It would have been nearly as spectacular as the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.

That’s because it would have led to a chain reaction that may have leveled ten blocks–in midtown Manhattan–around it.

We speak here of what was once called the Citicorp Building and now is officially named 601 Lexington, a 59-story skyscraper famous for its unique design on stilts.

Those stilts were to accommodate modernistic St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, which sold Citibank the property with the proviso that it be able to maintain its location on the corner, with space above it.

Designed by Hugh Stubbins and engineer William LeMessurier, it features an innovative chevron bracing system and a tuned mass damper to manage wind loads, though it also presented the potential catastrophe due to a structural flaw discovered by an engineering student, Diane Hartley.  

It turned out that what they call “quartering winds” (ones coming at forty-five-degree angles) were not calculated into the design, putting far too much pressure on the thirtieth floor, as wind stress migrated down the supports, which had been bolted instead of more securely welded.

A recalculation showed a hundred percent chance within a hundred years that a storm would cause the iconic skyscraper’s collapse.

That meant it was the most dangerous building in New York.

As hurricane season approached, a large, urgent, secretive operation was undertaken at night to weld additional straps to the chevron braces, correcting the flaw and saving the building.

A collapse would have killed thousands of people in one of the densest parts of New York City. The Citicorp Center was so tall that if it had toppled over, it could have triggered a domino effect, knocking down surrounding skyscrapers and flattening everything in that potentially ten-block radius.

Can anyone doubt that God inspired that college kid to call?