One of the undergraduate engineering courses that left a deep and lasting impression on me was a course on innovation and aesthetics in engineering taught by David Billington at Princeton University. So, when I read the story of a skyscraper in New York that had to undergo secret emergency repairs because of a question from an engineering student in New Jersey, I knew that the student had to be one of Billington’s. And I knew then that I wanted to come back and investigate this issue in greater detail someday.

The award-winning, wedge-topped, 59-story Citicorp Building in Manhattan, now referred to as 601 Lexington Avenue, features striking columns in the middle of its four sides rather than its corners. This remarkable configuration was due to the existence, at one corner, of a church (now demolished) that refused to be bought out, but did grant the use of the space above it. Construction of the building began in 1974 and was completed in 1977.

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