 | | 06-29-2005, 10:53 AM |
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| New WTC Design Made Public
 
From CNN.com Quote:
New WTC tower design made public
From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN New York
Wednesday, June 29, 2005; Posted: 11:41 a.m. EDT (15:41 GMT)
NEW YORK (CNN) -- New York officials released the latest design for the signature building at the World Trade Center site Wednesday after revising it to make the tower more secure.
Gov. George Pataki ordered the design changes because police were concerned that the tower's placement adjacent to West Street, a major thoroughfare along the west side of Manhattan, would make it vulnerable to a truck bomb.
Instead of being 25 feet from West Street, the tower will be set back 90 feet, and its 200-foot base will be covered in steel and titanium intended to make it blast-resistant.
"This new design reflects a soaring tribute to freedom and a bedrock commitment to safety and security," Pataki said.
The building, which has been dubbed "The Freedom Tower" by Pataki, will remain 1,776 feet, symbolizing the year the United States declared its independence.
It would be almost 100 feet taller than the Taipei 101 Tower in Taiwan, currently the tallest building in the world.
It also will retain a spire, containing a 400-foot broadcast antenna which will emit light at night and is intended to echo the Statue of Liberty's torch.
The tower will be more slender and occupy a smaller footprint in the northwest corner of the 16 acres where the 110-story twin towers once stood, and it won't be completed until 2010, two years later than the original plan.
Pataki and New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg will be joined by WTC developer Larry Silverstein and architect David Childs in presenting the new model at a 10 a.m. ET news conference on Wall Street.
The tower was originally conceived by architect Daniel Libeskind, whose master site plan was chosen in February 2003 to guide the rebuilding process.
Libeskind later was forced to collaborate with Childs, hired by Silverstein, to refine the design, which was unveiled in December 2003.
The 2003 Freedom Tower model featured a torqued glass-and-steel design with a steel cable netting. It had 2.6 million square feet of commercial space, including more than 60 floors for offices, an indoor observation deck above, a sky restaurant and wind-harvesting turbines to supply some of the building's power.
The revised tower design has the same amount of commercial space, one-quarter of what was lost on September 11, 2001, and many of the same features.
The public observation deck will be at 1,362 feet, the height of old South Tower, while a glass wall will rise 1,368 feet, the height of the old North Tower.
A cornerstone was laid July 4, 2004.
No tenants, other than the governor and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the transportation agency that owns the site land, have expressed interest in moving offices into the tower.
Childs said the tower is "bold and simple" and would be a "marker in the sky for the memorial below."
Groundbreaking for the September 11 memorial will take place early next year, with construction scheduled to be finished in September 2009.
The memorial, Reflecting Absence, featuring two reflecting pools where the towers stood, will occupy 4.5 acres and will be the first project completed on the site.
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