Building 7's Location

Building 7 occupied a city block immediately north of the World Trade Center complex. WTC 1 through WTC 6 were on the superblock bounded by West, Church, Liberty, and Vesey Streets. Building 7 was wedged between the Verizon and U.S. Post Office buildings across Vesey Street from the WTC complex. It straddled an electrical substation that filled the first two stories of about half the block.

People who have heard of Building 7 tend to assume that 'ancillary damage' from the collapses of the Twin Towers had something to do with Building 7's collapse. It is important to note that Building 7 was no closer to the towers than any of several other large buildings outside of the WTC complex. The wall of Building 7 closest to the WTC complex was more than 300 feet from the nearest wall of the North Tower. It appears that most of the heavy fallout from the destruction of the North Tower landed short of Building 7. Building 6 stood between the North Tower and Building 7.

Building 7 was the only of the seven buildings with a World Trade Center address that was on a different block. It, along with the 6 other buildings, were completely or largely destroyed on September 11th. No large buildings outside of the two turquoise zones in the map to the right suffered more than superficial damage, such as gashes caused by flying pieces of steel from the Towers.

These photographs show Building 7 in front of the exploding North Tower. It is the square bronze building on the left. Even in the second photo, the nearest of the debris from the tower is well behind Building 7.