Beedle’s diary on terrorist attack is featured in construction journal

A recent issue of the journal “Building Design and Construction” contains an editorial devoted to the electronic diary of recollections, opinions and suggestions about the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on America that Lynn Beedle is sharing with friends and family.

The column by Gordon Wright, journal editor, notes that Beedle, a university distinguished professor who taught civil engineering for more than 50 years at Lehigh, was involved with the testing of the World Trade Center’s floor system that was done 30 years ago at the university’s Fritz Lab before the towers were built.

“When those towers came down, I felt it personally,” says Beedle, who is also the founder and former executive director of the Lehigh-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, an international organization of architects, engineers and planners.

The editorial said Beedle “is emphatic that the destruction of the World Trade Center should not deter the construction of tall buildings. ‘They are absolutely essential to the industrialized way of life. The Information Age hasn’t lessened the need for high-rise buildings.’”

The editorial also quotes Beedle as saying that the twin towers “did what they were supposed to do. They took the impact of the aircraft and held up long enough to let many people escape.”

As for the future of the 16-acre destruction site, Beedle “believes the wall section of the South Tower seen so frequently in photos of Ground Zero should be retained as a memorial. And construction of the world’s tallest building on the site, he maintains, would have greater drawing power, more fully justify the economic value of the land and “’show the terrorists that they didn’t make their point.’”