One World Trade Center
One World Trade Center, also known as One WTC and the Freedom Tower, is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, One World Trade Center is the tallest building in the United States, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, and the seventh-tallest in the world. The supertall structure has the same name as the North Tower of the original World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The skyscraper stands on the northwest corner of the World Trade Center site, on the site of the original 6 World Trade Center. It is bounded by West Street to the west, Vesey Street to the north, Fulton Street to the south, and Washington Street to the east.
The construction of below-ground utility relocations, footings, and foundations for the new building began on April 27, 2006. One World Trade Center became the tallest structure in New York City on April 30, 2012, when it surpassed the height of the Empire State Building. The tower's steel structure was topped out on August 30, 2012. On May 10, 2013, after the final component of the skyscraper's spire was installed, it reached a height of. Its height in feet references the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776. The building opened on November 3, 2014; the One World Observatory opened on May 29, 2015.
On March 26, 2009, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey confirmed that the building would be officially known by its legal name of One World Trade Center, rather than its colloquial name of Freedom Tower. The building has 94 stories, with the top floor numbered 104.
The new World Trade Center complex will eventually include five high-rise office buildings built along Greenwich Street, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, located just south of One World Trade Center where the original Twin Towers stood, and the World Trade Center Transportation Hub to its east. The construction is part of an effort to memorialize and rebuild following the destruction of the original World Trade Center complex.
History
Original building (1971–2001)
The construction of the original World Trade Center was conceived as an urban renewal project and spearheaded by David Rockefeller. The project was intended to help revitalize Lower Manhattan. The project was planned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which hired architect Minoru Yamasaki. The twin towers at 1 and 2 World Trade Center were designed as framed tube structures, giving tenants open floor plans, unobstructed by columns or walls. One World Trade Center was the North Tower, and Two World Trade Center was the South Tower. Each tower was over high, and occupied about of the total of the site's land. Of the 110 stories in each tower, 8 were set aside as mechanical floors. All the remaining floors were open for tenants. Each floor of the tower had of available space. The North and South tower had of total office space.Construction of the North Tower began in August 1966; extensive use of prefabricated components sped up the construction process. The first tenants moved into the North Tower in October 1971. At the time, the original One World Trade Center became the tallest building in the world, at tall. After a -tall antenna was installed in 1978, the highest point of the North Tower reached. In the 1970s, four other low-level buildings were built as part of the World Trade Center complex. A seventh building was built in the mid-1980s. The entire complex of seven buildings had a combined total of of office space.
At 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001, five hijackers affiliated with al-Qaeda crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the northern facade of the North Tower. After burning for 102 minutes, the North Tower collapsed due to structural failure at 10:28 a.m.. When the North Tower collapsed, debris fell on the nearby 7 World Trade Center, which caught fire and collapsed at 5:21 p.m.. Together with a simultaneous attack on the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a passenger revolt that resulted in a plane crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the attacks resulted in the deaths of 2,996 people.
Planning
World Trade Center master plan
Following the destruction of the original World Trade Center, there was debate regarding the future of the World Trade Center site. There were proposals for its reconstruction almost immediately, and by 2002, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation had organized a competition to determine how to use the site. The proposals were part of a larger plan to memorialize the September 11 attacks and rebuild the complex. Already the site was becoming a tourist attraction; in the year following the attacks the Ground Zero site became the most visited place in the United States. On September 10, 2002, the Viewing Wall, a temporary display containing information about the attacks and listing the names of the dead, opened to the public. The same year, then–New York Governor George Pataki faced accusations of cronyism for supposedly using his influence to get the winning architect's design picked as a personal favor for his friend and campaign contributor, Ronald Lauder.When the public rejected the first round of designs, a second, more open competition took place in December 2002, in which a design by Daniel Libeskind was selected as the winner in February 2003. Other designs were submitted by Richard Meier, Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey, and Steven Holl; William Pedersen; and Foster and Partners. This design underwent many revisions, mainly because of disagreements with developer Larry Silverstein, who held the lease to the World Trade Center site at that time. Peter Walker and Michael Arad's "Reflecting Absence" proposal was selected as the site's 9/11 Memorial in January 2004.
Tower design
The architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill subsequently replaced Libeskind as the new One World Trade Center's primary designer. SOM partner Ken Lewis recalled that the new building had to provide office space for various types of tenants while alluding to the Twin Towers and filling a metaphorical gap in New York City's skyline,. David Childs of SOM, the main architect of One World Trade Center, designed a symmetrical tower that tapered on upper floors. Childs's design contrasted with Libeskind's plans for an asymmetrical tower with an antenna at its western end; disagreements over the designs threatened to delay the project. After Childs and Libeskind had worked out their disagreements, they announced a preliminary design for the building, dubbed the Freedom Tower, on December 19, 2003. The plan called for a tower that had a parallelogram floor plan, an asymmetrical spire, and a rooftop turbine.There was criticism concerning the limited number of floors that were designated for office space and other amenities in an early plan. Only 82 floors would have been habitable, and the total office space of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex would have been reduced by more than in comparison with the original complex. The floor limit was imposed by Silverstein, who expressed concern that higher floors would be a liability in the event of a future terrorist attack or other incident. Much of the building's height would have consisted of a large, open-air steel lattice structure on the roof of the tower, containing wind turbines and "sky gardens". The New York City Police Department also expressed concerns about the amount of glass used in the building, as well as the structure's proximity to the West Side Highway, both of which the NYPD claimed would make the site vulnerable to another terrorist attack. In a later design, the highest occupiable floor became comparable to the original World Trade Center, and the open-air lattice was removed from the plans.
A final design for the "Freedom Tower" was formally unveiled on June 28, 2005. To address security issues raised by the NYPD, a concrete base was added to the design in April of that year. The design originally included plans to clad the base in glass prisms in order to address criticism that the building might have looked uninviting and resembled a "concrete bunker". However, the prisms were later found to be unworkable, as preliminary testing revealed that the prismatic glass easily shattered into large and dangerous shards. As a result, it was replaced by a simpler facade consisting of stainless steel panels and blast-resistant glass.
Contrasting with Libeskind's original plan, the tower's final design tapered octagonally as it rose. Its designers stated that the tower would be a "monolithic glass structure reflecting the sky and topped by a sculpted antenna". In 2006, Larry Silverstein commented on a planned completion date: "By 2012 we should have a completely rebuilt World Trade Center, more magnificent, more spectacular than it ever was." On April 26, 2006, the PANYNJ approved a conceptual framework that allowed foundation construction to begin. A formal agreement was drafted the following day, the 75th anniversary of the 1931 opening of the Empire State Building. Construction began in May; a formal groundbreaking ceremony took place when the first construction team arrived.
Construction
The symbolic cornerstone of One World Trade Center was laid in a ceremony on July 4, 2004. The stone had an inscription supposedly written by Arthur J. Finkelstein. Construction was delayed until 2006 due to disputes over money, security, and design. The last major issues were resolved on April 26, 2006, when a deal was made between developer Larry Silverstein and the PANYNJ, so the cornerstone was temporarily removed from the site on June 23, 2006. Soon after, explosives were detonated at the construction site for two months to clear bedrock for the building's foundation, onto which of concrete was poured by November 2007. In a December 18, 2006, ceremony held in nearby Battery Park City, members of the public were invited to sign the first steel beam installed onto the building's base. It was welded onto the building's base on December 19, 2006. Foundation and steel installation began shortly afterward, so the tower's footings and foundation were nearly complete within a year. An estimate in February 2007 placed the initial construction cost of One World Trade Center at about $3 billion, or.In January 2008, two cranes were moved onto the site. Construction of the tower's concrete core, which began after the cranes arrived, reached street level by May 17. The base was not finished until two years later, after which construction of the office floors began and the first glass windows were installed; during 2010, floors were constructed at a rate of about one per week. An advanced "cocoon" scaffolding system was installed to protect workers from falling, and was the first such safety system installed on a steel structure in the city. The tower reached 52 floors and was over tall by December 2010. The tower's steel frame was halfway complete by then, but grew to 80 floors by the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, at which time its concrete flooring had reached 68 floors and the glass cladding had reached 54 floors.
In 2009, the PANYNJ changed the official name of the building from "Freedom Tower" to "One World Trade Center", stating that this name was the "easiest for people to identify with". The "Freedom Tower" name had also been subject to ridicule on programs like Saturday Night Live. The name change also served a practical purpose: real estate agents believed that it would be easier to lease space in a building with a traditional street address. The change came after board members of the PANYNJ voted to sign a 21-year lease deal with Vantone Industrial Co., a Chinese real estate company, which would become the building's first commercial tenant to sign a lease. Vantone planned to create the China Center, a trade and cultural facility, covering on floors 64 through 69.
Mass media company Condé Nast became One WTC's anchor tenant in May 2011, leasing and relocating from 4 Times Square. While under construction, the tower was specially illuminated on several occasions. For example, it was lit in red, white, and blue for Independence Day and the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, and it was illuminated in pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The tower's loading dock could not be finished in time to move equipment into the completed building, so five temporary loading bays were added at a cost of millions of dollars. The temporary PATH station was not to be removed until its official replacement, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, was completed, blocking access to the planned loading area. Chadbourne & Parke, a Midtown Manhattan-based law firm, was supposed to lease in January 2012, but the deal was abruptly canceled that March.