the middle of the bridge. The film was subsequently sold to Paramount Studios, who then duplicated the footage for newsreels in black-and-white and distributed the film worldwide to movie theaters. Castle Films also received distribution rights for 8 mm home video. Elliott and Monroe's original films of the construction and collapse of the bridge were shot on 16 mm Kodachrome color film, but most copies in circulation are in black and white because newsreels of the day copied the film onto 35 mm black-and-white stock. There were also film speed discrepancies between Monroe and Elliot's footage, with Monroe filming his footage in 24 fps while Elliott had filmed his footage at 16 fps. As a result, most copies in circulation also show the bridge oscillating approximately 50% faster than real time, due to an assumption during conversion that the film was shot at 24 frames per second rather than the actual 16 fps. In 1998, The Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". This footage is commonly shown to engineering, architecture, and physics students as a means to teach about engineering disaster. The dismantling of the towers and side spans — having survived the collapse of the main span, but being damaged beyond repair — began shortly after the collapse and continued into May 1943. The United States' participation in World War II, as well as engineering and finance issues, delayed plans to replace the bridge. Westbound bridge (1950) After the infamous fall of the original bridge, Professor Farquharson was commissioned again to test new designs for the bridge at the University of Washington, the home of these models. Tests ensured the new design would have a different outcome than the first and construction began on April 12, 1948, following the completion of a financing and insurance plan. A major earthquake struck the construction site on April 13, 1949, but the only damage was to a cable that fell into the water and was recovered; a fire two months later on the west tower damaged equipment and tools but did not cause permanent damage. The towers were complete in July 1949 and the cables for the new bridge were finished on January 16, 1950. The current westbound bridge was designed and rebuilt with open trusses, stiffening struts and openings in