WORKING AT WORLD TRADE CENTER

     By Hugh Murray

            There are times when we are not always aware of the importance of our own actions.  In the early 1980s I worked in New York City in the World Trade Center on the 38^th floor.  Though my desk was drafty in winter and we had little control over the temperature, the winter view was spectacular – the sun setting while we could look down on the Statue of Liberty with the golden red horizon in the West.  Indeed, I recall beautiful scenes of New York.  For a time, I lived in Brooklyn and would walk to work across the Brooklyn Bridge in the morning.  Looking at the massive twin towers of the WTC, they appeared purple reflecting some of the morning sky.  If I had enough time and were more energetic that day, I might walk all the way to work, climbing the staircase to the 38^th floor.  There were no beautiful sights in the stairwell, some empty soda bottles and paper plates, refuse left by those who took a quick lunch away from the malls in the Trade Center lobbies.  The stairwells were narrow; just room for two people.  Unlike the rest of the building, it was in the stairways that one could hear the creaking of the building as these 110 story-structures swayed in the wind.

            One day in 1983 our agency conducted a fire drill.  All of us walked down from the 38^th floor, joining with the fellow workers from the 37^th, 36^th, 35^th, 34^th, and we all congregated by the elevators on the 33^rd floor.  These were the floors rented by the New York State agency for which I worked.  We were then instructed to do this same action in case of fire.

            WTC were modern buildings, the tallest in the world when constructed in the 1970s.  Both towers included modern features like robots that crawled up and down the outside windows, cleaning them from the ground to the 110 story.  The elevators, like subways, had local and express cars.  They rose so fast your ears popped, so, as in airplanes, you had to chew to avoid pain.  Another modern innovation, there were no pushbuttons in the elevators.  There were circled numbers indicating floors, and they appeared to be buttons, but they were not.  You did not push them to indicate the floor you wanted to get to; you simply placed your finger on the appropriately numbered circle, and the heat of your finger would light up the number and take you to that floor.  But it was not a push button.  Even to call the elevator from the lobby, a similar circle, but not a push button was used.  The heat of your finger on the circle called the elevator to that floor.

            During the fire drill, we were warned not to take the elevators in case of fire.  The reason – the heat of the flames would call the elevator to the floor with the fire.  When we asked what we should do after arriving at the 33^rd floor during a fire, we were told to wait there for further instructions.  That we were told was policy in 1983.

            One day that year I arrived at work from the subway, and the lobby was packed with people.  The elevators were not working, and everyone was waiting, with no idea when they might be fixed.  Should I wait or walk?  Either way, I would be late, for even if the elevators were fixed immediately, I would not be on the first or the tenth.  So I decided to walk.  I knew where an entrance to the stairs was and began my upward climb as usual.  But, on the 9^th floor, there was no light.  And as I climbed higher, it was worse.  On the 11^th floor, I held my hand before my face, and could not see it.  I continued my upward climb, but slowly. Gripping the handrail, with each step I had to move my foot so as to clear a path of bottles or trash.  If I tripped and fell, who knows how long before someone would find me?  When I finally reached the 38^th floor and opened the door, I was shocked.  The lights in the office and electricity were working normally.  The early crew was doing its job.  They laughed when I appeared, because they knew the elevators still were not repaired and knew I must have walked up.  But I was stunned for another reason – how could there be a malfunction of the electricity of the elevators and the lights in the stairwell at the same time?  I soon complained to my union representative, and one of us may have written to OSEA, a federal agency that might take up such problems.  Shortly thereafter, I left that job and never knew the outcome of my complaint.

            With the bombing of World Trade Center in 1993, I was shocked to see TV reports that workers in the twin towers had difficulties getting down the unlit stairwells in the evacuation of the buildings.  The evacuation took 6 hours.  This time I decided to complain to the newspapers.  I wrote the same letter to the four largest newspapers in New York at that time, presenting my 1983 stairwell story in summary fashion.  My letter was published in the NY Post, 8 March 1993, “WTC: Dark Stairwells and Other Lapses.”  The same letter was published in the New York Daily News, 18 March 1993, p. 42.  It was also published in NY Newsday, which then had a large New York City circulation.  Generally, newspapers do not publish the same letter published by competitors.  Their editors must have judged my letter important.  Only the NY Times did not publish it.  Nevertheless, the combined circulation of the 3 papers that did publish my letter was over 2 million.

             Then September 11, 2001!  A few days later Investor’s Daily noted the changes in the stairwells.  “In 1993, it took six hours to evacuate most of the Trade Center after terrorists detonated a bomb in the underground garage…After the bombing, however, batteries were added to every other light fixture in stairwells…Handrails were painted with glow-in-the-dark paint, which was used to mark a continuous stripe down the middle of the staircases”  The newspaper concluded, “…despite missteps, evacuation was cut by several hours.”  In 1993, it took six hours.  On 9/11, they did not have 6 hours.  Nevertheless, most were able to get out.  I am quite proud.  I suspect that my letters helped spur these improvements, which on 9/11 saved lives.     

            I have published in many academic journals.  When I published the letter in the 3 New York newspapers, I originally deemed it so inconsequential, I did not bother to include it in my bibliography, my list of publications.  After 9/11, I now suspect that letter may be the most import deed of my entire life.