remained in the building. A bomb threat from Bucharest, Romania was received via phone on September 28, warned to go off at 3pm, said Jesse Peterman, Director of Security at the Empire State Building. According to Peterman, no initial announcement was made; security had hoped to evacuate the building in an orderly manner, floor by floor. Word got out, however, and panic ensued, he said. An announcement was then made to evacuate.

At a tenant seminar on October 15, Roy Miller, fire consultant to the building, tried to assuage the tenants' fears of fires and attacks. He said that the stairwells are made entirely of concrete and steel. "The only way the stairwell is going to have a fire is if someone drags something in there and sets it on fire," Miller said. "Even that will burn itself out and disappear."

Robert Lobell, the chief engineer of the Empire State Building, said that the ventilating system has 450 components to it with no central air intake. Smoke in one compartment would not move on to another. The World Trade Centers were built with one central system, allowing fire or smoke in the basement to spread to the top.

Most skyscrapers, the Empire State Building included, are supported with a steel frame interior and load bearing walls. The World Trade Centers were not built this way. There, one floor took down the next, Lobell said. "There was a different standard of construction when this building was built," Miller said.

An airplane has already hit the Empire State Building, in 1945. A B-25 bomber, going 200 miles per hour, got lost in the fog and crashed into the 79th floor. Fourteen people died. The building was injured but not destroyed.

This information sounds reassuring, but the tenants are not entirely comforted. Nahide Bayrasli works in an office on the 35th floor. The first week she was worried about coming to work, but says that not a lot of her uneasiness has subsided. Bayrasli does not think that the building is a target. Nevertheless, she is not very confident about the increased security downstairs. "You cannot stop an attack if someone is determined enough to do it," Bayrasli said. Lunch bags have not been checked, she said, and she has made the metal detector beep many times without being searched. "Females can't be terrorists too?" she said. The guards allowed her to go through, saying that it was probably her bracelet.

 
Read more: Fun Facts about the Empire State Building

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Related Links:
The Empire State Building
The King's College
New York City Tourist
Great Buildings
ABC News

 

 

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