While the 60-story, 790-foot mirror-glass John Hancock Tower (Boston, Ma) was still under construction in 1972 and 1973, at least 65 of its 10,344 windows fractured; many fell to the ground. On 20 Jan 1973, a major windstorm hit Boston and the system failure became undeniable. By April of that year, plywood replaced more than an acre of the tower's mirror-glass window surface and "Plywood Palace" became the building's nickname. A "gag order" imposed for 17 years on the parties to the dispute prevented the release of the facts regarding the cause of the breakage. The lack of definitive information gave rise to many theories and myths, some that exist to this day, regarding the cause of the failure. Initially, many thought the reason lay in the fact that the tower swayed exessively in the wind, while in fact this was true, it was not the reason for the breakage.
