That means it will stick up like a sore thumb.

Hmm,

With that kind of thinking, the empire state building may have never been built. The way the empire state building stands tall by itself has made it a focal point and a symbol of NYC. The most exciting building for me that may get built in the USA is the Chicago Spire.

NYC defined the term skyscraper, and now it is seems it cannot grow any taller. Other cities are reaching taller heights.

The people of the city of Dubai will be saying the buildings in NYC used to seem so tall. Now they look much shorter!

I say it is time to go to new heights if possible.

Stern, I agree, but FT's height might have been balanced out if other four towers were bumped by at least 1/2 of their current height. Question is whether the city needs that much office space, and how many nimby mouths would need to get duct taped to get things rolling. I'm not even talking about the budget.

The Freedom Tower is suitable for the city. Like Lecom said, Manhattan doesn't need all this office space. By building immensly large skyscrapers that are not needed would just make NYC a useless, material wasting facade like Dubai. When this city needs a skyscraper they build it with stern backbone and definition and class. Not un-needed height. Let's not forget the up in coming supertalls that are going to be built on the west side. The height limit for most of that area is unlimited, so for the people who want to see some significant high-rises in NYC, it won't be much longer.

Originally Posted by STERNyc
Personally I wouldnt like to see a building that high. In addition to there being no need, I think aesthetically the current height works best with the skyline. Just image the Burj Dubai in place of the Freedom Tower, it would ruin the skyline.
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I really agree with that. I don't want to see the NYC skyline become a caricature of itself.

Hong Kong is rated by some that way because of all its semi-highrise tenements. There's no way that there can ever be that many office or truly high-rise residentials in any city.

And there's no way New Yorkers would or should want to live as crowded as Hong Kong residents do. As for Dubai: it's a Las Vegas run out of control, an example of what New York might look like without a planning commission.

As for NYC development... have you been paying any attention to what is going on in mid-town these days? NYC is on the verge of an incredible explosion of tall and supertall construction. Whole boulevards are about to be added.:banana:

I disagree, at some point in the past Chicago and New York built tall towers all about ego as well, showing their capitalism might to the World. Dubai will eventually mature itself and it will be market concious eventually. Dubai is a young city unlike Chicago and New York that are more established mature.

Dubai will... already has... wound up looking like New York would have without a planning commission. It's simply not something we would want for the Capital of the World.

Exactly, but that was in the past. New York is about so much more now. You don't see comments like "this tower will put New York on the map", the City is so far gone from that state that a new world's tallest really won't mean much.

But when Chicago and New York built their towers, it was mostly out of need, not ego. There was limited space, and the population was tight. The skyscraper actually helped these cities grow. Does Dubai need all of the highrises it's building now? Of course not. It's not just the skyscrapers, but pretty much all of the projects in Dubai are of the "hey, look at me world" variety. New York, with all of its great projects, was never about that. It takes more than tall buildings to make a great city. And New York, which hasn't had a world's tallest in over 3 decades has proved that consistantly.

That's exactly what it is. The City's image of itself is about so much more now. Just look how long it's taken the rest of the world to catch up.

NY Times

What a View to Behold, and It’s Really Something

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images...600_blocks.jpg

In a view facing north at the construction site, steel columns of the Freedom Tower’s south perimeter are visible, having risen almost to street level.


By DAVID W. DUNLAP
January 25, 2007

YOU can see the progress of construction at the Freedom Tower.

To put it more emphatically, you can see the progress of construction at the Freedom Tower. Today.

Stand on Vesey Street, between Greenwich and Washington Streets. Look through the chain-link fences and over the Jersey barriers. The tops of six columns of the tower’s south perimeter are now visible, sprouting from the depths of ground zero. A seventh column, standing alone nearby, is where the Freedom Tower’s east plaza will be.

You no longer need a pass. Or an invitation. Or a hard hat. Instead, that venerable tradition of sidewalk superintendence, in which passers-by get to gawk and kibitz as buildings rise, can now begin in earnest at the World Trade Center site.

For the last five years, except for the temporary PATH terminal, construction at the site occurred entirely out of pedestrians’ view, 70 feet below street level. On the sidewalk, you could hear the activity and sometimes feel it. Crane booms could be spotted. But you had to take the word of government officials or reporters that anything was actually being built down there.

Now you can see for yourself.

“I think people will be surprised,” said David M. Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the architects of the tower. “Steel goes so quickly. It’s all fabricated off-site, so you never see that work. By the time you get it to the site, it goes up like an Erector Set.”

Anthony E. Shorris, whom Gov. Eliot Spitzer has named to be executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said the trade center project is “moving from the theoretical and conceptual into the real, tangible and visible.”

“The momentum is powerful in terms of construction, in terms of the marketplace, in terms of perception,” he said. “Those are all momentums we would slow at our peril.”

But wasn’t it Mr. Shorris who cast a small cloud of doubt last month when he said the new Spitzer administration would take a “fresh look” at the Freedom Tower?

“There are lots of aspects to the Freedom Tower beyond the physical, a lot of questions one can pose that don’t have anything to do with columns,” he said this week. By that, he meant who will occupy the building and how it will be financed, now that the Port Authority has taken over the project from Larry A. Silverstein, the original developer.

For his part, Mr. Silverstein said, “It’s comforting to look out of my office here at 7 World Trade Center and know that we are getting closer to the day when the entire World Trade Center site will be fully built.”

MEANWHILE, for sidewalk superintendents without his privileged vantage, here is a brief guide:

Looking south from Vesey Street, you can see the tops of seven columns. They are visible from the sidewalk now because a second tier of steel has been added to each column, bringing them up to about 8 feet below street level, or 62 feet from the concrete slab at the base of the building’s foundation. Installation of the first tier began Dec. 19 with the ceremonial setting of a column, technically designated G7.3, bearing American flags and the words “Freedom Tower.”

The cluster of six columns delineates all but the western and eastern edges of the tower’s southern perimeter. The slender column near the middle of the cluster does not have to bear as much load as its brawnier companions because the entryway to the Freedom Tower will be directly above. That means this particular column line will extend only as far as the ground floor.

“It looks like a dwarf in a forest of sequoias,” Mr. Childs said.

The next spectacle for passers-by will be the erection by the end of February of two tower cranes. More perimeter columns will emerge and, gradually, the building’s massive concrete core will rise to street level.

That should satisfy one concern that was on the minds of Michael and Nancy Shoup of Brenham, Tex., and Bill and Hilda Atkinson of Bryan, Tex., as they looked over the site from Vesey Street this week.

“If those columns are all that’s going to hold up a 1,776-foot tower, I’m not going up in it,” Mr. Shoup said, with a smile that suggested he knew there was more to come

OMG February?! I'm counting down the days. :banana: :banana: :banana:

I'd PAY to see that one!!:banana: :worship:

You CAN... it's called airplane tickets... ;)

But I was planning on walking there, wise guy. Haha!!

Actually, I wouldn't go to Ground Zero if I DIDN'T fly to New York. But now, it's just too friggen cold to even THINK about going there.

Man u don't know about cold ;) Yesterday morning we had -20 degrees celsius here and next week it's going to be maybe over -30...

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to see those cranes... Maybe I should visit NY again in 2008 or something...

hey guys 85 degrees in BEAUTIFUL PALM DESERT,CA, ANYWAY CHANGING THE TOPIC ,NYC WILL GET TALL TOWERS ON THE WESTSIDE,THAT IS GREAT.:)

Showoff, haha!!

Maybe in the spring when the weather is much more warmer and accommodating, I'll go there and take some pics.

Things have changed around here, but I can't find the memorial thead.
Sorry for the unrelated post.