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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL CAMPUS EDITION.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2001
WSJ.com
What's News- In Business and Finance
$ \textcircled{c} $ 2001 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Mailrooms Secured As Bioterror Looms
Corporate mailrooms are being pressed into duty as the first line of defense against bioterrorism.
defense against bovine diseases.
As the anthrax scare that began at a Florida tabloid publisher nearly two weeks ago spreads across the country, mushrooming with news that employees at NBC news headquarters and a Microsoft office in Nevada received letters containing the potentially deadly bacteria, companies are scrambling to shore up protections against attacks masquerading as routine mail deliveries.
Businesses nationwide are stocking up on rubber gloves and bacteriakilling bleach for employees who handle mail. New York-based Archer Management Services, which runs company mailrooms, says some of its New York customers don't want any mail delivered to them for the time being, figuring important documents can be sent by e-mail or fax instead.
Indeed, some companies may already be prepared for bioterrorism—albeit unwittingly—because most of their important documents are increasingly arriving over the Internet.
New Life Awaits Twin Towers' Metal
Bob Kelman doesn't usually get sentimental about steel being unloaded at the Hugo Neu Schnitzer East Corp. scrap-metals recycling yard in Jersey City, N.J.
But as he watches 30-foot steel beams being hoisted off barges and onto the New Jersey shore these days, Mr. Kelman chokes up. "The World Trade Center is on our dock," the general manager says.
the general manager.
Mr. Kelman runs one of two metal-processing companies hired by the city to recycle tons of steel and other metals from the Sept. 11 disaster. Market demand will likely send much of the steel, which had come from Asia, back there to be used for boats, skyscrapers or bridges. But metal also will find its way into homes as refrigerator coils, construction nails or water heaters.
Experts say about 250,000 tons of structural steel from the complex will be recyclable as scrap material, as well as about 40,000 tons of aluminum sheeting from the towers' exterior.
THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 15,2001
Demand for Oil Decreases Quickly
World oil demand is falling fast following the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. and the economic aftershocks rocking the international economy.
the international Energy Agency said that oil demand is now expected to contract by some 600,000 barrels a day during the current quarter to 76.2 million barrels a day, as reduced air travel lowers the need for jet fuel and economic growth expectations are downgraded for this year and next. A month ago, the IEA was expecting demand to grow by 500,000 barrels a day during the current quarter.
Online-Music Probe Broadens Its Scope
The Justice Department widened its antitrust investigation of the online music business, sending civil subpoenas across the industry that focused on alleged use of copyright rules and licensing practices to control distribution.
The subpoenas, formally known as civil investigative demands, were issued last last week and disclose a broad federal investigation into "intellectual copyright licensing of intellectual property rights associated with provision of music over the internet." The probe encompasses the two new online-music ventures—pressplay and MusicNet—backed by the industry's five major recording labels.
in the subpoenas demand documents on terms and conditions in internet music licensing and the setting of rates in the emerging online-music market, and investigators seem to be trying to pinpoint whether any illegal coordination took place among record labels.
War Chest
The Bush administration this week will recommend ways to spend the second half of $40 billion in emergency funds that Congress approved after the Sept. 11 attacks. Expected allocations, in billions:
Employers Want to See
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Grants for dislocated workers $2
Domestic priorities* $3
War-related defense needs $7
$2 Federal Emergency Management Agency $6
Chemical
Chemical and biological weapons defense
- If Cupid Strikes at Work, Career Troubles Can Brew New beginnings: Most companies won't stop you from having a romantic relationship with a coworker, but dating a colleague has its hazards. Here's guidance on fi-
*Including air security, immigration services and National Guard
By Robert J. Toth
Antidepressant Use Is On the Rise
After struggling for months to maintain his fledgling media empire, Steven Brill is shuttering Brill's Content magazine and selling the media-news Web site Inside.com.
Americans are looking for pills to help them cope with these turbulent times. U.S. pharmacies during the last two weeks of September issued nearly 1.9 million new prescriptions for antidepressants such as Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa and Prozac, among others, an increase of $16\%$ from the same period last year, according to NDCHealth of Atlanta, a healthcare information-services company. Use of anxiety drugs and sleeping aids also is on the rise as patients filled more than two million new prescriptions, a $7\%$ increase from the same period last year.
Mr. Brill, founder of American Lawyer magazine and Court TV, founded Brill's Content in 1998, billing it as a watchdog over U.S. media. Despite its splashy launch, Brill's Content had trouble developing a broad consumer audience and was read mostly by professional journalists. In an effort to increase its appeal, it changed its format a number of times.
Brill Closes Down Magazine, Web Site
Odds & Ends
Last month, Mr. Brill shit a separate Web venture. Contentville.com, which he launched in July 2000, leaving his company, Brili Media Holdings LP, with virtually no assets.
J. M. Smucker Co., the nation's largest maker of jelly, is acquiring Jiff, the largest brand of peanut butter...Microsoft Corp. will give away nearly 7,000 Xbox video-game machines and games in sweepstakes run by Taco Bell restaurants and SoBe beverages as part of a big marketing push in the weeks leading up to the Xbox's launch next month...America Online introduced Version 7.0 of its online software, while competing service MSN—from Microsoft Corp.—announced that its latest service will be launched Oct. 25..Handspring Inc., creator of the Pilot Pilot, announced plans for a new line of gadgets that combine mobile phones, wireless e-mail and Web browsing, and conventional features of hand-held computers.
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Architects and Engineers Study Ways To Make Skyscrapers Safer
In assessing the rubble of the World Trade Center, architects, engineers and scholars are finding lessons that could affect the future of skyscrapers—from their height to the width of interior stairwells.
By DEAN STARKMAN
100 stairwells
Designers, for instance, are now looking at the building codes of Britain and some Asian countries that require separate stairways and freight elevators for rescue personnel, along with widening landings, all to avoid crowded scenes that investigators say hampered rescue efforts in the 100-story World Trade towers.
The challenge, says T.J. Gottesdiener, a managing partner of architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, "is separating what is appropriate from what is a reaction." His firm had no role in building the World Trade towers.
nessing an office romance without ruining your professional life.
Also attracting some interest; so-called refuge floors, Required by building codes in China, the Philippines and elsewhere, the open-air floors are spaced 10 to 12 floors apart, allowing inhabitants to breathe while waiting for rescue personnel. Stairwells are required to open onto the floors, which were conceived in part to avoid scenes such as occurred during the 1993 World Trade Center bombing when office workers smashed windows to escape smoke drawn up through the building from a "chimney effect" caused by the blast.
from THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
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With Stockbroker Career
With Stockbroker Career American dream: In between classes, a junior at Columbia University in New York is busy building a successful career as a financial whiz-kid for a top Wall Street firm.
Earth, Wind and Design Flaws
The deliberations come despite a widely held belief that designing buildings to withstand the impact of airplanes is a waste of resources that are better spent elsewhere, including
The World Trade Center towers withstood stresses far beyond those foreseen in original specifications, allowing many occupants to escape. But famous buildings have tumbled from a variety of causes:
- Binishiel Domes, Australia: Developed in the 1960s, architect Dante Binin's technique was to lay concrete over a balloon of plastic fabric. Two of these domes, both over Australian schools, failed when the complex construction method was not followed scrupulously.
- C.W. Post College Dome Auditorium, Brookville, N.Y. Built in 1970, this shallow dome on the campus of Long Island University collapsed under heavy snow and ice cover in 1978. No one was hurt. Faulty design was the culprit.
- Kemper Memorial Arena, Kansas City, Mo. Home to two Kansas City sports teams and the location of the 1979 Air National Convention, the arena was built in 1973 but collapsed during heavy winds and rain in 1979. Miraculously, no lives were lost. No single cause was found for the accident.
- Hyatt Regency Hotel, Kansas City, Mo.: Two crowded walkways in the newly-built hotel collapsed in July 1981, killing 114 and injuring almost 200. Analysis found that the walkways had not been built as they were originally designed.
- Pier 34, Philadelphia, Penn.; The 91-year-old pier, which held a popular nightclub, collapsed in May 2000. Three people died and 31 were injured. Inspection three days before the accident revealed structural deficiencies that indicated the pier was in danger of collapse.
on airport security. Despite the recent attack, many designers don't believe high-rise buildings themselves will become less desirable or useful.
Source: Architectural Record
"Are we not going to build buildings with five sides anymore because they hit the Pentagon?" asks Carol Willis, an architectural historian and director of the Skyscraper Museum, in New York. "We're asking the wrong questions."
Still, some lessons are obvious. The attack dealt a fatal blow to fledgling attempts to revive the monumentalist school of American architecture seen with the completion of Chicago's Sears Tower in 1974. Nascent plans—in Chicago, Donald Trump's plans for the Sun-Times property, as well as a much-discussed 2,000-foot tower in Miami—are less likely to proceed, certainly on such a grand scale. So, too, does even the
idea of rebuilding the World Trade Center towers to their former height.
Some developers, though, are trying to proceed with business as usual. The developer of the Miami project, Guillermo Socarras, is still trying to arrange financing, according to a spokesman, who added, "he's not going to allow 19 or 19,000 terrorists to change a project he's worked on for three years."
ing to build back the Trade Center to 110 floors," Mr. Gottesdenier says, "People won't be comfortable there."
The towers were believed to have been the first to rely on "shaft-wall" interior cores, made of gypsum-based wallboard instead of harder materials, masonry or reinforced concrete. The shaft-wall design was considered a breakthrough at the time, favored for its fire resistance and air-tight qualities. A question today is whether abandoning shaft-wall construction is worth the additional weight and cost.
Other lessons will be less noticeable and will take longer to have effect. Two teams of engineers will review the so-called performance of the Pentagon and the Trade Center and surrounding buildings and issue a report to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other interested
may have had a failure in the Trade Center's design, it was that "people in the floors above the crash had limited ability to escape," said Ron Hamburger, chief structural engineer for ABS Consulting, New York, and a member of the performance-review team.
parties. The review will explore the buildings' overall resistance to collapse from the moment of collision, as well as the effects of the fire. The report, which won't be ready for 18 months or so, will likely result in recommended changes in model building codes. Possible areas under review include the strength of columns and beams, and the number and width of stairwells.
At a recent conference of structural engineers held at a rustic inn in Manchester, N.H., engineers puzzled over the problems posed by the destruction of support columns after the two jetliners collided into the towers. They also studied the effect of burning jet fuel on fire-proofing systems, and the subsequent "progressive collapse," when the steel columns finally gave way.
Standards May Change
Among other issues, engineers said, the fire grew hot faster, burned far hotter and stayed hot longer than the 1,400 degrees and higher found in standard "time-temperature" tests used to rate protection materials. Engineers said the standards themselves, which approximate the heat of burning desks, carpets and paper, may have to be changed.
Interest In M.B.A.s Surges
BV RONALD ALSOP
business schools suddenly look a lot more attractive.
in numbers of people attending business-school recruiting receptions. Participation in the Graduate Management Admission Test has also climbed steadily with 19% more Americans and 26% more foreigners being tested in the third quarter compared with a year earlier.
Colleges and universities are reporting sharp increases in inquiries about their M.B.A. programs
ing for scrutiny.
"At a time of crisis, people try harder to find an anchor," says Jeffrey Farden, dean of the Yale School of Management. "They may have no idea what the world will look like now, but they feel sure better credentials will get them a better job." Yale received 17,300 inquiries about its master's of business administration program in the third quarter, up 45% from a year earlier.
The expected bounty of business-school applications partly reflects pent-up demand. During the robust job-market and dot-com heyday, many people postponed their business-school plans. Now they're looking for security.
Admissions directors at some Midwestern and Southern business schools say they are being contacted by people who want to escape New York, but the major business schools in Manhattan continue to draw more, not less, interest.
not less, more. Business schools wherever they are will be a risky, expensive gamble for applicants this year. They will invest hundreds of dollars in the admission test and prep courses, only to find fierce competition to get into the top schools. Some of the most prestigious schools admit only 10% to 15% of all applicants.
M. B.A. hopefuls who do make the cut will graduate as much as $100,000 in debt. And landing a lucrative job at graduation is far from a sure thing. Next spring's graduates are expected to face one of the most dismal recruiting seasons in memory.
But at a time when many people are looking for hope, prospective business-school students say an M.B.A. looks like their best shot. "I think things will be great by 2004 when I graduate," says Joel Karp of Hoboken, N.J., who lost his job this year as a research analyst at Webnoize Inc. "Entertainment technology and e-commerce are not dead by any means."
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