At $3.4 billion (or is it $3.8 billion?), the new Port Authority Trans-Hudson terminal at the World Trade Center will very likely be the single most expensive subway station on earth. Riders traveling between the Financial District and New Jersey have been using the $323 million temporary station since it opened a decade ago. Read More
Crane-lifts up the side of any building are a delicate affair, let alone up the side of 104-story glassy tower with sloping sides at the center of the most-watched construction site in the world. That is why it seemed like the Port Authority was taking its time this morning as its construction workers carefully hoisted up the first crowning piece of 1 World Trade Center’s spire. After all, the media, as always, were watching.
A small cohort of workers in high-vis jackets went about the work of checking the heavy lift sling and talking back and forth through the crackle of radio static. There was a quick speech for the cameras, and then without much more ceremony than that, honeycombed steel circle edged up into the air. Nothing more complicated than any of the tens of thousands of lifts the north crane has made in the construction of this building, if only important now in its symbolism: the final pieces. Read More
Until the towers fell, no one particularly loved the World Trade Center. It served as a useful landmark but was otherwise too big, too empty, too cold. Well, except for the underground shopping center, which was one the busiest in the country. Numerous brands had their top-grossing stores at the World Trade Center.
Today, retail may be the least obvious part of the redevelopment of Ground Zero, as the memorial bustles with people, the museum awaits completion and two of the four new towers have already taken their place on the skyline. But shopping will still be an important part of the new World Trade Center, just as it was with the old one. Read More
These days, a certain jolt of excitement takes hold gazing at Lower Manhattan from a far. Maybe you’re crossing Greenwich Street in the Village and look south, or corkscrewing out of the Lincolln Tunnel helix in Jersey. Even stepping off the plane at LaGuardia or JFK, 1 World Trade Center is plainly visible. It may not be the most beautiful building in the city.
Yet like its twin siblings, the tower has become an undeniable landmark, the sort of symbol of rebirth—or at the very least progress—politicians and planners had long hoped for with the rebuilding of the World Trade Center.
But get too close, and the landscape quickly turns from inspiration to depredation. Still. Read More
We first noticed it two weeks ago, crossing the Pulaski Bridge between Long Island City and Greenpoint. There it was, monolithic on the skyline as it has been for months now. But there was something different about 1 World Trade Center. Poking up from beneath the skyline of the warehouses in the foreground and the office buildings beyond was a band of red lights. It was hard to tell from there, but maybe there were some blue ones, and it was a U.S.A theme, all be it out of order (white-red-blue) in honor of the Olympics.
Then, there it was again this Friday, almost entirely red, plainly visible up and down Sixth Avenue (above), and no doubt the rest of the city. People have started noticing, and pictures have been making the rounds on Twitter, especially this one at right, shot by Inga Sarda-Sorensen. So we asked the Port Authority—what gives? Read More
After about 45 minutes this morning, dozens of firefighters got a blaze under control on the 88th floor of 1 World Trade Center. The Fire Department did not yet know the cause of the fire, which only hit the one floor. There were no injuries reported, according to an FDNY spokesman.
The fire was reported a little before 8 a.m., and 84 firefighters from 26 units responded. That is not an unusual number for a high-rise blaze, according to the spokesman. Read More
After all the wrangling over the updated designs for the Durst Organization-overseen 1 World Trade Center (we’ve heard there was a list of 20 changes the developer wanted from the Port, all eventually granted), new renderings have been released for the project. They show a building that looks a little sharper, perhaps a little less striking, but something still bound to dominate the skyline, as if that were not already abundantly clear from the just-about-topped-out tower. Have a look for yourself and decide whether this is an improvement. Read More
Correction 8/3: The Port Authority has not topped out the tower but simply installed the presidential column. The installation of the final steel beam, and thus the topping out of the tower, is yet to come.
A month and a half ago, President Obama arrived at ground zero to much fanfare to inspect the towers rising there and maybe even finish them off.
There was some talk that (maybe) the hemisphere’s biggest building was set to top out, but that happened only this morning at a brief ceremony. Construction workers and police officers assembled to sign the final column of 1 World Trade Center before it was hauled more than 100 stories into place, according to a pool report. Read More
Two weeks ago, Port Authority executive director Pat Foye announced that the agency had found a new home for Fritz Koenig’s Sphere, the sculpture that once graced the middle of the World Trade Center plaza and was nearly destroyed on 9/11. After the attacks, the giant bronze orb, now greatly dented but otherwise intact, was installed in Battery Park City, viewed by many as a sign of the city’s resilience.
“Next week, the Port Authority will announce a new temporary home for the Koenig, the iconic bronze sculpture that miraculously survived the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center,” read an email that showed up unprompted in newsrooms across the city on May 11.
Only thing is, that week, as well as this week, have come and gone without any further news. Read More
The fate of the World Trade Center, having been debated and arbitrated by every constituency in town, now rests with a panel of architects and engineers in Chicago. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat is the international arbiter of skyscrapers the world over. All skyscrapers are not created equal, and it is up to the Council to decide exactly how tall they all are.
The problem at 1 World Trade Center, as has been raging across front pages all week, is that the Durst Organization, the august real estate family and minority partner in the city’s newly christened tallest structure, has convinced the Port Authority to forgo a radome, a white fiberglass sheath that was to have encased the 408-foot mast atop the 1,368-foot tower. The mast takes the tower from the symbolic height of the original towers to the perhaps too symbolic height of 1,776 feet, first envisioned by Daniel Libeskind a decade ago.
The problem is that the council does not recognize antennae, flagpoles, signage or other superfluous structures as contributing to the height of the building. That is why the Willis Tower, 1,451 feet, ranks eighth tallest in the world, even though two broadcasting arrays bring its total height to 1,729 feet, the second tallest in the world behind the Burj Khalifa.
This seems absolutely backwards—why encourage “spires,” useless poles with a glimmer of design intent, while forgoing actual, functional structures like antenna and signage. Whatever happened to form follows function? Read More
