The Twin Towers contained 5000 tons asbestos (of the worst kind there is). In the mid-1990s, the New York Port Authority was looking at an asbestos abatement bill of as much as $1 billion dollars – representing well over 10 times the buildings' original cost. When the buildings' insurers, Affiliated FM, refused to cover the asbestos removal/abatement costs and won their subsequent lawsuit over the the matter, the Port Authority was left with some untenable choices; The outdated buildings could not be demolished because of the asbestos; for the same reason, they could not be remodeled and updated in any cost-effective manner. The only other option was to slowly dismantle the Towers a piece at a time – the cost of which would have run into several billions…