>> NARRATOR: They stand before us; colossal examples of mankind's achievements...
natural wonders and symbols
of liberty.
But behind the marble facades and steel beams are secrets, secrets so outrageous...
>> PHILIP BIGLER: They buried
65 people, and most of them
in Mrs. Lee's rose garden.
>> NARRATOR: ...so
controversial...
>> DR. ROSALY LOPES: You're
wondering, "What is that?"
>> NARRATOR: ...so dangerous...
>> CAROL WILLIS: There was an
average of a death per floor.
>> NARRATOR: ...that to discover
them may present a challenge
to the very foundations of
our nation.
>> TONY PERROTTET: We were taken
up there at dawn.
It was very hush-hush.
>> JOHN TAURANAC: Probably
the biggest secret was
down in the sub-sub-
sub-subbasement.
>> JOSEPH MARSHALL III: There is
an energy there that bends
your sense of reality.
>> KEVIN STARR: We were moving
quickly towards the greatest
disaster in the history of
the human race.
>> DR. ROBERT HIERONIMUS: If
George Washington would have
seen this, it would have cost
our country everything it had.
>> NARRATOR: There are those
who believe in the existence
of a book...
a book that contains the most
highly guarded secrets
of the United States of America.
A book... whose very existence
is known to only a select few.
But if such a book exists,
where would it be hidden?
In a vault?
Deep underground?
Or perhaps it is hidden
in plain sight.
Does there really exist
America's Book of Secrets?
It is America's cemetery... where soldiers, statesmen and fallen presidents lie
in hallowed ground.
It is Arlington, the final
resting place for more than
a quarter of a million
American heroes.
But here with the dead also lie secrets. Secrets involving exhumations,
betrayals and revenge.
Just how this beautiful stretch of countryside overlooking the nation's capital became
a cemetery is perhaps one
of the most unusual tales
that might be found in
America's Book of Secrets.
The story starts at this
historic residence called
Arlington House...
...formerly known as the Custis Lee Mansion. Built in 1802 by George
Washington Parke Custis,
the step-grandson of George
Washington, Arlington House was
intended to be something more
than a home.
>> MATTHEW PENROD: George Washington Parke Custis wanted
to honor George Washington, so
Arlington House was built to be
both a home and to be a place to
revere Washington.
There were no other monuments
to Washington or any other
Americans built yet.
So he didn't have a model.
In many ways, he set the trend.
This house was our first
presidential monument.
>> NARRATOR: When George Washington Parke Custis died
in 1857, his daughter Mary
inherited the 1,100-acre
property, making her one of the
wealthiest and most desirable
women in Virginia.
And among her many suitors was
a dashing young West Point
graduate by the name of
Robert E. Lee.
>> PENROD: She and her father
really represented the first
First Family of the
United States.
And she was much sought after
by men, so Robert E. Lee
wanted her hand, and it was
quite a coup in many ways.
>> BIGLER: Lee actually was
a military officer.
His family had lost their
fortunes well before this, so
Lee actually married very well.
>> NARRATOR: For nearly 30 years Arlington House became the home of Mary and
Robert E. Lee.
But in 1861, as the Civil War
loomed, Lee turned down the
offer to command the Union Army,
deciding instead to fight on
behalf of his home state
of Virginia, which had voted
to secede.
Virtually overnight, General
Robert E. Lee became the
the United States'
public enemy number one.
Now the Custis Lee estate
represented a strategic threat
to the safety and security
of the nation's capital.
As Lee left to take command
of the Confederate Army, his
wife, a prominent member
of America's first First Family,
was forced to flee her
beloved Arlington House
in shame.
>> PENROD: It was taken over by the United States Army as part of the defense of the
nation's capital.
But during the spring of 1864
when the fighting intensified,
Washington was flooded with
wounded and dying soldiers.
It created a crisis unlike the capital had seen before.
And it forced the army to start
looking for new burial grounds.
>> NARRATOR: They found those
burial grounds at Arlington
House... under the orders
of Montgomery C. Meigs,
the Quartermaster General
of the Union Army.
>> BIGLER: He viewed Lee's
actions in the American Civil
War as an act of treason,
and sure enough, when the
cemetery was commissioned on
June 15, 1864, they buried
65 people at Arlington,
most of them in Mrs. Lee's
rose garden.
>> DR. JENNIFER KEENE: Some of
the first burials were done
very, very close to the house.
This was really meant to almost
be a slap in the face to the
Lee family for being traitors
to the Union.
They thought that if they turned this into a cemetery, this will prevent Robert E. Lee
from ever wanting to return
to this area.
>> BIGLER: By the end of 1864,
there were over 7,000 soldiers
buried at Arlington, and the
house certainly did become
uninhabitable.
Lee never came back to Arlington
after he left in 1861.
Mary Lee comes back one time
in 1873.
She sees the incredible burials
around the house.
She's devastated by it.
She died just a few
months later.
>> NARRATOR: After the war,
Robert E. Lee's son, George
Washington Custis Lee, tried
to get back the family estate.
>> BIGLER: He sued the federal
government in court, claiming
that their confiscation of the
land had been unconstitutionally
illegal.
The court found in his favor.
In 1883, what this would have
entailed would be that the
government would have to
disinter somewhere around
15,000 soldiers from
the property.
Rather than face that, the
decision was made by Congress,
wisely, to purchase the property
for $150,000 and actually to
give Custis Lee his inheritance.
>> NARRATOR: And who represented
the U.S. government at
the transfer signing?
Ironically, it was Robert
Todd Lincoln, the only
surviving child of Robert E.
Lee's arch nemesis...
Abraham Lincoln.
>> SOLDIER: Forward march. >> NARRATOR: But despite its tortured history, Arlington
National Cemetery stands as
a lasting memorial to America's
fallen heroes.
>> BIGLER: Each headstone
represents a story waiting
to be told, a past
to be remembered.
It is a place to learn
about the nation's history
and a place to gain appreciation
for the sacrifice of so
many Americans who have served
this nation so valiantly over
the 200 years' history.
>> NARRATOR: Unknown to nearly
And still standing is Arlington
House-- the family home built
to honor George Washington,
proudly overlooking both the
city and the monument that bear
his name.
A monument that has a tortured
history of its own--
and a secret that marks it as
one of most mysterious man-made
structures in the world.
>> NARRATOR: It is the tallest stone structure in the world. A 555-foot high symbol of
America's strength and
prosperity.
A towering tribute to one of
America's greatest citizens--
George Washington.
>> BRAD BERGER: The Washington Monument represents George
Washington's importance to the
nation, that inspiration to
those who were helping a nation
come out of its infancy looking
to him as that prime
inspiration.
>> NARRATOR: But could this seemingly simple salute to America's first president
contain secrets?
If so, where would they be
hidden?
Perhaps one clue can be found
hiding in plain sight.
Because upon close examination,
there appears to be a slight
variation to the whiteness of
the monument's stone facade.
But why?
What is the secret of the
Washington Monument?
Washington's death in 1799 prompted plans for a national crypt that would enshrine the
president's remains beneath the
dome of the Capitol Building.
But when Washington's family
insisted that his body remain at
Mount Vernon, the plans were
scrapped.
In 1832-- more than 30 years
after Washington's death on what
would have been his 100th
birthday-- a group of concerned
citizens called The Washington
National Monument Society took
charge of the project and
selected a design by architect
Robert Mills.
>> BERGER: Robert Mills'
original design for a Washington
Monument was that of a 600-foot
shaft, an obelisk, with a much
flatter pyramidion than that
which now bedecks the Washington
Monument we all know.
And it would have a colonnade
surrounding the Washington
Monument's central shaft of
statuary of the Founding Fathers
that supported George Washington
in the building of the nation.
>> JUDITH JACOB: It was a grand colossus to the antique world,
to Egypt and to Rome.
>> HIERONIMUS: If George
Washington would have seen this,
he would have totally rejected
it.
The cost was enormous.
It would have cost our country
everything it had just to create
the monument.
There wasn't that kind of money.
>> NARRATOR: With Congress refusing to foot the bill, the Monument Society spent the next
15 years raising the money
needed for the ambitious
project.
Finally, on July 4, 1848,
several thousand people gathered
on a barren hillside just south
of the White House to
commemorate the start of the
much-delayed project.
What they saw wasn't merely the
laying of a cornerstone-- but a
strange ritual conducted by
members of America's most
secretive of secret societies:
the Freemasons.
>> BERGER: The Freemasons were very instrumental in the
building of the Washington
Monument because, of course, the
subject matter that the monument
honors.
George Washington himself being a very prominent Freemason.
>> HIERONIMUS: Freemasonry to
George Washington was the crux
of his entire life.
He was a Deist.
He wasn't a Christian in
the traditional sense.
He believed that nature was key
and reason was everything.
>> BERGER: There's an awful lot
of money raised by the
Freemasons for the building that
stands behind me and for an
inordinate amount of memorial
stones.
>> NARRATOR: In addition to the
huge marble stones needed to
cover the outer shaft of the
monument, other stones were
needed for the interior.
These came in the form of
commemorative stone blocks,
donated by people from around
the world, and often bearing
elaborately carved inscriptions.
>> JACOB: Millions of people know about the Washington
Monument and they see the
monument when they come to
Washington, but they have no
idea that there are 193
commemorative stones set within
the walls of the monument.
Stones from cities and towns, from associations, firehouses, Masonic lodges, foreign
countries, and a few private
individuals.
>> NARRATOR: One such stone
nearly brought about the
collapse of not only the
monument but the entire U.S.
government.
donated a stone inscribed with
the words, "From Rome to
America."
This simple contribution, however, set off a firestorm of
protest from a radical group
known simply as The
Know Nothings.
>> HIERONIMUS: They got their
name because they'd have secret
meetings, and people would go to
them and say, what happened
there?
And they'd say nothing, nothing.
Nothing happened.
We didn't have a meeting.
>> JACOB: They were a group of primarily white Protestant men who were enormously fearful of
Irish and German immigrants;
fearful, because these groups
were Catholic, that the Pope
would someday rule the country.
The Know Nothings were furious
that the Pope would be
represented and the Catholic
Church would be represented in
the Washington Monument.
>> BERGER: Ultimately when that
stone arrived here in
Washington, D.C., the Know
Nothings engineer a heist of
this stone.
They take it in a cart to the
Potomac River and it's believed
that it was destroyed into
atoms.
But there was a gift in the early 1980s of a replacement for that stone that
was lost in the 1850s.
>> NARRATOR: The Know Nothing
Party eventually seized control
of the Washington Monument
Society, but their association
with the project created a
public backlash and work on the
monument shut down.
>> KEENE: That really was instrumental in the whole
Washington Monument project
grinding to a halt, because
after the Know Nothings took
over the society in charge of
overseeing the construction,
Congress withdrew its funding.
And then, of course, a few years later, the Civil War intervened and that led to enormous delays
in constructing the monument.
>> NARRATOR: For 25 years, the
monument stood unfinished-- a
blight on the landscape of the
nation's capital.
But when work finally resumed in
1878, a radical change had been
made to the monument's final
design.
>> JACOB: In 1878, funds were still tight and it was
considered not necessary to
construct all of the rest of
Mills' design.
>> KEENE: Thomas Lincoln Casey is a member of the Corps of Engineers and he's the one who
takes over the project.
He really reconceptualizes the
original design.
He removes the pantheon, and he
takes this ancient symbol of an
obelisk, and he basically
creates a monument that is an
obelisk but also has an
elevator, has an observation
deck.
>> AKRAM ELIAS: The monument to our first president, the father
of our nation, is an
Egyptian-style obelisk.
I mean, doesn't anyone ask
themselves why?
Was George Washington of
Egyptian extraction?
Of course not, he was very
English.
>> NARRATOR: But Casey also
allowed the Freemasons-- who
were once again involved in the
building of the monument-- to
add ancient, mystical symbols
throughout the interior of the
structure.
>> HIERONIMUS: When you get in the elevator and you go up, above one of the elevator doors
is a winged disc with a
six-pointed star in that disc.
That winged disc goes back to
Egyptian mythologies.
So that sign there indicated
elevation of consciousness.
You're getting in this elevator,
and above it is a winged globe
disc.
It's as Egyptian as it could
possibly be, and again, it was
the emphasis upon moving into
the higher spiritual dimensions
with the six-pointed star in the
middle.
>> NARRATOR: An ancient,
Egyptian-style obelisk built to
honor America's first president
with strange, mystic symbols
hidden throughout its interior
shaft.
But why?
Perhaps a clue can be found in
another of the Washington
Monument's more divinely
inspired secrets.
On December 6, 1884, engineers
slid the 3,300-pound capstone
into place.
And at its apex was a nine-inch
high, 25-pound aluminum tip.
>> BERGER: This rare metal crowning the tip of the
Washington Monument will bear
distinctive messages.
Engraved upon it, two words:
"Laus Deo," or "Praise be to
God," facing to the east.
And as those two words face to
the east, the sun rises but
never sets upon those words.
>> ELIAS: It is no coincidence
that pyramids and obelisks are
used as symbols in the rituals
of Freemasonry.
Because they were builders--
see, "Freemason" meaning "free
builder"-- here we're not
talking anymore only about
building structures, physical
structures.
We're talking about building
your own inner temple.
You're building your community,
and then building a better
world.
>> NARRATOR: Today, more than 130 years after its completion, the Washington Monument stands
as a proud symbol of unity and
moral clarity.
A fitting tribute to a man
widely considered America's
greatest leader.
>> BERGER: George Washington,
of course, was a towering
physical presence in and of
himself, just as this monument
dominates this city.
>> HIERONIMUS: The real thing about the Washington Monument is it's made of many, many
stones.
Maybe there are 36,000.
What does that mean when you
have many stones making one?
It is an actual picture of that
element called E Pluribus Unum.
"Out of many, one."
>> NARRATOR: It still stands, bloodied by battle, and glorious in defeat.
A symbol of bravery against
impossible odds.
It is...
the Alamo.
>> MARK LEMON: To a Texan, it's almost a secular religion.
It's who they are.
It's their independence.
It's their sacrifice, their
strength of character and all of
that.
To other Americans, it's still symbolic of that pioneering
spirit and the never-say-die
attitude.
>> NARRATOR: But might
America's Book of Secrets tell
a different tale?
In the fall of 1835, Texas was
part of Mexico.
But many Texans resented the
increasingly stringent controls
imposed by the Mexican
government and took up arms in
revolt. In an effort to crush the
rebellion, General Antonio Lopez
de Santa Anna marched north to
San Antonio where a small band
of rebels occupied a former
Catholic mission known as the
Alamo.
>> DR. BRUCE WINDERS: One of the misunderstandings about the
Battle of the Alamo is that
the battle never really was
over the old mission.
It's over control of the town of
San Antonio that's just across
the river.
Strategically, it's one of the
main routes out of Mexico, and
that's why the Texans thought,
if we can stop Santa Anna at
these crossroads, we'll keep him
out of the colonies.
>> NARRATOR: Barricaded inside the Alamo were approximately 200 mostly civilian volunteers led
by Lieutenant Colonel William
Travis, famed knife fighter Jim
Bowie, and popular frontiersman
and former U.S. Congressman
Davy Crockett.
>> BILL CHEMERKA: These were men of great courage, of great
bravery.
People who strongly believed in
democratic ideals and were
willing to fight and die for
them.
>> NARRATOR: For 13 days, 4,000
Mexican troops laid siege to
the Alamo.
>> CHEMERKA: Lieutenant Colonel
William Barrett Travis may
have been one of the first
casualties of the Battle of
the Alamo.
His death probably came because
of this.
A .75-caliber solid
lead musket ball fired from an
imported British musket that the
soldados used against the north
wall in the pre-dawn darkness.
>> NARRATOR: Finally, in the early morning hours of March 6, General Santa Anna ordered
an attack.
(soldiers shouting)
Within minutes,
Mexican forces breached the
walls and slaughtered all but a
handful of the defenders.
>> LEMON: When you talk about
the Alamo, there's controversy
about the number of deaths.
All we know is that are 189
known defenders that were
killed.
But one or two of the Mexican
accounts claim that they visibly
located and counted 250 bodies.
So, the question is, who were
those extra bodies?
Where did they come from?
>> CHEMERKA: Lots of mystery is
inherent in the Alamo, because
all of the defenders were killed
and their bodies were burned.
>> NARRATOR: News of the Alamo massacre shocked the American public.
Rumors spread that a
bloodthirsty Santa Anna
personally ordered everyone in
the Alamo executed-- and
volunteers flocked to Texas
looking for revenge.
>> RICH CURILLA: Vengeance isn't a wonderful thing to
brag about, but that's what
brought about the Battle of
San Jacinto, 46 days after the
Alamo.
An army of seven or eight
hundred angry Texians yelling
"Remember the Alamo" beat more
than twice that number of
Mexican soldiers.
The men won the battle in 18 minutes.
And that de facto won
independence for Texas from
Mexico.
>> NARRATOR: But although tales of Santa Anna's bloodthirsty massacre at the Alamo fueled
public outrage-- and won Texas
its independence-- there were
few who learned of Santa Anna's
compassion toward the dozens of
defenders whose lives were
spared-- among them women,
children, couriers, and three
African-American slaves.
>> WINDERS: In the traditional
story of the Alamo, there are
no survivors.
However, there are survivors. Those survivors are women and
children, and they're inside the
Alamo because they are related
in some way to a member in
the garrison.
On the morning of March 6, after having the battle fought around them, literally, they're
rounded up and then taken to
Santa Anna, where they are
interviewed.
And at the end of the interview,
he gives them two dollars each
and a blanket, and he lets them
go back to their homes.
>> NARRATOR: But what other
mysteries and secrets still
surround the Alamo?
And how many of them are true?
>> CHEMERKA: One of the major mysteries associated with the
Alamo is that one of its most
noteworthy defenders, James
Bowie, brought with him a huge
silver treasure, which he
buried there.
>> CURILLA: There was a well in the Alamo. It was dug by the defenders
during the siege, but a myth
has grown up about it in very
recent years.
The myth is that Jim Bowie's
treasure was hidden in the well
by Jim Bowie.
Santa Anna was trying to take
the Alamo because the treasure
was in the well, and the Texians
were defending the Alamo because
the treasure was in the well.
50 million other things in
history that are the reasons for
that battle, and that isn't one
of them.
What that story was developed
for was actually sort of a
publicity stunt to get a focus
on doing an archaeological dig
on Alamo Plaza some years ago
to find the well.
If they actually found the well,
that would be like finding
a treasure.
>> NARRATOR: There is a well on
the property, but it is of
modern construction, built many
years after the battle.
However, it is just one more
reminder to the more than four
million people who visit the
Alamo each year that the current
site actually bears little
resemblance to the sprawling
mission and compound that
existed in 1836.
>> LEMON: Today, all that's left of the Alamo is the church
building or the shrine, which
is, uh, the building we're
sitting in right now, and the,
uh... a portion of the old
convento-- or convent-- which
has been called over the years
the long barracks, which was
torn down around 1911, 1912.
And all of the rooms of the long barrack are reconstructed using the stones.
So, as far as the original
structure, you have the west
wall of the long barracks and
the church.
>> WINDERS: The front of the
church is really iconic.
It's the thing that people look
at and say, "That's the Alamo."
>> CURILLA: For a long time,
the myth of the Alamo was that
the whole battle took place in
that building, but, man, it was
over a whole three-and-a-half-
acre complex.
>> NARRATOR: But even with an
army of historians sifting
through every grain of evidence
related to the Alamo and its
incredible story, there is one
secret that remains almost
entirely unknown to most
visitors-- the existence of a
second Alamo.
>> CURILLA: You are on a ranch about, uh, seven miles north of Brackettville, Texas.
And no, this is not the real Alamo.
This is a replica that was built
by John Wayne for the movie
The Alamo.
What is awesome about it is that this is the Alamo the way it was in 1836.
No high-rise buildings.
No traffic.
>> NARRATOR: To build this set
for his epic tribute to the men
who fought and died for Texas
independence, motion picture
legend John Wayne hired a
local rancher named James T.
"Happy" Shahan.
Construction began in September
1957 at a location 140 miles
west of the real Alamo, and it
took nearly two years to
complete.
>> FRANK THOMPSON: Wayne's decision was to make the set
like any set-- just false
fronts, facades, just whatever
the camera would see.
But Happy, because he wanted the set to last, wanted to make it a practical set, which means every
room would have four walls.
It would have an actual floor.
He laid pipe for water and built
it so that it would last.
And it's been there for almost
60 years.
>> NARRATOR: After the release of John Wayne's The Alamo in 1960, Alamo Village became a
popular tourist attraction and
was occasionally reused as a
movie set in several additional
films and television shows.
Today, for many, Alamo Village
continues to provide the best
glimpse into a past that has
more myth than reality.
>> THOMPSON: There are two ways
to look at the Alamo-- through
the eyes of history and through
the eyes of myth-- and I've
found that myth wins out pretty
much every time.
>> NARRATOR: But while the real
Alamo remains as fascinating as
its legends, there is another
American monument, one with a
secret that is not only
compelling, it is also
potentially deadly.
The Golden Gate Bridge.
>> NARRATOR: It is an enduring monument to mankind's power over the forces of nature.
And an engineering marvel
shrouded in fog...
and secrets.
>> MARY CURRIE: There's a
certain magic about the bridge.
You can feel it moving, and it speaks to people.
>> ROCKY DELLAROCCA: You could
see this bridge in pictures,
but it doesn't do it any justice
unless you're... unless you come
here and actually walk on the
bridge and touch it.
>> NARRATOR: The Golden Gate Bridge has become one of the engineering wonders of the
modern world.
But there once was a time when
few thought it could ever be
built at all.
And if it could, would it
be safe?
>> MASOUD GHANDEHARI: The Golden Gate Bridge was seen as a major
challenge because of how wide
was the strait.
Engineers thought, "It's not possible." >> NARRATOR: Conceived in 1916,
in the wake of San Francisco's
devastating earthquake, the
bridge was the brainchild
of Chicago-based engineer
Joseph Strauss.
>> CURRIE: Strauss was the
engineer that said this can
be done, as many engineers said
it could not be done, or if it
could be done, it would be more
than $100 million.
Strauss came forward and said,
"I can bridge that strait and I
can do it for $27 million," and
the bridge was actually built
for $35 million.
He had a tenacity to see this
bridge built, and he surrounded
himself with a team that really
knew how to bring this bridge
into reality.
>> STARR: He was not a great engineer.
He was not a great bridge
designer.
But he was a superb
entrepreneur of bridges and
bridge building.
>> NARRATOR: Strauss brought his vision to life with help from a dream team of architects and
engineers, including senior
engineer Charles Alton Ellis and
the country's foremost
suspension bridge designer, Leon
Moisseiff.
>> STARR: Moisseiff's key
contribution was the towers.
He took the towers higher and
higher than previously anybody
thought could be done.
And that allowed the bridge to
spin suspension cables over a
greater distance, which allowed
the Golden Gate Strait to be
spanned.
>> MARK KETCHUM: Those big
cables hold up the whole bridge
and the towers hold up the
cables.
The cables are anchored in solid rock at each end of the bridge
to take out that high tension in
them, and it's called a
suspension bridge because the
entire weight of the bridge is
suspended from those big cables.
>> NARRATOR: To minimize casualties during construction, Strauss installed a giant net
underneath the bridge to catch
workers who fell accidentally.
>> KETCHUM: The net wasn't there
to keep you from getting hurt.
The net was there to keep you
from getting killed.
>> CURRIE: It was the first big
construction project to have a
safety net from one end to the
other.
And it did save the lives of 19 men that fell into the net.
>> KETCHUM: And the people who
did live through it considered
themselves an elite bunch and
that was the Halfway to Hell
Club.
>> DELLAROCCA: So it's a pretty
good club to be in-- saved by
the net and you got to go drink
with your buddies after work or
something, you know, and talk
about it. >> CURRIE: There were casualties.
11 men perished during the
construction of the Golden Gate
Bridge.
>> DELLAROCCA: Towards the end
of the construction, there was a
scaffold accident where the
scaffold broke away from the
bridge and actually tore through
the net.
And those guys got killed.
>> NARRATOR: After six years of
construction, the impossible
proved possible when the Golden
Gate Bridge opened on May 27,
1937.
>> STARR: It was a remarkable sight.
Everybody anxious to be the
first person to do something--
the first person to tap dance
across the bridge, the first
person to walk on stilts across
the bridge.
>> CURRIE: 200,000 people walked across the bridge. There was a weeklong fiesta,
schools closed, parades, bands.
You know, it was just everyone
in San Francisco, Marin County,
and the counties to the north
came to celebrate the opening of
this bridge.
>> NARRATOR: In time, fears that
the bridge would suffer any
structural failure seemed to
fade away.
That is, until three years
later in 1940 when another
Leon Moisseiff-designed
suspension bridge, this one in
Tacoma, Washington, suddenly
began to buckle and sway as seen
here in this incredibly rare
color footage.
>> STARR: Moisseiff's ambition
was to make bridges higher,
longer, and lighter.
And this aerodynamic quality was
wonderful, because it allowed
the bridge to live with the
weather.
But, in the case of the Tacoma
Bridge, he made it too
aerodynamic.
And a great wind came up; the
bridge began sympathetically to
move with the winds, and it set
up a process in which the bridge
collapsed.
>> NARRATOR: The failure of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge set off a panic in San Francisco.
And although engineers quickly
added lateral bracing underneath
the roadway to increase its
rigidity, high winds
eventually forced a complete
shutdown in 1951.
>> STARR: In 1951, the storm
that shut the bridge down
emphasized the fact that the
bridge is a work in progress.
>> KETCHUM: The bridge has a lot of strength with respect to
wind.
But it gets a little unstable
when the wind velocities get too
high and the bridge starts to
gallop-- that means moving up
and down like this, and it
starts to twist a little bit.
So there's a need to improve the wind stability, to bring it up to modern standards.
>> NARRATOR: The Golden Gate
Bridge has remained standing for
more than 70 years, but one
secret that few know about is
just how close it once came to
collapsing and killing hundreds
of thousands of people.
On May 27, 1987, during the
bridge's 50th anniversary
celebration, officials halted
traffic and opened The Golden
Gate Bridge to pedestrians.
Although 50,000 people were
expected, the number actually
swelled to a crowd of nearly
800,000.
>> CURRIE: There were 800,000 people in the area of the Golden
Gate Bridge with about 300,000
people on the bridge itself.
And because the bridge is built to move, it moved. >> KETCHUM: It's probably the
biggest load the bridge has ever
seen.
There were so many people on the
bridge that that curve across
the bay, the vertical curve of
the bridge, was flattened
straight out.
The bridge deflected something
on the order of 20 feet.
Two crowds, one from the north
and one from the south came
together in the middle of the
bridge with no place to go and
it got to be a crush loading.
People climbed over the handrail
where they're standing on a two-
foot-wide steel girder 200-odd
feet above the water.
>> NARRATOR: Witnesses reported that the cables holding up the roadway were stretched as tight
as harp strings.
And as winds caused the bridge
to sway, pedestrians on the
span suffered nausea and
started to panic.
>> CURRIE: The engineers were
actually on top of one of the
towers doing some back of the
napkin calculations, and they
were sure that we were in safe
conditions.
But the bridge is built to move,
so that was something that we
hadn't experienced, what's
called that dead load.
We have a live load going across
the bridge, so traffic is
constantly moving.
>> STARR: Fortunately, the
retrofitting that had been
recently accomplished enabled
the bridge to go through that
difficulty, but it was a
rather frightening moment
because we were moving quickly
towards what could have
been the greatest civil
engineering disaster in the
history of the human race.
>> CURRIE: I would add that for
the 75th anniversary, which is
May of 2012, we will not be
having a bridge walk.
>> NARRATOR: But could the
Golden Gate Bridge really
collapse under the weight of
drivers and pedestrians, or from
environmental factors such as
water, wind and earthquakes?
>> KETCHUM: The bridge hasn't
collapsed on us so far because
it was well built.
It was well designed, and it's
well maintained.
That's not to say it's not
without its problems.
75 years ago the
state of the art of bridge
engineering technology wasn't
what it is today.
We know much more about
vibration and wind oscillation
of bridges and we know a lot
more about how steel cracks when
it gets overloaded.
>> NARRATOR: Despite challenges
both natural and man-made, the
Golden Gate Bridge has stood
proudly and without serious
incident for more than seven
decades.
But halfway across the country
stands another metallic marvel--
built not as a bridge but
as a gateway.
What will America's Book of
Secrets reveal about the
St. Louis Gateway Arch?
>> NARRATOR: It is the pride of St. Louis, Missouri... a glittering gateway
to the West and beyond.
But does the Gateway Arch
serve another more
secret purpose?
Is it possible-- as some area
residents believe-- that one
of America's architectural
wonders can actually affect...
the weather?
>> JIM CASTILLO: St. Louis is
a very violent weather area.
You get a lot of thunderstorms
in the spring and summer.
You get violent snowstorms in the winter, and sometimes
you get those storms that
pass just to the north, just
to the south and miss the city.
And some people believe that the
Arch is what's controlling it.
>> MIKE BARA: Meteorologists
have even seen storms of very
high intensity approaching
St. Louis, and as they get
close to the city, they will
actually split and go around
the city to the north and
south, and then suddenly come
back and reconnect past
the city.
Now, this is called the
Arch effect because they've
noted it and nobody seems
to understand it.
>> NARRATOR: Completed in 1965,
the St. Louis Gateway Arch was
the futuristic brainchild of
Finnish-American architect
Eero Saarinen.
He designed it as part of a
competition in 1948,
commemorating St. Louis's role
as the gateway to western
expansion.
>> BOB MOORE: The Gateway Arch
was a completely unique project.
Nothing like it had ever been
done and nothing like it has
really ever been done since.
You've got a 630-foot structure.
It's all curves and it's
odd angles.
>> ERIC MUMFORD: It was a very
advanced design for its time
in 1948.
A lot of people thought it might
be unbuildable.
It uses a stressed skin,
stainless steel technology that
was only introduced in airplanes
a decade before.
>> ED DODDS: The exterior of the
Arch was constructed out of
quarter-inch-thick stainless
steel.
And the interior was constructed
out of carbon steel.
These sections were welded
together on a seamless weld
all the way around.
The architect said that this
structure should last a
thousand years.
>> NARRATOR: But did Eero
Saarinen have another, perhaps
more secret purpose in his
design for the Arch?
Might he have intended it to
have an impact on local weather
patterns?
There are those who believe
that the unique size and shape
of the massive stainless steel
structure enables it to produce
an ion-charged energy field,
one that can push away or pull
in electrical storms.
>> BARA: Thousands of people
go through there every day,
but none of them really realize
that at night it turns into
something completely different,
which is a very, very
powerful weather-control device.
>> DODDS: Lightning strikes the
Arch probably every single
time that it's in the area.
It was designed that way to
take lightning strikes.
And it's embedded into the
bedrock deep, deep beneath
the soil, so it's got a very,
very good ground.
The whole concept is just
truly amazing.
I mean, if you stop and look at
it, you can find water with
a stick, you can find buried
wires with a couple of pieces of
copper wire.
Maybe you can control
the weather.
>> BARA: In order to do that,
you probably need some sort of
particle accelerator or some
sort of magnetic field
generators buried beneath
the base post of the Arch,
but certainly it could be done.
It could actually channel or
pull energies from somewhere
else and, in turn, create a very
powerful, very intense ionic
pulse that could, in fact,
affect the weather.
>> DR. MICHAEL DENNIN: There's
two problems from a science
point of view in really getting
a large ionic pulse out of it.
The first is the idea of a
positive and a negative one.
In conductors, you really just
have negative charges flowing.
So you really would only get
the negative pulse if you
did anything.
The second problem is,
conductors like to keep the ions
in the conductor and they like
to move around there.
To remove an ion from a
conductor is very hard.
It takes an amount of energy
that's roughly 100 times
the normal room temperature.
So you would see it heat up,
and then it would glow.
And it would be very obvious
that you were generating ionic
pulse out of it.
>> NARRATOR: Those who suggest
the Arch may have strange
weather-changing properties
also point to its unique
catenary, or curved, design.
>> MOORE: The actual shape of
the Gateway Arch is a
catenary curve, which actually
is a Latin word for "chain."
And the idea is, the shape that
a chain makes when it's
suspended between two points,
the way it would droop in
between, is the shape of the
Arch turned upside down.
>> HIERONIMUS: The catenary
curve is the bottom part of the
curve.
So, the St. Louis Arch is
extraordinary, and it's
considered to be one of the
strongest and most powerful
curves physically.
You have, at the very, very top
of that curve, the keystone.
It holds the St. Louis Arch
together.
It makes it into one.
It makes it solid.
It's very powerful.
>> NARRATOR: Underneath the keystone, located at the top of the Arch, is a time capsule,
added to the monument just
before completion.
But what is in it?
Might it contain something more
than objects relating to the
Arch's origins?
>> MOORE: Unfortunately, we're
never gonna really be able to
open this time capsule unless
the Arch falls down, because
that was in the keystone section
of the Arch.
It'll just have to stay however
long the Arch lasts, when they
finally decide to take it down,
or it comes down of its own
accord.
A thousand years in the future,
or whatever it is.
>> NARRATOR: Although there is
absolutely no credible evidence
that the design of the Arch,
or materials used in its
construction, has any impact on
weather patterns, consider this.
During World War II, the
architect had worked for the
Office of Strategic Services,
the precursor to the CIA.
It's also well documented that
during that time, the U.S.
military was actively
researching ways that they might
be able to control weather and
use this knowledge to help
fight the war.
>> BARA: If the Gateway Arch
is, in fact, a
weather-modification device, if
that's its true secret purpose,
then, obviously, Saarinen was
going to be the choice from the
very beginning.
Because of his OSS connections,
because of the information they
had from a lot of Nikola Tesla's
papers that were seized after
World War II about how to
control electricity, how to
modify the weather, it's
possible that Saarinen came
across information that he, in
fact, could build such a device
if he had the right opportunity,
the right materials and the
right design.
>> NARRATOR: Was the Gateway
Arch really built to test the
theories of this
highly classified and
top secret project?
Probably not, although there are
a noticeably large number of
security guards that watch over
this otherwise public landmark.
>> DODDS: There is 24-hour
security on the park grounds.
This is a federal monument, and
we do keep an eye on it.
It's our job, our mission to
protect not only the Arch
Complex, but all the secrets of
the Arch.
(laughs)
>> NARRATOR: Are officials
really guarding the St. Louis
Gateway Arch for other,
perhaps secret, reasons?
Although the evidence says
otherwise, there are those who
believe additional clues can be
found in the colossal stone
carvings of Mount Rushmore.
>> NARRATOR: They watch over the landscape. Silent sentinels, carved in
stone.
George Washington...
Thomas Jefferson...
Theodore Roosevelt...
and Abraham Lincoln.
But what secrets are they hiding
behind those benign and
benevolent expressions?
Located at Keystone, South
Dakota, Mount Rushmore is
visited by an estimated four
million people every year.
But few who come to see this
monolithic monument are aware of
just how-- and why-- this
engineering marvel came to be,
and the ambitious plan devised
by Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor
who created it.
>> ROBIN BORGLUM CARTER: He was a second generation American,
and love for America was
instilled into him in the
beginning.
His father was from Denmark and
was a Mormon missionary and had
waited ten years to get to the
United States.
So he had an appreciation for
everything American.
>> PERROTTET: Gutzon Borglum
was an amazing character.
He was the most famous sculptor
of his time.
But he was very egotistical.
He was very concerned about his
place, how his standing would be
seen in history.
So he was really looking for
something incredibly grand,
incredibly splendid, something
for the ages, so that his name
would ring down through history.
>> NARRATOR: In 1923, Borglum was making plans for his most ambitious project to date:
a 90-foot-high tableau of
Confederate soldiers that would
be carved into the side of
Stone Mountain in Georgia.
He even joined the local chapter
of the Ku Klux Klan in an effort
to secure badly needed funding
for the project.
But after finishing the head of
General Robert E. Lee, Borglum
clashed with the organizers of
the Stone Mountain Monument.
He then destroyed all the work
he had done, quit the Klan, and
stormed off the project.
Fortunately, the Stone Mountain
project had captured the
attention of South Dakota state
historian Doane Robinson, who
approached Borglum with the idea
of doing a massive stone
sculpture on one of the granite
mountainsides located in the
Black Hills area.
>> BORGLUM CARTER: The original
idea was to do western heroes.
But he wanted it to be something
bigger, and reflect more about
what America was.
And so he was the one that
suggested presidents.
In 1924, they camped out for a
couple of weeks looking for a
mountain in the Black Hills that
might work.
And when he saw Rushmore, he
just said, "That's it."
>> NARRATOR: After three years
of fund-raising, planning and
preparation, the 60-year-old
sculptor commenced work on
October 4, 1927, aided by a crew
whose number would grow to reach
400.
Seen here-- in these rare home movies-- are scenes of Borglum and his team as they turn a
granite mountainside into a work
of art.
>> AMY BRACEWELL: There were about 30 workers on the
mountain at one time.
They would have to walk up a set
of around 700 stairs to get to
the top of the mountain.
There were winch men that would
help hang the workers off the
side of the mountain.
Workers would sit in harnesses
or work off of scaffolding.
>> NARRATOR: What had been
announced as a four-year project
expanded to 14 years due to
funding problems and bad
weather.
In fact, the mountain's almost
eerie refusal to cooperate
often forced Borglum to make
time-consuming alterations to
his design.
>> DONALD "NICK" CLIFFORD: When
we started carving Jefferson,
there was a crack that came
right down from his forehead
through his nose and through his
lip.
And of course, Mr. Borglum
couldn't have that because
that crack someday might
damage the nose.
So, what he did, he took more
rock off of the bottom side and
less on the top side, and tilted
his head back.
Now that crack comes down and
cuts right through his lip.
If you look with binoculars,
why, you can see where it's at.
>> NARRATOR: But in spite of all his efforts, Gutzon Borglum would never live to see the
completion of his dream.
On March 6, 1941-- just days
before his 74th birthday-- the
sculptor died of complications
from a recent surgery.
Fortunately, the project lived
on when his son Lincoln, seen
here, continued his father's
work on the mountain.
For a while, it seemed there
would be no stopping the
construction of America's most
ambitious stone tribute to the
four presidents who helped build
a nation.
But ultimately it would be a
threat from halfway around the
world that would stop the
construction forever.
>> BORGLUM CARTER: The last day
of carving was October 31
of 1941, the day that the Ruben
James was hit by the German
submarines.
And then, of course, we went
into war with Pearl Harbor, you
know, six weeks later.
That was the end.
The money dried up.
>> NARRATOR: With the start of
World War II, all work on
Mount Rushmore literally came
to a halt.
Hammers and chisels were put
down, and all that would be
completed of Gutzon Borglum's
monumental sculpture would be
the four iconic faces seen
today.
But, believe it or not, there was more to the sculptor's original design than was
realized in the monument's
current incarnation.
Much, much more.
And a clue can be seen upon a
careful examination of the
mountainside... just below the
face of Abraham Lincoln.
The knuckles of a hand.
>> PERROTTET: Well, what we see of Mount Rushmore at the moment
is kind of a shadow of what
Borglum's grand plan was.
He wanted something much more
grandiose, much more
fantastical, really, which
involved not just their heads
but also their torsos.
>> NARRATOR: Here is a glimpse of Borglum's original model for what would have been an even
more colossal Mount Rushmore.
But there is another secret--
one literally behind the faces
of Mount Rushmore.
A little-known stone chamber,
carved into the northwest side
of the mountain.
It is all that remains of
Borglum's other, perhaps even
more audacious dream: the Hall
of Records.
>> PERROTTET: The Hall of
Records would recount in very
grandiose terms the first 150
years of American history.
Visitors would enter the Hall of
Records and there they would
actually have the Declaration of
Independence and other great
documents of American history.
>> CLIFFORD: He was going to
have a marble stairway that
would go all the way to the top
behind the faces.
But it was never completed. All it is nowadays is a tunnel
that goes back in there about
75, 85 feet.
>> PERROTTET: You go in there and it's very dark, and it still has the marks on the wall that
the miners made back in
the late '30s.
It's really like the entrance to
one of the tombs in the Valley
of the Kings in Egypt.
So there is an extraordinary
sense of connection with, uh,
with history.
>> NARRATOR: But was there
a secret purpose to Borglum's
plan for a Hall of Records?
A method to what some might call
madness?
>> PERROTTET: Borglum's concern,
really, was that future
generations would find Mount
Rushmore mystifying, the same
way we find Stonehenge or
the pyramids mystifying.
They wouldn't understand who on
earth these figures were.
He was really thinking for
future millennia, almost for
aliens coming to see what on
earth was this creation.
>> NARRATOR: In 1998, more than
50 years after Gutzon Borglum's
death, the National Park Service
placed a titanium box
containing 16 enamel tablets
near the entrance to
the unfinished Hall of Records.
It is capped with a granite
headstone and stands as a
permanent marker to both the
great sculptor and his
astounding achievement.
>> PERROTTET: The tablets have
some of the history of the
presidents, some of the history
of Borglum, the Declaration of
Independence and other great
documents that were the
foundation of the country.
So the Park Service finished at
least a part of Borglum's
vision.
>> NARRATOR: Surviving the
perils of nature and time, Mount
Rushmore stands as a testament
to one man's vision, talent...
and strength of will.
But approximately 80 miles away
stands another, even more
mysterious rock formation.
A geological curiosity that has
been shrouded in mystery--
and secrets-- for hundreds
of years.
And whose very name evokes a
sense of dread in all who speak
of it.
Devil's Tower.
>> NARRATOR: It rises from the earth like a giant fist stretching out to strike
the sky.
A colossal 900-foot shaft of
rugged rock.
One whose very name conjures
notions of evil and dread.
Devil's Tower.
>> LOPES: Devil's Tower is
a really dramatic formation. You're wondering, uh, "What
is that?"
And, "Well, how did it
get here?"
>> MARSHALL: You know, the name
is right-- it's a tower.
It's a very powerful image,
different than the surrounding
landscape.
You wonder, "How did this come
to be?"
And then the next thought is, it
took some great power to create
this, so you want to connect to
that power.
>> NARRATOR: Located in
northeastern Wyoming, Devil's Tower was declared America's very first National Monument in
1906 by President Theodore
Roosevelt, who wanted to protect
this unique and mysterious
formation from excavation by
mineral companies and
gold hunters.
More recently, Devil's Tower has
gained even greater fame as the
extraterrestrial destination in
Steven Spielberg's 1977
blockbuster film Close
Encounters of the Third Kind.
>> HUGH HAWTHORNE: In that
movie, the tower is a spot, uh, that many people are drawn to,
and they don't know why they're
drawn to it.
They're drawn to it from all
over the country.
>> PHILIP COPPENS: Obviously,
the mountain has been forever
made part of the UFO phenomenon
because of the setting for Close
Encounters of the Third Kind,
but when you start looking at
Native American lore, which is
attached to this sacred site,
you will also find that there
are various traditions which say
that people went on that
mountain and became transformed.
They went to heaven. They became gods or they became one with the gods.
>> NARRATOR: Does Devil's Tower
really have strange,
extraterrestrial or
supernatural connections?
Perhaps a clue can be found in
the story of how government
surveyor Colonel Richard Dodge
gave the tower its eerie name.
>> HAWTHORNE: Colonel Dodge
asked his interpreter what the
local Indians called it, and his
interpreter told him that they
called it Bad God's Mountain.
And he decided that that sounded
good, but he changed it to Devil
rather than Bad God.
So he put in his journal that
this was Devil's Tower.
>> MARSHALL: Devil's Tower is...
is, to us, at the very least,
an interesting mistranslation.
It denotes negativity.
The word "devil" implies bad
spirits, and for us, that was
not the kind of place it was.
It was very... a very positive,
very strong place.
>> DONOVIN SPRAGUE: In Lakota,
we don't even have Devil. There is no word for that in our
dictionary, in our language.
>> NARRATOR: The history of
Devil's Tower dates back roughly 65 million years-- to the time of the dinosaurs.
Geologists believe that during
that period, volcanic activity
gave birth to the striking
formation that can be seen
today.
>> LOPES: There are two main
theories about how Devil's Tower
formed, and both of them are
quite plausible.
One of them is that it is what
we call a volcanic neck or plug, and that is the eroded remains
of a volcano.
And the tower is really what was
like the throat of the volcano. Now, the other theory, which is somewhat more favored, is that
it is what we call an intrusion.
Magma came up, but it didn't
really break through to the
surface; it stopped.
And so it formed a sedimentary
rock, and in millions of years,
the sedimentary rock eroded
away, and so it exposed at the
surface this magma that, in
reality, never got to the
surface.
>> NARRATOR: The first known
humans to be captivated by this
strange formation were the
Native Americans.
For thousands of years, tribes
from as far away as Texas and
Canada made pilgrimages to it,
believing the rock to possess
sacred powers.
>> FRANK SANDERS: There are 21
tribes that hold the tower in their oral or traditional
history.
Each tribe has a different name
for the tower, and each tribe
has stories about how the tower
was formed.
>> MARSHALL: The predominant
myth has to do with a small
group of girls.
Seven girls, they say, were out
picking berries, looking for
food, and they happened on
a bear.
They ran to try to get away from
the bear. They came to a small hill. They gathered in a group.
They prayed for help.
And, lo and behold, the rock
they were on began to rise.
And as it rose, it got bigger
and bigger and wider.
>> SANDERS: The bear pursued and left all these claw marks in the tower, which you can see today,
but eventually, the bear
went away.
Well, that left our seven little
girls stranded on top of
the tower.
The gods had mercy on them and
lifted them up to the sky, where
you can see them in the winter,
right over the tower as the
seven stars in the constellation
Pleiades.
>> NARRATOR: There are some who
believe that this origin story
is more than just myth, and that
it does, in fact, offer evidence
that ancient Native American
cultures possessed advanced
knowledge of astronomy.
>> PATRICK BURKE: The story
is... is that the Great Spirit lifted the seven sisters up to
the stars, and we got the
Pleiades constellation.
The problem is, we're talking
hundreds of years ago-- you can't see the seventh star. There's only six you can
visually see.
You need a telescope to see
the seventh.
So how could they know that?
There is speculation that maybe
there is more to Devil's Tower--
maybe there's E.T. contact.
>> COPPENS: Native American
tradition basically says that you can contact the gods there
and the gods will take you into
heaven, which is precisely what
the UFO phenomenon in the 20th
century and in the 21st century
is telling people as well.
And also, Devil's Tower has a
flat top, so it's like in Close Encounters. These deities were believed
to have needed a flat surface
to land.
So that's a very strong
indicator that the UFO
phenomenon goes back thousands
of years and is part and parcel
of this sacred landscape.
>> NARRATOR: But what is the
secret of Devil's Tower?
Might it really have served
as an extraterrestrial
landing site?
A gateway to the gods?
According to Native Americans
and UFO enthusiasts, the answer
is an unqualified yes.
For those who are skeptical, the
true nature of Devil's Tower
and its origins may forever
remain a secret.
But far across the country to
the east, on a crowded island
known as Manhattan, stands
another enormous monolith.
This one is not made of rock,
but of glass and steel.
A towering monument to mankind's
progress and a symbol of its
pride.
Just what will America's Book
of Secrets reveal about the
Empire State Building?
>> NARRATOR: It stands proudly, towering above the majestic
skyline of New York City.
But even at a height of nearly
1,500 feet, the Empire State
Building is more than a
skyscraper.
It is an American icon.
>> DONALD TRUMP: The Empire
State Building, almost more than
any other building, represents
New York.
Great look, a great presence. It's called the it factor. People have it, buildings have
it, and the Empire State
Building has the it factor.
>> NARRATOR: Designated a
National Historic Landmark in
1986, the Empire State Building
is considered one of the most
popular works of art deco
architecture in the United
States.
Yet, underneath the building's
stone-clad facade is a secret--
one that very few New Yorkers
would ever even suspect.
The Empire State Building--
America's proud symbol of
ingenuity, confidence and
prosperity-- was once considered
a financial failure.
It all began in 1928 when a
self-made businessman and
political insider-- John J.
Raskob-- approached former New
York Governor Al Smith with an
incredible idea: together they
would build the world's tallest
building.
>> TAURANAC: Raskob said to Al Smith, "Look, I know finance,
you know New York City.
Why don't we go into the real
estate business?"
And in the 1920s the real estate
business, if you were serious,
meant building a skyscraper.
>> NARRATOR: When Raskob went
looking for an architect, his
secret inspiration was the
simplest object in his
briefcase.
>> JEAN-YVES GHAZI: The original
design of the building was
inspired by Raskob standing a
pencil on its end and saying,
"Can you make it look like
this?"
And sure enough, when you stand
far away from Central Manhattan
and you hold a pencil on its end
and basically hold it against
the skyline, you'll recognize
that shape.
>> NARRATOR: Architect William Lamb was hired to design the building on the site of the
original Waldorf Astoria Hotel,
but when they tore down the
hotel and started digging, they
encountered the first of the
ambitious project's surprising
secrets-- the existence of an
underground stream.
>> TAURANAC: I think that
probably the biggest secret of
the Empire State Building is
down in the sub-sub-sub-
subbasement-- the stream that
flows under the Empire State
Building, and they had to
basically build a coffer around
it in order to protect the
building from it.
>> NARRATOR: But running water
wasn't the only challenge
confronting the building's
owners.
They were also facing stiff
competition from another
building that intended to be the
world's tallest-- the Chrysler
Building.
>> TAURANAC: You could almost
call it the race of the titans,
and they were really in a race
with the Chrysler Building on
42nd Street and Lexington
Avenue.
>> NARRATOR: For every new floor
Chrysler built, the Empire State
Building added five to ten more
floors to their plans.
It was a calculated risk and at
times a dangerous one.
>> CAROL WILLIS: The old urban myth about skyscrapers was that
there was an average of a death
per floor.
It was never true, but certainly
skyscraper construction sites
are dangerous places fraught
with possible perils.
>> TAURANAC: People weren't wearing hard hats or anything of that nature.
They just happily went out there
and walked pieces of steel.
One worker looked down an
elevator shaft to see if an
elevator was coming, and it was.
>> NARRATOR: In the end, a total
of five construction workers and
one pedestrian were killed
during construction in what were
considered freak accidents.
>> We are on the top of the 86th
floor of the Empire State
Building-- the highest point in
the world today that can be
reached from a building
designed, fashioned, built by
the brains, the brawn, the
ingenuity, and the muscle of
mankind.
>> NARRATOR: On May 1, 1931, the
Empire State Building opened to
an enthusiastic public.
Built during the depths of the
Great Depression, "the world's
tallest building" had employed
thousands of construction
workers and craftsmen.
>> PERROTTET: When the whole country is suffering, to have
this extraordinary thing where
everyone is pulling together and
creating this, this
extraordinary edifice, and so it
became this symbol not just of
New York City but of the
American spirit, really.
>> NARRATOR: But unknown to most
of the cheering New Yorkers was
a secret-- a secret that
threatened the future of the
entire project.
The Empire State Building was in
a deep financial crisis, and
most of the building remained
vacant and unrented.
>> WILLIS: When the stock market
crashed in 1929, the most severe
effect to the Empire State
Building by the general economy
was the amount of competition
that existed in other buildings
that had come on to the market
at the same time-- a whole host
of more than a dozen skyscrapers
of 50 stories or more, which
offered space at competitive
rental rates, and for the first
decade or so of its
construction, it remained two-
thirds empty.
>> TAURANAC: Above the 25th floor and up to the 80th floor, there was basically nothing, but
they would run around at night
turning on the lights
artificially to create the
illusion that the building was
doing a good job.
>> NARRATOR: In a desperate
effort to secure badly needed
revenue and to ensure the
building's status as the world's
tallest, the builders unveiled
yet another of their secret
design plans-- a 200-foot-tall
docking station for dirigibles.
Unfortunately the first and only
test of the station was a
disaster.
The tethered airship was torn to
shreds by high winds and
updrafts.
The idea was quickly abandoned.
>> TAURANAC: If it had exploded
such as the Hindenburg did in
Lyndhurst, New Jersey, imagine
the damage that would have been
done.
You have to figure that if a
dirigible is 1,000 feet long,
that it would have gone from
34th to about 38th Street.
If that had exploded over
Midtown, with fire raining down
on the buildings and people
below, it would have been a
catastrophe of the first
magnitude.
>> NARRATOR: Ironically, and despite numerous efforts on the part of the building's owners,
the Empire State Building-- the
nation's proud symbol of
capitalism and innovation--
didn't become profitable until
1950, when the nation's economy
finally recovered after
World War II.
Although the Empire State
Building reigned as the world's
tallest building until 1972--
when it was dwarfed by the twin
towers of the World Trade
Center-- several other mammoth
buildings have each claimed the
title of world's tallest--
among them...
the Sears Tower in Chicago...
the Taipei 101 in Taiwan...
and the current record holder,
Burj Khalifa in Dubai, with its
astounding height of more than
2,700 feet-- nearly double that
of New York City's former
champion.
Nevertheless, the Empire State
Building may forever enjoy its
reputation as a grand monument
to ingenuity and progress,
built at a time when size really
did matter.
But less than four miles away--
just 1,000 yards from Wall
Street, is another piece of
New York real estate...
one whose secrets are known only
to a select few...
secrets that involve betrayal...
murder...
and the assassination of a
president of the United States.
(soft whoosh) (birds chirping) >> NARRATOR: It looks much like
any other park...
filled with joggers...
cyclists...
and friends enjoying picnic
lunches.
Even better is its location,
complete with a panoramic view
of New York Harbor, the Statue
of Liberty, and the skyline of
lower Manhattan.
Located less than half a mile
from the tip of New York City,
Governors Island is the largest
of the islands in New York
Harbor.
Some call it the city's
best kept secret.
But it is also a secret with a
deadly and, some would say,
cursed origin--
a secret that leads to the
assassination of President
Abraham Lincoln.
Originally called Nutten Island
by Dutch explorers in 1611, the
name changed in 1699 when it
became America's first political
retreat-- the so-called "Camp
David of the 17th century."
>> ANN BUTTENWIESER: A British governor decided that this would
become an island for the rural
pleasure of His Majesty's
governors.
Hence it was Governors Island.
>> NARRATOR: In the early years
of the struggle for American
independence, the strategic
location of the island
overshadowed its pastoral
beauty.
>> CHEMERKA: As early as
February 1776, Benjamin Franklin
wrote a letter describing the
strategic importance of
Governors Island.
He said 300 to 400 men in one
night could put up earthworks
and place cannons there to
threaten British shipping.
>> NARRATOR: After his defeat
during the Battle of Brooklyn,
General George Washington used
the island as a secret retreat,
the only place where he and his
9,000-man army could find safe
haven.
>> MICHAEL SHAVER: What
Governors Island does, it has
about a dozen cannon that
discourage the British Navy from
coming up into the East River
and keep the British Navy out of
George Washington's hair to
escape to fight another day.
>> NARRATOR: In 1807, the island's Fort Jay was refortified and a new fort was
built...
Castle Williams.
>> SHAVER: Castle Williams was
the battery, it had 103 guns,
if it was fully furnished,
and essentially it was a forward
projection of force.
It was kind of like a fist in
the harbor, ready to duke it out
with anybody that came in
uninvited.
It was a formidable enough
obstacle that the British
decided they didn't need to sail
into New York Harbor during
the War of 1812, and never did.
>> NARRATOR: For decades,
Governors Island served as a
U.S. Army administration post.
But the Civil War would change
its history-- and, some believe,
curse the island...
forever.
>> SHAVER: The Union Army begins
to capture prisoners, and they
don't exactly know what to do
with them-- they don't have a
mechanism to handle them yet.
So they begin to ship them up
here.
The commanding officer of the
post was actually quite annoyed
and upset about the situation
that landed in his lap.
He was told one morning, you
know, expect a hundred prisoners
and 600 of them got off the
boat.
So they were deposited here in a
fort that really wasn't being
used at that time, other than
for grazing pigs.
>> NARRATOR: Prison life offered
little relief from the perils of
war.
The captured soldiers who were
sent here found a house of
horrors.
(door creaking)
(echoing thud)
>> CHEMERKA: Confederate
prisoners were held there, in
terrible conditions that are
beyond description.
"Hell on earth" basically
describes what happened at
Governors Island.
>> BUTTENWIESER: The officers
lived about ten to a room.
There were no tables and there
were no chairs.
The bedding was a cotton sack that was stuffed with straw.
It was dark, it was wet, it was cold and miserable. The conditions for the soldiers
were much, much worse.
They were crowded into Castle
Williams.
At times there were 700 men
packed in there.
>> NARRATOR: Those unlucky
Confederate soldiers who didn't
die from disease faced a Union
Army court-martial where there
were only two likely outcomes--
death by hanging...
(clattering)
...or execution at the hands of
a firing squad.
>> MAN: Fire!
(gunfire)
>> BUTTENWIESER: The Fife and
Drum Corps would march out of,
um, Fort Jay with a prisoner
behind them...
playing the "Death March."
In the case of a shooting, they
would march the prisoner down to
the beach, which was on the
Hudson River side of Castle
Williams, and that is where the
shooting would occur.
(booming gunfire)
>> NARRATOR: One of the executed
Union prisoners, whose ghost is
still thought to be roaming the
now deserted island, was John
Yates Beall, a Confederate
sympathizer and privateer.
>> KEENE: John Yates Beall was a spy and saboteur who worked for
the Confederacy during the Civil
War.
He was arrested in 1864 for
trying to derail a passenger
train that was carrying
Confederate prisoners of war in
New York State.
(train whistle blowing)
>> CHEMERKA: He was finally captured in December of 1864 in Niagara, New York, and brought
to Governors Island.
General John Dix, for whom Fort
Dix was later named, convenes a
special military court-martial.
And Beall is found guilty.
>> KEENE: There is a legend that
John Wilkes Booth made a
personal appeal to Abraham
Lincoln to spare Beall's life,
and that Lincoln in fact agreed
to pardon him but then rescinded
that pledge when his Secretary
of State, William Seward,
who was a former senator
from New York, demanded his
execution.
>> NARRATOR: On February 24,
1865, John Beall was, in the
words of the order to execute
him, "hanged by the neck until
he was dead."
(loud thud, bones crack)
>> CHEMERKA: When Beall was
killed, supposedly John Wilkes
Booth, so outraged at this,
devised a plan which would kill
President Lincoln, Vice
President Andrew Johnson,
General Ulysses S. Grant
and Secretary of State Seward.
Sadly, we know how the story
eventually played out.
On the night of Friday, April
14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was
shot and he died the next
morning.
Although Booth may not have
waged a personal vendetta
against the leaders of the
American government because of
what happened on Governors
Island, the connection still
remains.
>> NARRATOR: Was John Beall
unjustly executed?
Did his death trigger the
assassination of a U.S.
president and forever change
the course of American history?
And could this dark page in
America's Book of Secrets
explain why a picture-perfect
island, located just 500 yards
from New York City, has remained
so strangely undeveloped and
under-inhabited for more than a
century?
Is Governors Island really
cursed?
Giant monoliths of stone...
rock...
and steel.
Man-made structures that defy
gravity...
(thunder crashes)
...and baffle science.
And places that honor the
dead... and where the dead
refuse to rest.
America's monuments are a
testament to the unique and
extraordinary bond that exists
between mankind...
his history...
and the natural world.
We cherish them...
we visit them...
and we explore them.
But more guarded than the monuments themselves...
are their secrets.
Secrets that will amaze...
reassure...
and frighten.
Secrets that have remained
untold... until now.
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