The original 7 World Trade Center was 47 stories tall, clad in red granite masonry, and occupied a
trapezoidal footprint. An elevated walkway spanning
Vesey Street connected the building to the World Trade Center plaza. The building was situated above a
Consolidated Edison power substation, which imposed unique structural design constraints. The building opened in 1987, and
Salomon Brothers signed a long-term lease the next year, becoming the anchor tenant of 7 WTC.
On September 11, 2001, the structure was substantially damaged by debris when the nearby
North Tower (1 World Trade Center)
collapsed. The debris ignited fires on multiple lower floors of the building, which continued to burn uncontrolled throughout the afternoon. The building's internal fire suppression system lacked water pressure to fight the fires. It began to collapse when a critical internal column
buckled and triggered
cascading failure of nearby columns throughout, which were first visible from the exterior with the crumbling of a rooftop penthouse structure at 5:20:33 pm. This initiated the
progressive collapse of the entire building at 5:21:10 pm, according to
FEMA,<a href="
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_World_Trade_Center_(1987–2001)#cite_note-fema-ch5-1"><span>[</span>1<span>]</span></a><span title="Page / location: 23">: 23 </span> while the 2008 NIST study placed the final collapse time at 5:20:52 pm.<a href="
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_World_Trade_Center_(1987–2001)#cite_note-ncstar1-a-2"><span>[</span>2<span>]</span></a><span title="Page / location: 19, 21, 50–51">: 19, 21, 50–51 </span> The collapse made the old 7 World Trade Center the first steel skyscraper known to have collapsed primarily due to uncontrolled fires.<a href="
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_World_Trade_Center_(1987–2001)#cite_note-nist-questions-3"><span>[</span>3<span>]</span></a><a href="
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_World_Trade_Center_(1987–2001)#cite_note-bbc20080704-4"><span>[</span>4<span>]</span></a>
A new building on the site opened in 2006.