Rating: 
Summary: Wait for the Paperback
Review: "City in the Sky" is a well- researched, well -documented account of the site acquisition, construction, and eventual collapse of the New York World Trade Center. (There are other WTCs). It is immediately obvious that the authors have conducted extensive interviews and research. Full disclosure: This reviewer worked at the facility for 24 years for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Most of the anecdotes retold in CIS are just as I originally heard them years ago. (With some exceptions: On Austin Tobin's first trip on the newly acquired Hudson and Manhattan Railroad, the sleeping drunk supposedly woke up long enough to bid the Executive Director "good evening" before passing out again. Also, some of the PA titles are inaccurate, though not wrong. There was one obvious leg-pull about a "mailroom worker".) CIS in really 3 stories in one: The first is the strongest: That tale encompasses the struggle to condemn the surrounding real estate, overcome local opposition and secure Governmental cooperation for the project. Those who enjoyed such works as Robert Caro's "The Power Broker" will be in their element here. The second is concerned with the actual construction of the 2 towers and satellite buildings. The authors manage to include just enough technical details to tell the story without allowing this section of CIS to become too technical. The final part deals with that tragic day we now call 9/11. This reviewer does not wish to minimize that awful event but this tale has been told better, or as well, elsewhere. One assumes its' inclusion was virtually mandatory in a 400+ page work on the Trade Center but it emerges, perhaps strangely, as the weakest section of CIS. This reviewer hopes he was mistaken when he read that some of the victims who jumped to their deaths were in fact pushed by co-workers needing window space. A major difficulty with the text is that the authors appear too inclined to blame the Port Authority for inadequate fireproofing of the towers. This may-or may NOT! -be so but this serious charge is not substantiated here. Furthermore the PA executive most of the allegations are heaped upon has been dead for some 20 years and is hardly in a position to defend himself. CIS' strength is the relating of the struggles to build the Towers in the light of another era. Those were the days of Radio Row, a vastly different New York City, the maximum power of the Rockefeller Family and what those a bit older that this reviewer fondly remember as the "good old days" at Mother PONYA. CIS is entirely worthwhile but far from urgent reading. Amazoners may wish to wait for the more moderate prices of a paperback edition. That event would warrant a 4th star.
Rating: 
Summary: City in the Sky
Review: A genuine page turner. It reads like a novel but obviously a factual step by exciting step of how the World Trade Center got it's start and it's terrible ending. I could'nt but the book down.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, gripping biography
Review: An amazing story about people more than buildings. Truly unputdownable. Read this and know more about new york city than anyone you know. It's not about 9/11 -- it's about new york city and all new yorkers. The story is all the more riveting because we all know the terrifying ending. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: The best of the bunch
Review: As a child, I watched the World Trade Center go up. As an adult, I had been through the Center thousands of times and ate many a lunch in the plaza between the two beautiful towers. Although I worked only three blocks north of the WTC, I was nowhere near them on 9/11, and thank God for that. I don't think I could have been able to bear witnessing their destruction.
To fill the void, I began reading everything about the World Trade Center that I could. Eric Darton's book, "Divided We Stand", published before 9/11, was okay but I found the second-person narration and its choppy presentation too distracting. Several other books were published after the devestation, but they all seemed like rush jobs trying to cash in on the disaster. However, "City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center" by James Glanz and Eric Lipton is by far the best of the bunch. Meticulously researched without being too scholarly, the authors present a biography of the center that was filled with controversy, behind-closed-doors intrigues, political wrestling and, ultimately, the construction and engineering marvels that allowed the towers to rise. The pacing is remarkably swift but nothing is glossed over. The final quarter of the book is about 9/11 and afterward. I began this section with dread and was tempted not to read it at all. Fortunately, Glanz and Lipton handled it with incredible sensitivity.
"City in the Sky", like the towers themselves, is a remarkable collaboration: the narrative is seamless--like Burrows and Wallace's "Gotham". And, ultimately, this book is a lively and poignant tribute to the World Trade Center they must have loved.
Rocco Dormarunno,
author of "The Five Points"
Rating:
Summary: A great history of the Twin Towers and their people
Review: City in the Sky gives us a balanced and fascinating look at the conception, creation, life and destruction of the World Trade Center. The human interest inherent in the story of the construction and loss of the Twin Towers is balanced with a detailed, yet easily understandable explanation of the physics involved in both. New York Times reporters Glanz and Lipton have created a very readable book on the weightiest of subjects, acknowledging the tremendous human loss without excessive sentimentality.
Rating:
Summary: The Story of The Trade Center-From Birth To Death and Beyond
Review: Everything about the twin towers of the World Trade Center was outsize, from their conception to their creation and their destruction. New York Times reporters James Glanz and Eric Lipton have provided an admirable overview of their story in "City in the Sky." The two authors deftly weave together the political, economic, architectural, engineering and human issues that were central to the towers' rise and fall.The story began in the 1950s with an idea advocated by David Rockefeller of the Chase Manhattan Bank. The project came under the sponsorship of the Port Authority of New York, the only public agency with the resources or clout to accomplish it; the use of public funds to build two giant office buildings was justified as providing a "port on land" for importers and exporters, foreign divisions of businesses and the like. The autocratic boss of the Port Authority, Austin Tobin, did battle with the political and business leaders who potentially stood in the way of the project as the 1960s unfolded. Tobin assigned Guy Tozzoli of his staff to oversee the project, and he was there until the unimaginable day of their destruction almost four decades later. A rising young architect named Minoru Yamasaki was commissioned to design the largest buildings ever built. While Yamasaki and his staff were at work in their Midwestern studios, the merchants who would be displaced by the project fought--and almost won--a desperate struggle for survival. Meanwhile, researchers in distant parts of the country were trying to answer the questions about how the buildings and the people inside them would react to the forces of wind and what might happen if they were ever struck by an airplane. The towers finally opened, but in the economic climate of the mid-1970s, they became half-empty white elephants. But as things improved, the center was soon full (although the original concept of a "port on land" had to be abandoned) and the structures that had once been seen as alien and oversized now became a symbol of New York's, and the nation's economic might....a symbol that provided an inviting target for terrorists. The heroic rescue and demolition efforts that followed 9-11 bring the book, but not the story of the World Trade Center, to a close. Various theories have been advanced, but a federal report on the cause of the towers' collapse is still to come; and although a design has been chosen, the debate over the form the memorial at the site should take still continues. Glanz and Lipton have written a compelling and informative book.--William C. Hall
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Book for Great Towers?
Review: Factual, thorough and well-written. The authors praise the engineering and construction (e.g. "Carl Weber produced something that was a cut above ordinary floor trusses ... stout floor trusses.") and recognize that the ultimate cause for the towers' demise belongs with crazed terrorists and several hundred thousand pounds of jet fuel, but they also advance some interesting ideas to suggest some reasons for unnecessary loss of life (e.g. "The Port Authority (had)... a longstanding lack of concern for fire (displaying) a serious disregard for the safety of the thousands of people who came to work in its grand buildings every day.)
Rating:
Summary: The saga of the WTC from its initial conception in 1939
Review: It is all right here. From the germ of the idea at the 1939 New York World's Fair to the design and planning of a project unlike any other in the history of mankind to the cataclysmic events of September 11, 2001. New York Times reporters James Glanz and Eric Lipton have pieced together the complete history that needed to be told. "City In The Sky" is the remarkable story of how the World Trade Center came to be. It is a riveting tale from start to finish. Learn about those who first envisioned this project way back in the late 1940's and of the considerable role politics would play in this saga over the ensuing decades. You will be introduced to Lawrence A. Wien, owner of the Empire State Building, who fought this project tooth and nail. And you'll meet one Oscar Nadel, owner of a small appliance business that would be displaced by the World Trade Center. Put yourself in his shoes and in the shoes of hundreds of other small business people who were to be evicted in the wake of this massive project.
Glanz and Lipton also devote a considerable amount of time to the struggle between the City of New York and the New York and New Jersey Port Authority for control of this enormous project.
You will learn why the WTC was located where it was and
about all of the people who made this concept a reality from the visionary David Rockerfeller to the unconventional architect Minoru Yamasaki to powerful Port Authority chairman Austin Tobin. And of course, you will read once again of the tragic events of 9/11 and see how decisions made decades earlier may have helped decide who would live and who would die on that fateful day. Were corners cut during construction? Was the fireproofing used adequate? And were the consequences of an airliner crashing into the Twin Towers ever seriously considered? So many questions. This is an important book that helps you to unravel some of the complex issues here.
Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: The saga of the WTC from its initial conception in 1939
Review: It is all right here. From the germ of the idea at the 1939 New York World's Fair to the design and planning of a project unlike any other in the history of mankind to the cataclysmic events of September 11, 2001. New York Times reporters James Glanz and Eric Lipton have pieced together the complete history that needed to be told. "City In The Sky" is the remarkable story of how the World Trade Center came to be. It is a riveting tale from start to finish. Learn about those who first envisioned this project way back in the late 1940's and of the considerable role politics would play in this saga over the ensuing decades. You will be introduced to Lawrence A. Wien, owner of the Empire State Building, who fought this project tooth and nail. And you'll meet one Oscar Nadel, owner of a small appliance business that would be displaced by the World Trade Center. Put yourself in his shoes and in the shoes of hundreds of other small business people who were to be evicted in the wake of this massive project.
Glanz and Lipton also devote a considerable amount of time to the struggle between the City of New York and the New York and New Jersey Port Authority for control of this enormous project.
You will learn why the WTC was located where it was and
about all of the people who made this concept a reality from the visionary David Rockerfeller to the unconventional architect Minoru Yamasaki to powerful Port Authority chairman Austin Tobin. And of course, you will read once again of the tragic events of 9/11 and see how decisions made decades earlier may have helped decide who would live and who would die on that fateful day. Were corners cut during construction? Was the fireproofing used adequate? And were the consequences of an airliner crashing into the Twin Towers ever seriously considered? So many questions. This is an important book that helps you to unravel some of the complex issues here.
Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Story of the Trade Centers: Start to End
Review: Most people at first glance would think this book is about the 9/11 attacks on the WTC, but really it is much more than that. If you really read this book, it is very interesting to look at the immense problems these people had to overcome. It took a lot of genius to create such huge buildings. The architect Minoru Yamasaki's emotional motivation, and David Rockefellers ambition to renovate lower Manhattan was the driving force that got the towers built.
I gave this book four stars instead of five even though its a very well written and intersting book. It seemed to drag from a few points, but otherwise was a smooth read. I definitely recommend reading the tale of the Twin Towers.
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