The Online Ethics Center for Engineering & Science - Department of ...
The Online Ethics Center for Engineering & Science - Department of ...
The Online Ethics Center for Engineering & Science - Department of ...
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<strong>Online</strong> <strong>Ethics</strong> <strong>Center</strong>: William LeMessurier & the Citicorp SkyscraperTexto en EspañolWilliam LeMessurier:<strong>The</strong> Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis; A Lesson inPr<strong>of</strong>essional BehaviorWilliam LeMessurier, one <strong>of</strong> the nation'smost distinguished structural engineers,served as design and constructionconsultant on the innovative Citicorpheadquarters tower, which was completedin 1977 in New York. <strong>The</strong> next year, after acollege student studying the tower designhad called him to point out a possibledeficiency, LeMessurier discovered that thebuilding was indeed structurally deficient.LeMessurier faced a complex and difficultproblem <strong>of</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional responsibility inwhich he had to alert a broad group <strong>of</strong>people to the structural deficiency andenlist their cooperation in repairing thedeficiency be<strong>for</strong>e a hurricane brought thebuilding down.His story was recounted in detail in "<strong>The</strong> Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis," which appeared in the May 29, 1995issue <strong>of</strong> <strong>The</strong> New Yorker, and on November 17, 1995, LeMessurier himself came to MIT, from which hereceived his doctorate, to speak to prospective engineers about the decisions he had to make and theactions he took.http://onlineethics.org/moral/lemessurier/index.html (1 <strong>of</strong> 2) [10/13/2004 1:44:32 PM]
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