The Great Miscalculation: The Race to Save New York City’s Citicorp Tower

Historian and attorney Greenburg (The Noble Woman) offers a propulsive account of the 1978 Citicorp Center crisis, when the newly built 59-story Manhattan skyscraper was revealed to have a structural flaw that made it vulnerable to collapse. The book portrays William LeMessurier, the engineer who notified the public of the danger, as an intriguing figure for having copped up to such a massive error. (As LeMussurier later explained to his own engineering students, “Doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects” have “a social obligation to society.... You are supposed to be self-sacrificing and look beyond the interest of your client to society as a whole”). Greenburg details the decisions that led to the vulnerability: the last-minute replacement of welds with bolts impacted in unexpected ways the building’s unique design as a “skyscraper on stilts.” He also follows the summer 1978 race to fix the building before the autumn arrival of hurricane-level winds that gave it a one in 16 chance of collapse. Along the way, Greenburg offers fascinating insights into what the episode meant for the era’s economically struggling New York as well as captivatingly nuanced descriptions of the world of scientists, bureaucrats, architectural critics, thesis-writing undergrads, and others who are involved in an undertaking as massive as the building of a skyscraper. It’s a thrilling saga of a disaster averted by dedicated professionals. (June)