The seldom mentioned Seven World Trade Center (the brown building in this photo) was a 47-storey tower, completed in 1987. As tall as any office building in Europe, it was dwarfed by its 110-storey twin brothers. It was still an impressive building in its own right, the building's appearance and its alternating facing -- horizontal glass striping on the Barclay and Vesey Street sides and red granite, holed by smaller windows, on the other two -- set it apart also visually from the Twin Towers of the late 1960s. Although a part of the WTC in name, the building was on a separate ground lease and tax lot from the rest of the Center. 7 WTC was built atop the power substation building that supplied much of Downtown Manhattan with electricity.

The building collapsed at 5.20pm on September 11th, several hours after the terrorist attack on the WTC, having been structurally weakened by the destruction of the nearby twin towers and an enormous fire that raged within the building. It is now known that this fire was fuelled by 28,000 gallons of diesel fuel stored underneath the building. Ironically, this fuel was intended to power the emergency generators for Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's command center, the Secret Service's office and other tenants.

For further information on the catastrophic fire in WTC 7 please read the New York Times' article at http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/02/nyregion/02TOWE.html?ex=1075698000&en=e53a0480cc6fc97c&ei=5070 (registration required).

A replacement WTC7 building is already being built - visit the excellent skyscrapers.com website for information on this phoenix rising from the flames at http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=170407 .