WTC's 'Bathtub' Stabilization Is More Than 70% Complete 4/1/2002
Now that the concrete "bathtub" of the former World Trade Centeronce a seven-level basementis largely an open pit, a behind-the-scenes effort to tie back the north foundation wall has taken center stage as the most logistically complicated component of the job to stabilize the four 70-ft-deep walls. Ongoing work on the 500-ft-long north wall and a 120-ft stretch of the 1,000-ft-long east wall near its south end, where the collapsing south office tower crushed the upper 20 ft or so, are the atypical operations of an otherwise unprecedented effort.
The tieback installation, now more than 70% complete, is "unlike any ever done before," says Peter Rinaldi, engineering program manager for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, which owns the 16-acre trade center site in lower Manhattan.