American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center

by William Langewiesche

Selected as one of the best books of 2002 by The New York Times , San Francisco Chronicle , Boston Globe , Los Angeles Times , and Chicago Sun-Times

Within days after September 11, 2001, William Langewiesche had secured unique, unrestricted, round-the-clock access to the World Trade Center site. American Ground is a tour of this intense, ephemeral world and those who improvised the recovery effort day by day, and in the process reinvented themselves, discovering unknown strengths and weaknesses. In all of its aspects--emotionalism, impulsiveness, opportunism, territoriality, resourcefulness, and fundamental, cacophonous democracy--Langewiesche reveals the unbuilding to be uniquely American and oddly inspiring, a portrait of resilience and ingenuity in the face of disaster.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, American History, Politics, New York, The United States Of America, Audiobook

240 pages, Paperback

First published October 24, 2002

About the author

William Archibald Langewiesche was an American author and journalist who was also a professional airplane pilot for many years. From 2019, he was a writer at large for The New York Times Magazine. Prior to that, he was a correspondent for The Atlantic and Vanity Fair magazines for twenty-nine years. He was the author of nine books and the winner of two National Magazine Awards.
He wrote articles covering a wide range of topics from shipbreaking, wine critics, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, modern ocean piracy, nuclear proliferation, and the World Trade Center cleanup.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wanted to read a couple of 9/11 books this year for the 20th anniversary. I read The Only Plane in the Sky in March. It was fine. But this one by The Atlantic writer William Langewiesche ended up being exactly what I was looking for.

Langewiesche tells the story of the clean-up of the World Trade Center property. The story never leaves "the pile" (as the WTC site came to be called) and you are a first-hand witness to, among other things, the random events that put the unknown NYC Department of Design and Construction - a group that usually handled sidewalks and libraries - in complete charge of the cleanup; the in-fighting between the police, firefighters, and construction workers; and all the things dug out of the ground in the aftermath of the attacks - presidential limousines, vaults filled with gold, firetrucks filled with blue jeans (see below), and over 20,000 body parts from the 1,209 victims identified at the site.

That focus alone sets this apart from most 9/11 literature, but what really makes this book stand out is the tone. There is no mythology here. No hagiography. No hero worship. All the maudlin and emotional has been stripped out and what you are left with is just the facts, just the stories of what happened in those long months in New York City. The firefighters and police aren't shown as heroes, they're shown as flawed humans who fight with each other and sometimes make a mess of things. Key players who gave Langewiesche complete access and were completely transparent with him are, at times, written about in an unflattering light. Death and destruction get the "just the facts" treatment. The fact that that kind of book about 9/11 was published at all seems unlikely. That it was published in 2002 seems unbelievable. It is breathtakingly dispassionate.

So how did it get published? Because the writing, even stripped of all the sentiment and heroism, is fantastic. The book is hard to put down. The final section - "The Dance of the Dinosaurs" - is riveting. This kind of book turned out to be exactly what I was looking for in a 9/11 history.

But when you write a book like this there is going to be controversy. The most controversial passage is one that I won't spoil here involving a firetruck full of blue jeans. It's a story that made firefighters look pretty bad in a time when firefighters were being canonized in the culture. Langewiesche makes clear that many heroes died on 9/11, but the people who were still a part of the story on 9/12 were just regular people with regular flaws.

Seems fair to me, but many people (understandably in 2002) were upset by this. There was a 9/11 group that began solely to refute this book - the WTC Living History Project - and twenty years later they are still going strong online. There were articles written and facts disputed in newspapers. I probably spent as much time reading about this book online as I did reading the actual book, and that was actually pretty fun. I will link to some of that stuff below if you'd like to go down that rabbit hole. I've read everything now and I'm pretty convinced the reporting was fair. If you're going to read it, definitely read the paperback version which has an afterword that clarifies some of the reporting.

Great 9/11 book, I highly recommend it.

Here's a really good article from Slate that has a lot of links in it to some of the controversy at the time - slate.com/news-and-politics/2002/10/l...

The WTC Living History Project, which twenty years later is still on the warpath - https://www.wtclivinghistory.org/

A positive review from The New York Times - nytimes.com/2002/10/20/books/reverse-...

A not-so-positive review from The New York Times, but one that I think perfectly highlights the kind of reporting that makes this kind of book fascinating and necessary - nytimes.com/2002/10/22/books/books-of...

[Nood-Lesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

E poi perché se state parlando di tragedie è giusto conservare un tono sobrio, senza effettacci, per rispetto nei confronti del lettore (ma – se non suono retorico a mia volta – direi persino per rispetto nei confronti dei morti). Tenetevi, lo ripeto, un’ottava sotto; e se cercate dei modelli leggete per esempio il libro di Langewiesche sul crollo delle Torri Gemelle (American Ground) o i reportage di guerra di Parise (Guerre politiche) o di Dexter Filkins (Guerra per sempre)
-COME NON SCRIVERE- Claudio Giunta

Ho seguito il consiglio e con un paio di click sono venuto in possesso di American Ground. Mi sono chiesto quale sia il motivo per il quale io sia passato dal non sapere niente delle due Torri Gemelle prima del loro crollo a farle quasi diventare un'ossessione dopo. All’epoca degli attentati, qualcuno disse “È come se avessero buttato giù il Colosseo, hanno abbattuto un simbolo”. Chi ha visto in diretta l’aereo schiantarsi sulla torre nord, chi ha visto collassare entrambe le torri, non dimenticherà. È come fosse porzione di inconscio collettivo, patrimonio comune, fragilità di ciò che era ritenuto solido. In questo processo molto hanno potuto le immagini televisive rimbalzate ai quattro angoli del globo.
Il libro colpisce per il modo impersonale con il quale è stato scritto. Langewiesche è l’unico giornalista accreditato a cui è consentito di accedere a Ground Zero già nei giorni immediatamente successivi all’attentato. Passerà sei mesi con le squadre di soccorso e sgombero e racconterà la sua esperienza nei tre reportage contenuti in questo libro.
Nel primo viene descritta la situazione immediatamente successiva al crollo e si viene introdotti a Ground Zero da questa presentazione:
Fatta eccezione per Saint Nicholas, una minuscola chiesa greco-ortodossa disintegratasi sotto la pioggia di acciaio, sono andati distrutti solo ed esclusivamente gli edifici con la targa del World Trade Center sulla facciata. Erano sette e non ne è rimasto in piedi neanche uno. Neppure il cosiddetto World Trade Center Sette – una torre isolata di quarantasette piani e di costruzione abbastanza recente sull’altro lato della strada – si è sottratto alla maledizione del nome.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...

Nel secondo (quello che ho letto con maggiore interesse) viene ricostruita la mattina del 9/11/2001 dal decollo all’impatto dei due aerei che si abbatterono sulle torri. (Ho scoperto in rete che Langewiesche è stato pilota civile, questa competenza deve averlo aiutato a scrivere dell’attacco).

Nel terzo reportage (che è anche quello che ha suscitato maggiori polemiche) vengono descritte le operazioni di sgombero, il modo quasi fortuito in cui a capo di esse vennero posti due uomini assai diversi fra loro ma complementari. Per avere un’idea di ciò che dovettero gestire, si può dare un’occhiata a questo video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnRJI...
Le polemiche sono state innescate dal fatto che Langewiesche anziché celebrare l’unità dell’America colpita, mettesse in evidenza le dinamiche simil tribali fra gli addetti allo smaltimento del cumulo di macerie. I pompieri sono coloro che hanno avuto il numero più alto di colleghi morti, e pretendono che il vaglio delle macerie alla ricerca dei resti umani sia il più accurato possibile. Dal canto loro i poliziotti non tollerano che ci sia una classifica d’importanza dei morti, anche loro hanno avuto perdite ingenti; poi ci sono i numerosi addetti civili delle ditte appaltatrici, a cui viene chiesto di agire con sollecitudine per sgomberare il campo. Le dinamiche illustrate da Langewiesche sono comprensibili a chiunque abbia avuto a che fare con altri esseri umani; il fatto di essere americani e di comprare milioni di adesivi con lo slogan UNITI SI VINCE, non significa che essi siano davvero diversi.
C’era un clima molto teso. Finora nessuno o quasi ha parlato di un aspetto misconosciuto della tragedia, la gelosia. Sì, la tragedia ha suscitato un sentimento imprevisto ma diffuso, molto simile all’orgoglio. L’idea che «questa è la nostra tragedia, non la vostra» attraversava tutti gli Stati Uniti, acuendosi via via che ci si avvicinava al luogo del disastro. Era una specie di possessività sempre più accentuata, che partiva dalle stanze del potere a Washington, attraversava i sobborghi del New Jersey e arrivava a New York e da lì, passando per Lower Manhattan, fino alle rovine, dove divideva i tre gruppi principali (vigili del fuoco, polizia e imprese edili) e a volte li metteva l’uno contro l’altro.
Sono stati soprattutto i vigili del fuoco a rivendicare una specie di legame esclusivo con quel posto, non soltanto perché vi avevano perduto trecentoquarantatré uomini (su un organico totale di quattordicimila unità), ma anche perché, nelle settimane successive all’attentato, quelli di loro che erano sopravvissuti erano stati idolatrati come eroi nazionali, al pari dei caduti, e travolti dal vortice della pubblicità.

Nella postfazione Langewiesche oltre a rivendicare la propria neutralità, risponderà alle accuse che gli sono state mosse dal Living History Project e dai pompieri del Fire Department. (Effettivamente nei riguardi dei pompieri anche a me è parso di percepire una minore neutralità che con il resto delle divise coinvolte)
Direi che il consiglio di Claudio Giunta è stato valido, American Groud è un libro che merita di essere letto per il modo in cui è scritto (contiene tra l'altro disquisizioni ingegneristiche sulla struttura delle torri, sulle tecniche di recupero delle macerie, sull'assetto degli aerei in volo) ma che è consigliato solo agli interessati all’argomento, infatti benché scritto in modo sobrio e accessibile, è incentrato sull'attentato e sulla reazione immediata di un popolo, di un paese, di uno stato e di una città, mortalmente feriti.

[Evi * · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ognuno saprebbe dire dove si trovava l'11 settembre 2001, così come, per chi è della mia generazione, dove nel 1982 anno della vittoria dei mondiali in Spagna o dove fosse il tardo pomeriggio del 28 maggio 1991, strage di Capaci.
E fondamentalmente per me rimane un mistero come una struttura verticale così potente e alta come le due Torri Gemelle del World Trader Center potesse reggersi in piedi da sé, sostenendo il peso dei piani e di tutti gli oggetti e le persone che contenevano, sfidando venti che a quelle altezze sono in grado di produrre oscillazioni considerevoli.
I segreti dell'edilizia e delle scienze di costruzione mi affascinano, ho un futuro da terza età come "umarell" che intontito ed esangue osserva i cantieri della metropolitana.

William Langewiesche, autore di questo reportage è un reporter, l'unico al mondo che per sei mesi ebbe un accesso privilegiato e autorizzato al luogo del disastro.
Il suo approccio a tutta la faccenda è originale: tiene le distanze dall'iconografia narrativa classica e patriottica della tragedia, pochissime le testimonianze di sopravvissuti, il dolore privato non è il suo argomento e nemmeno lo sono le riflessioni politiche.
Parla soprattutto di edilizia, o meglio, della demolizione e rimozione di quell'enorme cumulo di acciaio e cemento, una montagna smisurata, esalante per mesi fumo e fiamme, cosparsa di resti umani e riversatasi in un'area di 4 ettari di ampiezza e 20 metri di profondità dove per 8 mesi si è lavorato senza interruzione, 24 ore al giorno.
William Langewiesche entra nel tecnico, comunque risulta facile seguirlo anche per chi non è né ingegnere strutturista, né operaio edile, né pompiere o poliziotto; le quattro categorie che si sono avvicendate per nove mesi intorno a Ground Zero, spesso mettendosi l'una contro l'altra, con difficoltà di condivisione di informazioni, e con quella pretesa di esclusività del dolore rivendicata soprattutto dal Corpo dei Vigili del Fuoco gli eroi del: "Questa è la nostra tragedia dove abbiamo perso più di 300 colleghi" Considerazioni che non sono piaciute all'opinione pubblica, quasi una mancanza di rispetto verso le vittime e che generarono un mare di polemiche alla pubblicazione del libro e numerose manifestazioni contro.
C'è la descrizione dei momenti prima dell'impatto, le comunicazioni ambigue tra aerei e torri di controllo, il cedimento velocissimo delle due torri.
E come l'urgenza di intervenire abbia smantellato gerachie, accelerato decisioni, aggirato le procedure di appalto, disattesi i normali parametri di sicurezza. Creatività e decisioni immediate erano più utili dell'applicazione di collaudati piani di emergenza o evacuazione perché un evento di tale portata non si era mai visto... scene che nemmeno Apocalypse Now...
Un inferno dantesco attraversato da dinosauri, gru e scavatrici diesel, che custodisce resti umani, sangue, carne e acciaio mescolati e da separare come fosse una partita di Shangai.
Le due torri erano un capolavoro di ingegneria, costruite con un acciaio dei più puri, per un eccesso di prudenza le fondamenta ancorate direttamente al fondo roccioso.
Non tanto l'impatto dei due aerei ma il fuoco, che ha trovato parecchio combustibile a disposizione, ha contribuito al crollo; la voragine provocata dall'impatto ha lasciato le colonne perimetrale sotto il peso di circa 30 piani sovrastanti che sono poi collassati verso il basso.
Fra poco ricorrono i vent'anni dalla tragedia, Biden potrà dare sfogo a tutta la retorica del dolore, come è anche giusto sia, il mio approccio sarà sentimentale ma, alla luce di questa lettura, anche più neutro e tecnico.
E scusate la prolissità 🙂

[Mickey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that you read at a feverish pace for a few days and then, when finished, promptly search for other books by the same author. This book is unbelievably good. It focuses on the removal efforts of the debris in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. This book reminded me a lot of another book by a journalist following another big story: Dave Cullen's Columbine. Both present an honest and in-depth picture of a national tragedy.

In my opinion, this book deserved a Pulitzer.

[Cherisa B · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read about the immediate aftermath of the site, the interpersonal dynamics, politics, engineering and know-how it took to dismantle or "unbuild" the millions of tons of steel and detritus while honoring the victims' remains found all during.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an interesting perspective into the process on dealing with the aftermath of the 9.11 ruins in NYC. The only journalist given total access to the site.

[giomustdie┆saw mcr :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because I wanted to know more about 09/11
I enjoyed the honesty, transparency, and objectiveness of the author (almost detached at times)
William Langewiesche focused more on what happened AFTER the disaster and how the people who worked on the site handled the whole situation
there were some things I wanted to know about this event that were not in this book, but overall I found it very enjoyable and stimulating

[Fred Gumminger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was on a Langewiesche kick a few years back. I still reflect upon those books so many years later.
A true fearless master of non-fiction writing.

[Rob Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating perspective on 9/11 as Langewiesche focuses on the gargantuan, unprecedented, chaotic eight-month clean-up/recovery that took place after the Twin Towers fell.

So many intriguing elements are included: the harrowing stories of the last two survivors pulled alive from the wreckage; the infighting between cohorts (firefighters, police officers, construction crews, victims’ families) present at and around Ground Zero; clear, nuanced portraits of the (mostly) men who often somewhat randomly rose to the fore to become the leaders and decision makers; the on-going necessity to balance the need to clear away hundreds of thousands of tons of inorganic debris with the necessity to respect the remains of victims that continued to show up months into the process and were often difficult to identify as such.

The writing is strongest when it is the most objective, faltering when the author includes himself and his personal opinions too much, or when his writing gets overly dramatic. I’m also not fond of times when journalists speak for “America” and claim to know what all Americans feel and experience, and Langewiesche does this several times.

Still, the author’s more blatantly subjective elements aside, the book is worth reading for a larger picture of what happened on and after 9/11.

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an interesting read! Langewiesche shared a new perspective I have not read or seen in a documentary before. It reads very academic, but what great information. It touches on how individuals rose into leadership roles, the angst between the various parties (firemen/police/civilians/construction workers/politicians), the actual construction of the buildings, true cause of the collapse, the looting, delicate removal of everything, and how the United States responded in its first true attack since the 1993 WTC bombing. The bottom line is that we were not ready, but one can argue how to prepare for the unimaginable?

I loved the map at the beginning to have a better understanding of where the buildings were and which were destroyed. Langewiesche walks through the partially standing buildings and describes how time stood still. Really moving! I couldn't put this book down b/c I wanted to understand how NYC handled this unforeseeable tradegy. This book will stick with me for a long time!

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was not at all familiar with this book, but I am familiar with the author. I found this book on a list of the best 25 books of this century.

Although it is a well-worn phrase, this book was one that was hard to put down. As other reviews indicate, an up close look at the days and weeks and months after the attack where engineers had to deal with not only clean up but also not to make things more dangerous in the area. Many of us, myself included, probably had no idea what was involved in those first weeks. The author puts you front and center with the engineers and workers. An unbelievably difficult and ungodly and moving situation, and it is good that someone recorded the effort for posterity. Five stars all the way.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Available as an eight-hour unabridged audio download.

I enjoyed listening to this book, even though the reader's growly tone was sometimes a tiny bit distracting. Since a lot of people listen to audiobooks to aid sleep at bedtime, and others listen to books while enduring airline travel, I thought I would mention that, sometime around audiobook chapters 3-5, there is a detailed and well-written account of the last minutes aboard the doomed planes that were crashed into the World Trade Center, including the last calls from passengers and crew. These bits will likely to disturb your dreams and will certainly not allow you to escape from the tedium of air travel. Also, there are descriptions of the ordeals endured by the few souls who were trapped in the rubble and survived – also very disturbing.

While the book is entertaining, there is quite a bit of disagreement about whether it is an accurate representation of certain facts. I'd like to write about that below, with digressions.

When reading books, I enjoy reading about them as well, so I will sometimes put the book I'm reading down and see what reviewers said about it, or perhaps what, if any, scandal the book provoked upon publication. This occasionally leads me down an informational rabbit hole, in which I find out some things which are not so useful, but interesting (to me, anyway). In this case, people accused Langewiesche of slandering New York City firemen. Following the trail of this story backward from a one-sentence Wikipedia mention led me to some easy-to-find-on-Google information which, as far as I can tell, has never been scraped together in one place before, at least here at Goodreads. Here it is:

The sentence in the Wikipedia entry says: “Claims of looting by firefighters provoked angry rebuttals.” The footnote to this sentence refers to an article in the NY Times. This article specifies the claim:

Mr. Langewiesche writes that on an ''autumn afternoon'' in 2001, a fire truck was unearthed at the base of the south tower ruins, and that it contained blue jeans – ''tagged, folded, stacked by size'' – that he implies were looted from a Gap store. Construction workers, who were tired of the firefighters' lionization, jeered when the discovery was made, according to Mr. Langewiesche.

Elsewhere in the book, surviving firefighters working at the sight are portrayed in an unsympathetic manner. They are interested only recovering the remains of their fallen comrades at the expense of all other considerations, the author claims. Attempts to redirect the excavation to other goals lead, in one case, to a demonstration which deteriorates into a brawl with police.

In any event, as the NY Times reported, another journalist wrote a 50-page document rebutting Langewiesche's claim, “replete with footnotes, maps, satellite data and aerial photographs”. The document said that Langewiesche's accusation referred to a specific ladder company in a specific place. He denied this. He admitted that the incident, which was reported as fact, was actually based on a story told to Langewiesche by a source, that is, the author did not see it himself. All of this led the publishers to say that the offending passage would be “amended in the paperback version”. Although I did NOT research this point, I believe that the audiobook contains the first version, that is, the version that prompted firefighters' wrath, or something very close to it. The audiobook concludes with an afterward to the paperback edition which addresses his critics. Some small errors of fact are corrected. The tone is combative. I'm sure the afterward did nothing to mollify critics.

Langewiesche's book also attracted the anger of a formidable woman named Rhonda Roland Shearer, according to a 2002 article from New York-based Observer.com. Shearer has a varied and colorful history, before this incident and after, as an artist, art historian, philanthropist, and widow of scientist and author Stephen Jay Gould, among other things. She is also a persistent gadfly of high-profile long-form non-fiction writers. Her website was formerly called stinkyjournalism.org, and, in 2009, she assisted a lawsuit in New York courts against Jared Diamond on behalf of men from Papua New Guinea. The men said that Diamond's gruesome tales of violent revenge perpetrated by the men, which appeared in The New Yorker, were fabrications. See one of many articles about this here.

Most recently, Shearer made news by going deeply into debt in order to publicly distribute personal protective equipment directly to medical staff and others outside NY City hospitals during the spring 2020 coronavirus outbreak, bypassing the official channels completely.

Returning to 2002, the Observer article cited above says Shearer wants to see copies of the book “destroyed” and that, if not receiving satisfaction, her group “may pursue legal action”. However, there is no easily-findable evidence that copies of the book were destroyed or any legal action against Langewiesche was ever taken.

Concluding opinion: The heroes of Langewiesche's narrative are the construction workers, and the surviving firemen are less heroic. At the time of publication, worship of firemen was very intense, and criticizing them in any way can be interpreted as courageous, as publicity-seeking, or both. Other moments of bad behavior by firefighters discussed in this book was widely witnessed, well-documented, and impossible to dispute, like the above-mentioned attack on policemen. Other anecdotes of firefighter misbehavior were too minor, taken one by one, to dispute without appearing super-sensitive. On the other hand, the incident of purloined jeans was easy to pin down and dispute. By marshaling an impressive amount of information against this single anecdote, firemen and their advocates were able to cast suspicion on the book as a whole. This was, I believe, their real goal.

Leftover bits of information:

– Starting in 2003, Shearer had a 15-year relationship with Ronald Spadafora, a Fire Department of New York chief, who worked on the World Trade Center cleanup and whose death in 2018 from cancer was attributed to exposure at the Trade Center site.

– A 2011 blog post here by Joe Sharkey, a journalist, novelist, and professor of journalism. Sharkey is very critical of Langewiesche, not only for this book, but also because Langewiesche elsewhere, says Sharkey, “makes things up and does not check out assertions”. Sharkey has first-hand knowledge, he says, because he was actually present inside an airplane which had a mid-air collision with another plane, an incident about which Langewiesche (who was not present) later wrote a non-fiction article for Vanity Fair.

– The World Trade Center Living History project group rebuts Langewiesche's accusation of theft by firemen here, as well as providing short videos of confrontational and uninformative ambush-style interviews with Langewiesche.

– I added this book to my “to read” list after it appeared in Slate Magazine's article The 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years in November 2019.

[Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of the clean up, “unbuilding” of the 9/11 WTC ground zero disaster. 1500 tons of debris that had to be sifted, searched multiple times for body parts. A massive task that started on day one. The people that pulled it off. Written by the journalist for Atlantic Monthly Magazine who was there for the full 9 months that it took. He actually went everywhere no matter how dangerous. Filled with mini interviews with those in charge.

The infighting between the police and the fire departments, the problems, the potential disasters (flooding) that could have made things way worse. It’s all here.

A true thriller, you won’t forget.
Written in 2002, so it was all fresh as it was happening. Originally a multi-part article in the Atlantic Monthly.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Langewiesche's account of the aftermath of 9/11 on the site of the twin towers (the "unbuilding" of 1,500,000 tons of ruins and the recovery of more than 1200 bodies) is a tremendous piece of writing. He was embedded with the work force, the only journalist to be so situated, and he captures the personalities, challenges, and conflicts of the process. It is one of the two or three best books about 9/11 (along with Anthony Summers's "The Eleventh Day, which has a much larger scope).

[Joanne Clarke Gunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating book about the gargantuan task of assessing the dangers and removing the many tons of debris after the collapse of the WTC towers and surrounding buildings. This is not a sad or emotional book like the other books I have read recently about 9/11, but it does give the reader yet another perspective about the magnitude of the disaster.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very powerful book that I had never heard of (thanks to my brother Matt for the hookup), looks at 9/11's aftermath in a totally unique way. It's about the "unbuilding" of the WTC inlate 2001 and early 2002. The story's main characters are engineers and civil servants who did their best to organize the chaotic, multi-agency, emotionally fraught process of surveying the disaster site, locating human remains, and then getting every thing out of the big crater. Incredibly, no one died in this entire process. However, WL chronicles the human complexity of this event in ways that overtly patriotic and hagiographic accounts of 9/11 gloss over. He talks about the true chaos of the early days, the bureaucratic and business rivalries, and particularly the conflict btw firemen and the other agencies that were there. Firemen became the symbols of heroism on 911, and they were very protective of their own dead and their place as THE heroes of this event. This was understandable, but it often rubbed the police or the Port Authority people the wrong way, and eventually fights broke out over access to the site.

WL's point in telling these kinds of stories wasn't to erase heroism but to show the range of full human behavior in the thousands of people who unbuilt the WTC. He had unparalleled access to the pile for a reporter, and he does a great job profile the many interesting and strange people who were involved. He also examines how exactly the WTC towers collapsed in a clear and riveting way. This book has a totally different tone than a lot of writing about 911, but I found it refreshing, sort of as if it was written 50 years after the event rather than just months. Alongside Garrett Graff's incredible "The Only Plane in the Sky," this is probably the best book I've read on the culture and experience of 911.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up. I’ve read a few 911 books but this one is different. This one is focused on the cleanup and recovery effort at the World Trade Center site following the September 11 attacks. It covers the moments leading up to the crashes, key factors related to the building collapses, and major issues and challenges that arose during the cleanup effort. We, over time, have (at least I know I have) lost sight of the magnitude & complexities of this project.

The author, William Langewiesche, an Atlantic Monthly correspondent, had unrestricted access to the scene until the recovery and clean-up process was complete. He not only does a good job chronicling the ‘unbuilding’ of the WTC, as he calls it, he also calls attention to tensions that arose at the site, particularly the sense of tribalism that divided firemen, cops, and construction workers that led to harsh words and even to violence.

I’m not aware of another 911 book that deals with the details & intricacies of the aftermath of the attacks from the perspective of those handling the clean up. To get that viewpoint was interesting and enlightening.

[Susan Paxton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Re-reading Langewiesche's American Ground 18 years after its publication and 19 years after the events it describes is an interesting experience. The book, for one thing, is much more uneven than I remember it being, and time has only emphasized the mistake the mad rush to clear Ground Zero was.

Based closely on a series of three articles he wrote for the Atlantic, the book became instantly controversial because it revealed a great deal of looting at the site - some of which had obviously happened during the early stages of the disaster. A number of people tried very hard to discredit Langewiesche on this point, but the Atlantic still employs fact checkers and the detractors were sent packing.

Written as it was for magazine publication, the book is, as I said, uneven, and stretches of tedium - way too much information on the personalities involved in the demolition - are interspersed with unforgettable vignettes - an expedition into the bowels of the "pile" trying to find out if the huge freon tanks that fed the WTC's main chiller plant were intact; the story of a man who was on a stairwell of the north tower between floors 22 and 21, heard the horrific boomboomboom of the floors collapsing above him as the building came down, and woke up on a precarious ledge over a pile of twisted wreckage; the sickening thud of the salvaged steel being hurriedly dumped into ships to be sent overseas and out of sight, out of mind. But much of it is personality-centered, and reading it now it is startling to recall how much ugliness there was - fights over control of the rescue effort, fights, sometimes physical, between firemen and policemen, the pathetic efforts of Rudy Giuliani to get the wreckage cleared as quickly as possible, which ensured that there would never be a proper investigation ("America's Mayor" was an unstable man even then). 9/11 and the aftermath are now recalled as great patriotic events, and they were not. The day itself was a horrific tragedy, and the aftermath devolved over months into farce.

One suspects there likely will be a 20th anniversary edition of the book, and it might be interesting to see what Langewiesche might write in a forward, with two decades to think over the events. In the meantime, this is a very "bitty" book, but well worth reading in spite of that.

[Tiffany Hawk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not the typical reader of 9/11 lore. Although my own experience with the tragedy was personal enough that I can’t read the words September 11, 2001 without getting chills, I probably know less about the event and the aftermath than most Americans. Until now, eight years later, I have purposely avoided most discussion, related news reports, anything to do with the days and hours surrounding the attacks. For the first few years, every time I was in New York, I averted my eyes from all of lower Manhattan. When driving in from the airport, I focused my attention uptown, so I wouldn’t even see the absence of the towers.
Picking up this book was a challenge. From the first sentence of the book I was in tears, which continued for about a page and a half. At that point, I thought I’d never finish it. In fact, I finished it in one sitting. I found it a riveting account of 9/11 and its aftermath.
For most Americans the world seemed to stop shortly after the events unfolded. This book focuses on the people who didn’t stop, the ones who did the job none of us wanted to do, and at the same time the job we all wished we could do, something helpful, or something in general, anything other than just going on.

[Brittany Shprits · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for school but I learned a whole lot.

[Brandon H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"One of the many astonishments of that day is that the building was able to swallow an entire 767 and to slow it from 590 mph to a stop in nearly 209 feet."

Being the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I decided to read something about that heartbreaking and infamous day. This informative book was a good choice! It kept to the facts without getting too emotionally heavy on such a somber and sad subject. I learned a lot of facts that really surprised me including what caused the towers to collapse, the process of the clean-up, the continual conflict between the police and the firefighters throughout the initial crisis, and during the months-long clean-up process, the attempted looting, and pilfering at the site, etc.

The book was well written. I'm glad I read it.

A few quotes -

"One of the unacknowledged aspects of the tragedy was the jealous sense of ownership that it brought about. An unexpected but widespread feeling of something like pride that, 'This is our disaster more than yours!'

"The feeling started at large in the United States and became more acute with proximity to the site. A progression of escalating possessiveness that ran from the halls of Washington through suburban New Jersey to New York. And from there through lower Manhattan to the pile itself, where it divided the three main groups - fire, police, and construction, and sometimes set them against one another."

"Indeed, of the 1,209 victims identified within the first 10 months of investigation by the medical examiner's office, only 293 were nearly whole bodies, and the others were identified from among 19,693 parts. Of course, some of these parts were clustered and some are collected at fresh kills but the great majority of them were excavated, mapped, and tagged one by one in the chaos of the pile. Many of the parts found during the first few weeks were easy to distinguish."

[Come Musica · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 stelle

[JOSEPH · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center by William Langewiesche. The book is about 9/11.It goes into great detail about the collapse of the towers and the destruction of that day. It covers the response of the New York emergency crews and their desperate search for survivors.The author gives us his own account of this time, made possible by his unrestricted access to the site. He witnessed the clean up and the toll it took on the workers who were there.

This book centers on key people who ran the clean up and had to put personal feelings aside and get the job done. The author describes the emotional toll it took on these people while they searched for survivors. He describes the massive amount of work it took to clean up the site. William Langewiesche gives us his first hand account of the destruction, painting images that you can clearly see. The attention to detail is excellent as he captures the raw emotions that followed this event.

I would recommend this book because it covers an important part of American History. Everyone should read it to better understand what that time was like for people in New York. I am glad I read this book. The author painted many pictures in this book but my favorite is the image of a maintenance man who worked in an alcove in the North Tower’s exterior foundation structure. “He was handling paperwork there when the floor dropped out beneath his chair. For weeks afterward the desk remained exactly as he had left it, cluttered with his work but perched impossibly on a steel spandrel high above the crater”. I wish there would have been updates on the people mentioned in the book.

[Bruce Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This nonfiction book, based on a series of magazine feature articles, is all about the engineers who worked tirelessly on the dismantling of World Trade Center wreckage after 9/11. Or, "the pile." It's very straightforward, and I would think, intriguing if you have an engineering or construction or demolition background.

The book has some nice descriptive passages about what it was like to wander amongst this vast flaming warren of crushed and twisted steel, a kind of first circle of Hell. Some surprising facts emerge from the story: The NYPD and Port Authority Police, and the firemen, seldom got along and actual territorial fights broke out often. A little looting took place among the firemen and workers themselves, which is understandable to me. If I was working around a huge toppled building and saw computers in the debris that I thought could function again, I would be tempted to take some usable parts home with me.

This is also a book about process, the workable chaos that emerged from those shocking opening days, and the wisdom of officials, the mayor on down, to kind of let the experts have at it, without regulation and with surprisingly little interference.

Readers might also like the profiles that emerge over these pages of the mostly modest men who fell into near impossible, virtually indefinable jobs. Problems with the book? There isn't an iota of skepticism expressed about the conventional theories of the buildings' collapse, but this book was written in 2002. Also, the way the book unfolds does have the feel of a very long magazine article.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is primarily concerned with the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11. It is a fascinating story of the how the site was cleared, the personalities involved, the dangers that they faced, the dangers the city faced, and the conflicts that arose among the various players. It is also the story of the bravery of everyone involved. I remember 9/11, of course, but don't have much memory of the the clean-up. This book filled in that gap. It was wonderful and horrifying and inspiring.

4.5

[Mizuho Kanai]

It is difficult to institute order in chaos. Leaders are doers who emerge from the debris.
Take emotional elements into account - goals cannot be achieved by simply being rational.
Moral authority gets you a long way.

Of the different characters in the book, Holden and Melisi spoke to me the most as soft-spoken but effective leaders in crisis.

[Jelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spent half the book wishing Langewiesche had included diagrams to go with all the structural jargon, and the other half wishing that greater care had been taken to make his original news articles more cohesive when presented as a single narrative. Even so, there's little denying that he brings a unique perspective to the enduring tragedy that is 9/11.

[David LaVaque · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book about the aftermath of 9/11. I dare say this is the definitive book on the subject. Touching yet touchy.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting perspective on September 11th. This started as a series in The Atlantic Monthly and its expansion into a book is even better.

[KathyP · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent look at what it took to clean up the World Trade Center site after 9/11.