The Bathtub refers to the underground foundation area at the site of the

World Trade Center World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may refer to: Buildings * List of World Trade Centers * World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...

and accompanying buildings in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. The term bathtub is something of a misnomer, as the area does not hold any water; rather the purpose of its design is to keep water out. The name is more so used to describe its shape of a deep basin with high walls, like a bathtub.

Description

The Bathtub, built in 1967–1968, encompasses a large, roughly rectangular excavation down to bedrock surrounded by reinforced concrete walls, intended to serve as

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use ...

s to prevent

water Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...

intrusion from the nearby

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

( North River). It enclosed nearly the entire original

. The

World Trade Center site The World Trade Center site, often referred to as "Ground Zero" or "the Pile" immediately after the September 11 attacks, is a 14.6-acre (5.9 ha) area in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The site is bounded by Vesey Street to the north ...

was located on man-made water-clogged landfill that had accumulated over centuries, providing an extension of land out onto the Hudson River from the original

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

shoreline, with bedrock located below. Manually removing water from this area would have severely altered the water levels surrounding the World Trade Center site and thus would have jeopardized the foundations of nearby buildings, causing them to sink. This is why the Bathtub method was used. The Bathtub contains a site, including seven basement levels, the downtown terminal of the

PATH A path is a route for physical travel – see Trail. Path or PATH may also refer to: Physical paths of different types * Bicycle path * Bridle path, used by people on horseback * Course (navigation), the intended path of a vehicle * Desire p ...

rapid transit Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail or metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. A rapid transit system that primarily or traditionally runs below the surface may be ...

line, and the preexisting New York City Subway's

IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line The IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line (also known as the IRT Seventh Avenue Line or the IRT West Side Line) is a New York City Subway line. It is one of several lines that serves the A Division, stretching from South Ferry in Lower Manhatta ...

(). The South Tower of the World Trade Center was actually built around the PATH tubes that passed through the foundation area, thus service was uninterrupted throughout the whole of the construction period. The waterproof walls were thick and high. The excavated material that was dug up to build the bathtub was again used as landfill to construct

Battery Park City Battery Park City is a mainly residential planned community and neighborhood on the west side of the southern tip of the island of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by the Hudson River on the west, the Hudson River shoreline on the north ...

, and the same method was also used to construct the foundation area of the

Willis Tower The Willis Tower (originally the Sears Tower) is a 108- story, skyscraper in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, United States. Designed by architect Bruce Graham and engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. There are several structures that penetrate the Bathtub wall: DWV, utility systems, and PATH trains. Today, a passageway leads between Brookfield Place and the

World Trade Center Transportation Hub World Trade Center is a terminal station on the PATH system, within the World Trade Center complex in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. It is served by the Newark–World Trade Center line at all times, as well as by the H ...

Problems

FEMA 403 - Ch2 - Figure 2-11 Location of subterranean structure

Once constructed, the bathtub walls relied on the presence of the basement floors of the WTC to give lateral support. When these were partially destroyed following the collapse of the Twin Towers during the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

, it was feared that removing the resulting debris pile could weaken the walls and cause them to fail, endangering workers and possibly compromising other buildings and flooding a significant portion of the subway system. During the recovery and clean-up operation, dangerous degradation of the walls was discovered, prompting an emergency operation to install tiebacks to the bedrock to shore up the bathtub walls. Excavation of a new Bathtub was conducted between 2006 and 2008, with the new Bathtub reaching underground.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bathtub World Trade Center Aftermath of the September 11 attacks