William LeMessurier, 81, Structural Engineer, Dies

[wazzzy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/nyregion/21lemessurier.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

William J. LeMessurier, a structural engineer who became a hero to
other structural engineers when he detected and repaired a potentially
catastrophic flaw in the Citicorp building in Manhattan, died on June
14 in Casco, Me. He was 81.

The cause was complications of surgery he underwent on June 1 after a
fall the day before, said his daughter, Irene LeMessurier Jenks.

Mr. LeMessurier (which he pronounced Luh-MEASURE) was an expert on the
structure of high-rise buildings. He helped design the supporting
skeleton of the Citicorp building, at 53rd Street and Lexington
Avenue. At 900 feet, it is one of the tallest buildings in the world.

In 1978, after the building was completed and occupied, Mr.
LeMessurier discovered that it had a flaw: If hurricane-force winds -
70 miles an hour or more - hit it at a 45-degree angle, the building
could weaken and possibly topple.

Later the Red Cross estimated that 200,000 people could die if the
structure, which weighs 25,000 tons, collapsed. The building's
repairs, which were kept secret from the public, did not become fully
known until an article in The New Yorker in 1995.

Mr. LeMessurier was first alerted to the problem by someone he
regarded as a nettlesome engineering student in June 1978. But the
more he thought about the problem, the more it concerned him. He had
considered the stresses of head-on winds but had not calculated those
from other angles.

He later learned of an aggravating problem: Unknown to him, the
Citicorp building's braces had been joined with bolted joints, a
cheaper method but one accepted in the industry, instead of with the
far stronger welded joints.

"At first, Bill couldn't believe it," said William Thoen, his business
partner and friend. "He reviewed the calculations over and over again.
Gradually, it dawned on him that the building didn't have the required
factor of safety."

Mr. LeMessurier oversaw a furious schedule of repairs in August 1978,
in which drywall workers, carpenters and welders repaired the flawed
joints. Instead of being vulnerable to a potentially lethal problem
from a hurricane of the strength that shows up every 16 years, the
building is now believed to be able to withstand a storm of the sort
that might occur once in 700 years.

While Mr. LeMessurier was overseeing the Citicorp repairs, a newspaper
reporter tried to reach him, having heard something was wrong with the
building. Mr. LeMessurier hesitated but returned the call late that
afternoon. But that day the city's newspapers had gone on strike, and
the story was never extensively covered until The New Yorker article
in 1995.

William James LeMessurier Jr. was born on June 12, 1926, in Bloomfield
Hills, Mich. He was the youngest of four children of William James
LeMessurier Sr., who owned a dry-cleaning business, and the former
Bertha Sherman, a homemaker.

Mr. LeMessurier majored in mathematics at Harvard and earned a B.A. in
1947. He studied architecture at Harvard's Graduate School of Design
and received a master's from M.I.T. in building engineering and
construction in 1953.

Besides his daughter Irene, of New Ipswich, N.H., Mr. LeMessurier is
survived by his wife of 54 years, the former Dorothy Judd; another
daughter, Claire, of Westminster West, Vt.; a son, Peter, of Boulder,
Colo.; and seven grandchildren.

He once told a class at Harvard: "You have a social obligation. In
return for getting a license and being regarded with respect, you're
supposed to be self-sacrificing and look beyond the interests of
yourself and your client to society as a whole. And the most wonderful
part of my story is that when I did it, nothing bad happened."

By ANTHONY RAMIREZ

[Charlene]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/nyregion/21lemessurier.html?_r=1&or...
William J. LeMessurier, a structural engineer who became a hero to
other structural engineers when he detected and repaired a potentially
catastrophic flaw in the Citicorp building in Manhattan, died on June
14 in Casco, Me. He was 81.
The cause was complications of surgery he underwent on June 1 after a
fall the day before, said his daughter, Irene LeMessurier Jenks.
Mr. LeMessurier (which he pronounced Luh-MEASURE) was an expert on the
structure of high-rise buildings. He helped design the supporting
skeleton of the Citicorp building, at 53rd Street and Lexington
Avenue. At 900 feet, it is one of the tallest buildings in the world.
In 1978, after the building was completed and occupied, Mr.
LeMessurier discovered that it had a flaw: If hurricane-force winds -
70 miles an hour or more - hit it at a 45-degree angle, the building
could weaken and possibly topple.
Later the Red Cross estimated that 200,000 people could die if the
structure, which weighs 25,000 tons, collapsed. The building's
repairs, which were kept secret from the public, did not become fully
known until an article in The New Yorker in 1995.
Mr. LeMessurier was first alerted to the problem by someone he
regarded as a nettlesome engineering student in June 1978. But the
more he thought about the problem, the more it concerned him. He had
considered the stresses of head-on winds but had not calculated those
from other angles.
He later learned of an aggravating problem: Unknown to him, the
Citicorp building's braces had been joined with bolted joints, a
cheaper method but one accepted in the industry, instead of with the
far stronger welded joints.
"At first, Bill couldn't believe it," said William Thoen, his business
partner and friend. "He reviewed the calculations over and over again.
Gradually, it dawned on him that the building didn't have the required
factor of safety."
Mr. LeMessurier oversaw a furious schedule of repairs in August 1978,
in which drywall workers, carpenters and welders repaired the flawed
joints. Instead of being vulnerable to a potentially lethal problem
from a hurricane of the strength that shows up every 16 years, the
building is now believed to be able to withstand a storm of the sort
that might occur once in 700 years.
While Mr. LeMessurier was overseeing the Citicorp repairs, a newspaper
reporter tried to reach him, having heard something was wrong with the
building. Mr. LeMessurier hesitated but returned the call late that
afternoon. But that day the city's newspapers had gone on strike, and
the story was never extensively covered until The New Yorker article
in 1995.

Another interesting fact about this was that the building was
constructed directly above a historic church, which had sold its
'airspace' to Citicorp for the building. Because the church itself
couldn't be torn down, so the building had been designed with its
supports in the very centre instead of at the edges. The concern at
the time was that if the building failed in heavy winds it could
topple on another building, which in turn would topple, and so on for
blocks.

The entire thing is discussed in the book Einstein's Refrigerator. The
New Yorker article is available online here:

http://www.duke.edu/~hpgavin/ce131/citicorp1.htm

wd43

[Hyfler/Rosner]

Post by Charlene
Another interesting fact about this was that the building
was
constructed directly above a historic church, which had
sold its
'airspace' to Citicorp for the building. Because the
church itself
couldn't be torn down, so the building had been designed
with its
supports in the very centre instead of at the edges. The
concern at
the time was that if the building failed in heavy winds it
could
topple on another building, which in turn would topple,
and so on for
blocks.

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/UES/UES103.htm
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_n9_v115/ai_20460268

The church was taken down and the new church takes up one
corner of the site. Its pastor, John Gensel, whose obit was
posted some years ago, was the jazz priest and the church
was famous for its jazz vespers and its frequent jazz
memorials.

It still is.

[wazzzy]

Boston Globe, July 22, 2007 --


William J. LeMessurier; designed City Hall


If he had only left behind imposing buildings that reign in urban
landscapes from Boston to Japan, William J. LeMessurier's reputation
would have been secure.

But a decision he made 29 summers ago left a more resounding legacy
when he sounded the alarm after realizing there were dangerous flaws
in the structural framework he had designed for the Citicorp tower in
New York City.

"Your career achievements are many and stellar," the University of
Massachusetts at Dartmouth said in a citation when it gave Mr.
LeMessurier an honorary doctorate in 2002. "They are, however,
secondary to your ethical prowess."

The citation stands out among the many honors he received though his
career from those in his profession and in other disciplines. Mr.
LeMessurier died June 14 in his Casco, Maine, home of complications
from surgery he underwent after falling a couple of weeks earlier. He
was 81 and had lived for many years in Wellesley and Cambridge.

"You reached your finest hour when you risked all you had accomplished
to reveal, take responsibility for, and correct flaws in the bracing
system of New York's Citicorp Center tower whose structure you had
designed," the university's citation said. "By valuing human life
above your career and reputation, you prevented a cataclysmic event,
the collapse of the tower and the loss of countless lives, and became
a striking exemplar of the ethical conduct so needed in today's
world."

Mr. LeMessurier's decision to set aside career concerns in the service
of safety only came to light years later, in a 1995 article in The New
Yorker. By then, he was using the Citicorp example to inspire aspiring
engineers in classes he taught.

"You have a social obligation," he told a class at Harvard, according
to the New Yorker article. "In return for getting a license and being
regarded with respect, you're supposed to be self-sacrificing and look
beyond the interests of yourself and your client to society as a
whole. And the most wonderful part of my story is that when I did it
nothing bad happened."

Completed in 1977, the silver Citicorp tower with its distinctive
angled top was the world's seventh-tallest building. The following
year, an engineering student alerted Mr. LeMessurier to a potential
problem: It could topple under certain weather conditions with high
winds.

After re examining wind calculations, which a consultant had initially
underestimated, Mr. LeMessurier realized the danger was real. He also
learned that a steel contractor had opted for a less expensive method
of bolting joints that he had wanted welded to increase the building's
strength and safety. Hurricane winds striking at a 45-degree angle, he
calculated, could weaken the tower, possibly causing it to collapse.

"Bill agonized over that," said Bill Thoen, Mr. LeMessurier's business
partner for many years. "And finally one day we were talking and he
said, 'You know, I'm going to face up to it. We're going to solve this
problem just like we solve all the others.' And he did."

To fix the Citicorp tower, workers removed sections of wall in the
middle of the night for several weeks and welded sheets of steel over
the structure's joints.

The building would have been someone else's problem had Mr.
LeMessurier followed one of his earlier passions.

He grew up outside Detroit, the youngest by far of four siblings, and
had an aptitude for the arts and mathematics. A pianist, he built
marionettes at 13, then wrote and put on a show for a school
production. At Harvard he sang in the glee club with Dorothy Judd, a
Radcliffe student he married in 1953.

"In his young adult years, he did a lot of acting. He kind of liked to
be on stage," said his daughter, Irene LeMessurier Jenks of New
Ipswich, N.H. "When he was in college, he couldn't decide whether to
major in music or math, and math won out."

Graduating in 1947 with a degree in mathematics, he initially studied
at Harvard's Graduate School of Design before moving to the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he graduated in 1953
with a master's degree in civil engineering.

Studying architecture first "really made a huge difference in how he
worked with the architects, because he understood where they were
coming from and was able to include design in the structure," his
daughter said.

"The architects, of course, loved that," Thoen said. "We were able to
express structure in terms that the architects understood."

Some of Mr. LeMessurier's best known collaborations were with the
Cambridge architect Hugh A. Stubbins Jr., who died last summer. The
two worked together on projects that included the Federal Reserve Bank
in Boston and the Citicorp tower in Manhattan.

Among Mr. LeMessurier's other projects were Landmark Tower in
Yokohama, Japan, Boston City Hall and the Crate & Barrel building on
Brattle Street in Cambridge. He and his firm, Cambridge-based
LeMessurier Consultants, received many awards, among them the
President's Medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers and the
American Institute of Architects Allied Professions Medal.

"He was successful because he was a real renaissance man," Thoen said.
"He was not only an excellent engineer, but he was an excellent
teacher. He had a way of getting through to the students so that each
lecture that he gave, whether it was at Harvard or at MIT, literally
held the students spellbound."

As chairman and founding partner of LeMessurier Consultants, which
opened in 1961, Mr. LeMessurier was a structural engineer when his
specialty was just beginning to show its face.

"In 1950s and before, the structural part of the building was hidden
inside the building envelope," Thoen said. "After 1960 or so it became
more appropriate to let some of the structure show so the average
person walking down the street could say, 'Oh, I think I can
understand that.' "

One example, Thoen said, is Boston City Hall. Though voted one of the
10 greatest works of architecture in American history in a 1976 poll
of historians and architects, City Hall has been less warmly viewed in
years since by critics who find the concrete edifice too imposing.

"If you look at City Hall, you're seeing a building which has very
strong columns," Thoen said. "Concrete has always been thought of as a
structural medium, and there you see it in spades. You see all these
complex geometric shapes. And you see strength."

In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. LeMessurier leaves another
daughter, Claire of Westminster West, Vt.; a son, Peter of Boulder,
Colo.; and seven grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at his Casco home at 1 p.m. on Aug. 4.
A service in Cambridge will be announced.

By Bryan Marquard, Globe Staff | July 22, 2007

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2007/07/22/william_j_lemessurier_designed_city_hall/