NEW YORK | One World Trade Center | 1,776' Pinnacle / 1,373' Roof | 108 FLOORS

[Matty]

Looking at those old birdcage designs is scary.

To think they actually thought of building them... *shudder*

[Daquan13]

Well, we don't have to worry about those now.

The coffin can and should be nailed shut on those.

[Rise To The Top]

I wonder what will happen first... WFC topping out, or FT reaching ground level.

I wounder what would happen if Daquan13 was banned from this thread for a week.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Chicago_Illa_Noiz

This building... wack.

What a waste of a fifth post.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by mcdonnell77

I just think with all these proposed buildings and the burj dubai, the freedom tower will look tiny and it is not gonna be finished until 2010. Isnt the Chicago Spire suppost to be completed then also?

I dont think the Freedom Tower will look tiny, regardless of whatever is built elsewhere. It's on the Manhattan skyline. In either case, those other towers will be "afterthoughts" in the public consiousness. The FT was given a strict height limit of 1776 ft, including spire. It wasn't really meant to compete with "world's tallest" around the world, although at that height it would have been.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by CoolCzech

Wall Street Journal

Rebuilding Ground Zero
By STEVE MALANGA
May 12, 2007; Page A11

A few weeks ago, as Mr. Silverstein and I met at his headquarters on the 38th floor of 7 World Trade Center, the 52-story skyscraper that he quickly rebuilt just north of where the twin towers once stood, we could watch the reconstruction of the rest of the Trade Center site proceed. He pointed out to me the footprints of the three other office towers he is developing there and predicted with some confidence that the site, which will include a fourth skyscraper, the so-called Freedom Tower, as well as a new transportation terminal, will be completed within five years. "I just want to hang around until then to see this through to completion," the 75-year-old developer told me.

.........he built a 1.9 million square foot skyscraper -- the first 7 World Trade Center -- which nearly bankrupted him. Drexel Burnham Lambert planned to lease the entire tower but pulled out just days before signing the deal, when government investigations into the activities of the head of its junk bond department, Michael Milken, emerged as a threat to the firm's future growth. Drexel ultimately collapsed, and Mr. Silverstein was left without a major tenant until Salomon Bros. leased half the building two years later.

Yet despite that brush with failure, erecting 7 World Trade only sharpened his appetite for more. "I remember at the topping out of 7 World Trade looking up at the twin towers and thinking, my building is huge, but it is made diminutive by the twin towers," he says. "So I said to myself, wouldn't it be incredible someday to own those?"

.........."After the attacks, I said to my wife, if you want to go sailing, I'll do that. If you want me to rebuild the Trade Center, I'll do that," says Mr. Silverstein. "And she said to me, you know you won't be satisfied with anything except rebuilding, so let's just get on with it."

Mr. Silverstein began planning for a new 7 World Trade -- which he controlled entirely and which had collapsed on 9/11 along with the towers -- barely a month after the attacks. Although in early 2002 Gov. Pataki and the head of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. asked him to slow down preparations for rebuilding 7 World Trade to accommodate government planning for the rest of the site, he pressed ahead, putting shovels in the ground by May of that year and opening the tower for business in the spring of 2006.

"I simply did not listen to all the naysayers because I was spending my money, not theirs, and fortunately I had no government involvement in 7 World Trade, which gave me the opportunity to do what I do best," he says.

The agency charged with leading the redevelopment was torn by conflicting visions and tried to shoehorn as much as possible into their plan -- a museum, a memorial to the dead, a home for a major New York cultural institution, residential development and office space. Critics urged cutting back the office space to make room for these varied uses. In the midst of his re-election campaign, Mayor Bloomberg even declared that the market couldn't support new skyscrapers anyway.

Mayor Bloomberg threatened to withhold Liberty Bonds, which Congress had created to help finance reconstruction, while the vice chairman of the Port Authority called Mr. Silverstein "greedy" for not agreeing to the state's demands.

It is fitting that the final plan for Ground Zero owes such a debt to a private developer and the marketplace. The terrorists attacked the twin towers because they embodied the values of our democratic free-market economic system. The memorial that will rise on Ground Zero will make no reference to those values, nor seek to celebrate our way of life. Rather the memorial, in the way of postmodern monuments, will merely ask us to ponder the absence of those who died.

The real monument on the site will be its skyscrapers, and the buzz and hum of activity within them will celebrate the continuing triumph of the system that the terrorists attacked. "After five and a half years of laborious involvement in politics, we finally are at a point where we are building," says Mr. Silverstein triumphantly. "This is what I do."


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117893280555400749.html

Good article. Silverstein is a builder, it's what he does best. If the government had been out of the way, a lot more could have been completed by now. But it all worked out in the end.

[Daquan13]

Originally Posted by NYguy

What a waste of a fifth post.

Good job, CoolCzech!!

Yeah, as of late several members have written posts here talking about everything else other than the Freedom Tower.

I'll be so glad when the steel starts to rise so that this negative talk from them can come to a screeching halt!!

Yeah, all those delays, BS and red tape in getting the land rebuilt should be behind us now.
It's all a done deal.

People might not have liked Silvie in the beginning, myself being one of them, but I think he did real good in the end. The insurers were trying to put up relentless rebelliance and woudn't pay him the funds he was seeking, but in the end, he showed them who's boss and they in turn, had to show him the money!!

[CoolCzech]

Originally Posted by MLG Allstar

I wounder what would happen if Daquan13 was banned from this thread for a week.

I wonder what would happen if you just put Daquan13 on your ignore list

[CoolCzech]

What I find amazing about that article is the part that reads,

"Gov. Pataki and the head of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. asked him to slow down preparations for rebuilding 7 World Trade to accommodate government planning for the rest of the site..."

I mean, not only did the government drag out redevelopment at the site by at least half a decade, it also wanted to get in the way of the only genuine building that had been done to date!

[CoolCzech]

Originally Posted by NYguy

I dont think the Freedom Tower will look tiny, regardless of whatever is built elsewhere. It's on the Manhattan skyline. In either case, those other towers will be "afterthoughts" in the public consiousness. The FT was given a strict height limit of 1776 ft, including spire. It wasn't really meant to compete with "world's tallest" around the world, although at that height it would have been.

1,776 feet would have been the world's tallest, first of all, if it weren't for subsequent building announcements in places like Dubai. Even if the FT was going all the way up to the legal limit of 2,000 feet, the BD would STILL be taller. Besides, I think by now it should be obvious to anyone that Dubai is bound and determined to have the WTB title, no matter what. Aesthetic considerations certainly won't prevent them from putting up a 4,000 footer if they have to. I don't think anyone would want to see something like that going up in downtown Manhattan - not anyone reasonable, anyway.

Desperately trying to reclaim the WTB title is a fool's game; in a way, I'm glad the FAA limit effectively sidelines the USA from participating.

[Daquan13]

Originally Posted by CoolCzech

What I find amazing about that article is the part that reads,

"Gov. Pataki and the head of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. asked him to slow down preparations for rebuilding 7 World Trade to accommodate government planning for the rest of the site..."

I mean, not only did the government drag out redevelopment at the site by at least half a decade, it also wanted to get in the way of the only genuine building that had been done to date!

That's proof right there that Pataki and the gov't were purposely creating a slowdown!! A work stoppage. 7 WTC moved right along. They couldn't shake that one, so their next target to poke at was the poor Freedom Tower, putting it through a battery of at least four design changes over the past 4-1/2 years!!

Then came the memorial. They pulled on its hamstrings as well. The new PATH Station also, as seen its share of setbacks and delays. Pataki was nothing but a hinderance, a stumbling block and a clusterf**k!!!

Not to be left out of this snafu is also the Port Authority, which played into the gov't's hands as well.

They wanted things put off as long as possible, but Silverstein's stubborness and determination to rebuild Ground Zero had paid off handsomely.

[Swede]

Originally Posted by Matty

Looking at those old birdcage designs is scary.
To think they actually thought of building them... *shudder*

Which Is one reason I sooo did not understand picking that plan in the first place. The UA one was by far my favourite. But the towers planned and u/c now...

[Realthang]

I've noticed that any significant deliveries are generally made early in the day, probably to minimize the effect on New York traffic...

Today's delivery is the next steel column to be installed!

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by CoolCzech

1,776 feet would have been the world's tallest, first of all, if it weren't for subsequent building announcements in places like Dubai.

It would have been the world's tallest period. Even now, it would stand as world's tallest. Those buildings keep their titles until they have been surpassed in reality, not announcements. But 1776 it was (and is). By the way, the building was also referred to as the 1776 Building (before Pataki's Freedom Tower). It was Libeskind's idea to mark that height with the tip of the spire, but Childs had other ideas, creating an observation deck on the antenna platform, at 1776 ft. That tower was basically pushed higher than Libeskind's original plan because the broadcasters decided they would move back to the site, and not build a 2000 ft tower in Jersey City or Bayonne.

This was one version...

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Realthang

I've noticed that any significant deliveries are generally made early in the day, probably to minimize the effect on New York traffic...

Today's delivery is the next steel column to be installed!

Good news.....

[CoolCzech]

Obviously, NASA better get cranking on the Space Elevator to satisfy WTB fans and put Dubai in its place.

Maybe the terrestrial end should be located in Manhattan?

[Daquan13]

Originally Posted by NYguy

It would have been the world's tallest period. Even now, it would stand as world's tallest. Those buildings keep their titles until they have been surpassed in reality, not announcements. But 1776 it was (and is). By the way, the building was also referred to as the 1776 Building (before Pataki's Freedom Tower). It was Libeskind's idea to mark that height with the tip of the spire, but Childs had other ideas, creating an observation deck on the antenna platform, at 1776 ft. That tower was basically pushed higher than Libeskind's original plan because the broadcasters decided they would move back to the site, and not build a 2000 ft tower in Jersey City or Bayonne.

This was one version...

Hideous!! I'm so glad THAT disgusting pile of junk wasn't built! Looks like something from one of the old '50s B&W sci-fi movies like When Worlds Collide, or something like that!

You'd think that more than one steel beam or column would be delivered at a time, instead of just one. If steel is still being delivered, then why only one piece at a time?

Not complaining at all, but the way that I've often seen steel being delivered to construction sites is by the truck load, meaning a pile of columns on a long flatbed truck.

[ramvid01]

Originally Posted by Daquan13

Hideous!! I'm so glad THAT disgusting pile of junk wasn't built! Looks like something from one of the old '50s B&W sci-fi movies like When Worlds Collide, or something like that!

You'd think that more than one steel beam or column would be delivered at a time, instead of just one. If steel is still being delivered, then why only one piece at a time?

Not complaining at all, but the way that I've often seen steel being delivered to construction sites is by the truck load, meaning a pile of columns on a long flatbed truck.

You gotta remember, these columns are HUGE and unless the beams where smaller/thinner, its gonna be one at a time.

[Daquan13]

It probably would have been better off if Pataki just announced WHEN the base would start being built, instead of telling us lie, after lie, after lie.

And then end up getting the steel for the tower in "bits & pieces"!! Are the columns THAT huge where only one can be delivered at a time? Or will the interior ones in the base be smaller?

I realise that there will be no interior support columns from the ground floor up, so maybe when the tower gets past the base, its steel will rocket into the sky.

[NYguy]

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