Citicorp Building, NYC 2

Distinctive looking, but its planning, construction and completion was a cluster-fuck of epic and nearly disasterous proportions. The idea of the 45 degree angled roof was intended to hold solar panels to provide power for the building. Late in construction the idea was dropped because the positioning of the roof meant that the panels would not face the sun directly. Apparently the architect and technical engineers hadn't noticed this minor detail, which would have been evident to a highschool astronomy student.

The far greater, and potentially lethal flaw was a cost saving move that changed the load braces to bolted joints instead of welded joints. This meant that if hurricane speed winds hit the building at a 45 degree angle, there was the likelihood of catastrophic failure. The flaw was only realized after a university engineering student asked some questions of the projects structural engineer, after completion of the building.

He convinced Citicorp to hire a crew of welders to repair the fragile building without informing the public, and for three months, a construction crew welded two-inch-thick steel plates over each of the skyscraper's 200 bolted joints during the night, after each work day, almost unknown to the general public. Six weeks into the work, a major storm (Hurricane Ella) was off Cape Hatteras and heading for New York. With New York City hours away from emergency evacuation, the reinforcement was only half-finished. Ella eventually turned eastward and veered out to sea, buying enough time for workers to permanently correct the problem. Due to the fact that nothing happened as a result of the engineering gaffe, the crisis was kept hidden from the public for almost 20 years. It was publicized in a lengthy article in The New Yorker in 1995.

Evidently, having a crappy business model (as we've seen recently) was nothing out of the ordinary for Citicorp.