How a Student's Question Saved This NYC Skyscraper

This is City Corp Center. In the summer of 1978, it had been open for less than a year when its structural engineer, Bill Lameasure, made a terrifying discovery. His cuttingedge skyscraper, an engineering marvel, had a fatal flaw. Winds of just 110 kmh could cause it to collapse in the middle of Manhattan, potentially killing thousands.

Over 200,000 people lived and worked in the surrounding area, and hurricane season was only weeks away. Here I am, the only man in the world who knew this. This thing is in real trouble. Lameasure faced a stark choice.

He could stay silent and hope for the best, or he could try to fix it and risk professional ruin and mass panic. But City Corp Center had a 100% probability of total collapse by the end of the century. How could he save New York from a near certain disaster? And how was this allowed in the first place?

Veritassium producer and engineer Henry Van Djk traveled to New York to investigate further. So in the 1960s, the financial giant City Corp was trying to build a new headquarters in Manhattan. So just down the street from their original headquarters was this entire city block which was up for sale. Well, everything except for this church, St.

Peters. So, City Corp came to the pastor, Ralph Peterson, and asked, "What's it going to take for you guys to leave?" And he came back and said, "We're not leaving." Anything that City Corp builds has to involve the church as part of it. What the pastor wanted was for the church to have its own separate identity. So, eventually they agreed on two things.

One was to replace this old crumbling Gothic church with a brand new one, which you see in front of you. And the second thing was that the church had to be physically distinct from the new tower. In other words, it had to be completely independent. And again, most importantly, 2/3 of the space above the church had to be free and clear, had to be open.

City Corp then hired architect Hugh Stubbins to design the tower and the church and Bill measure as the structural engineer. Stubbins explained the constraints they faced. The church needed to be in the exact same spot and they needed to build the tower around it. If they were to maximize ...