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 Vessey Streets. Building 7 was wedged between the Verizon and U.S. Post Office buildings across Vessey 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 300 feet from the nearest wall of the North Tower. It appears that nearly all of the heavy fallout from the disintegration 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 7 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 buildings outside of the two turquoise zones in the map to the right suffered more than superficial damage.

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 several hundred feet behind Building 7.