This September marks 12 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City. Not surprisingly, the building of the new tower is substantially behind schedule and over budget. I recently made a visit by foot, the first in many years, to catch a glimpse of the work in progress. I cannot speak to the need of such a project – everything about the tower complex is and has been highly controversial. However, I did like the clean, sleek, faceted design.

One World Trade Center (also 1 World Trade Center or 1 WTC, formerly known as the Freedom Tower) is the primary building of the new World Trade Center complex in New York City’s Lower Manhattan. The 104-story supertall skyscraper stands on the northwest corner of the 16-acre World Trade Center site, occupying the former location of the original 6 World Trade Center. The building is bordered to the west by West Street, to the north by Vesey Street, to the south by Fulton Street, and to the east by Washington Street. Construction on below-ground utility relocations, footings, and foundations for the building began on April 27, 2006.[11] On March 30, 2009, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey confirmed that the building would be known by its legal name, One World Trade Center, rather than the colloquial name, Freedom Tower.

The tower’s steel structure topped out on August 30, 2012. On May 10, 2013, the final component of the skyscraper’s spire was installed, making One World Trade Center the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere and the third-tallest building in the world by pinnacle height. Its spire reaches a symbolic height of 1,776 feet in reference to the year of the United States Declaration of Independence. It has been the tallest building in New York City since April 30, 2012, when it surpassed the height of the Empire State Building. The new World Trade Center complex will also feature three other high-rise office buildings, located along Greenwich Street, and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, located just south of One World Trade Center, where the Twin Towers once stood. The construction is part of an effort to memorialize and rebuild following the destruction of the original World Trade Center complex during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

One World Trade Center’s top floor will be designated as 105. The building will have 86 usable above-ground floors, of which 78 will be assigned as office space (approximately 2,600,000 square feet. The base will occupy floors 1–19, including a 65-ft-high public lobby. The office stories will begin at floor 20, and run through floor 63. There will be a sky lobby on floor 64, and then office floors will resume between floors 65–90. Meanwhile, floors 91–99 and 103–105 will be designated as mechanical space. The design also includes a three-story observation deck located on floors 100–102, as well as broadcast and antenna facilities, all supported by both above- and below-ground mechanical infrastructure for the building and its adjacent public spaces. Below-ground tenant parking and storage, shopping, and access to the PATH and subway trains and the World Financial Center are also provided. There will be approximately 55,000 square feet of below-ground retail space. A plan to build a restaurant near the top of the tower, similar to the original World Trade Center’s Windows on the World, was abandoned as logistically impractical. The window-washing tracks are located on a 16-square-foot area which will be denoted as floor 110, in a symbolic reference to the 110 stories of the original Twin Towers.

The design was originally awarded to Daniel Liebskind in 2002. Most of Libeskind’s ideas were discarded and David Childs, one of the center’s developer Silverstein’s favorite architects, revised the original plans and became the project architect.

From the 20th floor upwards, the square edges of the tower’s cubic base are chamfered back, transforming the building’s shape into eight tall isosceles triangles, or an elongated square antiprism. Near its middle, the tower forms a perfect octagon in-plan, and then culminates in a glass parapet whose shape is a square oriented 45 degrees from the base. A 408-foot sculpted mast containing the broadcasting antenna is secured by a system of cables, and rises from a circular support ring which will contain additional broadcasting and maintenance equipment. At night, an intense beam of light will be projected above the spire, being visible over 1,000 feet into the air above The Tower.

Related Posts: Dead Man Gawking, Hope Springs Eternal, Vows of Remembrance, It Behooves One, Post-9/11 World, Ground Zero, 911