http://i.imgur.com/vH657.jpg

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Location map of 1WTC:
http://i56.tinypic.com/14n1jyh.jpg
http://www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress/img/site_plan_north.jpg

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Webcam list provided by CrazyAboutCities;

http://rebuildgroundzero.org/webcam/rgz_000.jpg

http://www.earthcam.com/clients/grou...groundZero.swf

http://www.earthcam.com/swf/cam_play...img_height=240

http://www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress/live-camera.html

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http://cdn.blogs.traveler.es/puerta-de-embarque/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/skyline.jpg
http://blogs.traveler.es/puerta-de-embarque/2011/09/05/un-oasis-verde-en-plena-zona-cero/world-trade-center-silverstein-properties/

Really looking forward to watching this building rise. :cheers2:

Can somebody post some specs or links?

Probably would have been a better idea to not start the thread with provocative statements, but hopefully this thread can stay on topic.

Can someone repost the most recent pictures? I'm not very skilled at posting images.

from the last thread...."old 1WTC height including antenna, 1,727 feet, as opposed to the new one, 1,776 feet." so i mean its pretty much the previous WTC just 50ft. higher, and this time it counts!

Probably would have been a better idea to not start the thread with provocative statements, but hopefully this thread can stay on topic.

the comments are do to with this being the 2nd or 3rd thread i have had to create because people couldn't stay on topic and bicker.

from the last thread...."old 1WTC height including antenna, 1,727 feet, as opposed to the new one, 1,776 feet." so i mean its pretty much the previous WTC just 50ft. higher, and this time it counts!

wasnt 1776 suppose to signify the year of the formation of the USA government or something? correct me if i am wrong.....

1776 - Declaration of Independence was signed.

A few pics do no harm in case of a new thread

http://img336.imageshack.us/img336/8477/view1ry6.jpg

http://www.wtc.com/images/popup/img_downloads/enlarged_img/185000-pu.jpg

http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/5270_WTC_tower3/concept/5270_0021_1_w.jpg

http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/5270_WTC_tower3/concept/5270_0021_1_w.jpg

Completion - 1st Quarter 2011

Size - 2,600,000 sf

Floors - 80-foot-high public lobby topped by a series of mechanical floors form a 200-foot-high building base. 69 tenant floors rise above the base to 1120 feet elevation. Mechanical floors, two floors to be occupied by the Metropolitan Television Alliance, restaurants and observation decks culminate in an observation deck and glass parapet that mark 1362' and 1368' respectively — the heights of the original Twin Towers. An antenna supported by a cable structure rises to a final height of 1776'

Location - Freedom Tower is located in the northwest corner of the 16-acre World Trade Center site, bounded by Vesey, West, Washington and Fulton Streets.

Building Amenities - Observation decks, world-class restaurants, and the Manhattan Television Alliance (MTVA) broadcast and antennae facilities.
All floors served by direct elevators. Cross-over elevator banks at floors 20, 29, 37 and 45.
Ground floor contains a secure, 45-foot-high marble and glass entry lobby facing Greenwich Street, where access is limited to black cars and taxis.
Loading dock with five bays accessible from Washington Street.
Each floor served by individually tenant-controlled DHX units.
Each floor has 6w per sf of power available, with additional power if required.


Transportation - Freedom Tower offers access to mass transportation (including the A, C, E, 1, 2, 3, N, R , 4, 5, J, M, Z and PATH trains) both at grade and through an underground concourse with entry immediately outside the building and running from the new Fulton Street Transit Center to Battery Park City and the World Financial Center.






- The desired schedule for construction, calls for the tower's foundation to commence April of 2006, concrete to grade by the end of 2007, topping out in 2009 and completion in 2011.
- This building will consist of 69 office floors, and 13 non-office floors with uses ranging from mechanical to dining.
- Ground for actual construction (different from the cornerstone placing) was broken on April 27, 2006.
- A parapet wall around the roof will bring the building's height to 1,368, the same height as the old North Tower.
- The 187-foot-high base will be concrete clad in over 2,000 pieces of prismatic glass.
- The 408-feet tall decorative spire will encase an antenna with a lighting system to make it into a beacon.
- Foundation work started in July 2006.


OFFICIAL SITE: http://www.wtc.com/

:) Thanks!

I like this project, because this project means a new future to the city of New York, I like the design of the buildings, of the subways stations.

this is going to be awesome.

-

http://img336.imageshack.us/img336/8477/view1ry6.jpg

That is one sexy render!!! :banana2:

Just phoned British Airways and they won't let me book my flight for 2012 yet! :dunno: Guess i'll have to wait til then.

I still think that the new design would have looked even better in a twin set.

yes, absolutely

I find it weird and retarded how people say that they dislike 1 World Trade, but the next sentence say they want two of them. I don't get it. Anyway..the base looks cool.:

http://static.flickr.com/77/202631900_047ba88411_o.jpg

^^ nice pic

What happens if someone falls in the pit?

There are no barriers to protect the public. :sly:

If you fall into the pit then you deserve to.

^^ :lol:

What happens if someone falls in the pit?

There are no barriers to protect the public. :sly:

Thats not true, theres like a concrete ledge and what seems to be a bannister on top. Now if you do fall in you do deserve it ^^ :lol:

I have not folllowed this thread very closely lately,,is the spire still up for some kind of redesign or is that actually how it is going to look?

*and yes I agree- if they fall in they deserve it! lol*

^^ A dog runs and jumps into the pit, the child chases after the dog and falls into the pit.

I suppose the child and his/her dog both deserved it, eh?

^That same argument can be used for ANY banister - balconies, observation decks, etc. So now we should have six foot walls on every more or less open space? And besides, why would a dog jump into a waterfall?

Dumb kids will find some way to kill themselves regardless. It's much easier for that dog they are chasing to just run out in the middle of the road. If your kid is either so dumb or so young that they would jump into a gaping pit, then you just wouldn't let them run around near it, just like you wouldn't let them play out by a road unattended. The world is full of far more dangerous things than this memorial. Parents who want to keep their kids protect them from these things.

Beautiful Tower! I wish they would've built 2 , It might be in the
works though?! Nice Pics!!!

Guys, I may not be a frequent visitor in this part of the forums, BUT, having been to NY three times and the old WTC twice, Let me tell you one thing:

This complex is NY on its finest hour. I like all buildings (the Foster one more to be exact). Speaking in meters, NY will get with a snap of a finger, many of the 300m-1000ft - plus towers needed for it to make a comeback.

About time, that is...

What happens if someone falls in the pit?

There are no barriers to protect the public. :sly:

Its called evolution.

I was by the site yesterday, and that crane that was shown in the webcam is not a construction crane, plus there was another minor crane at the same place as well.

Its called evolution.

You've got to be kidding. What if children fall in there?! I'm not saying a 3 m wall should be built, but at least a more secure barrier than that thin useless piece of metal! I don't care about the dog, that was just an example (the child chasing the dog). And what if someone faints right by the barrier? huh? Please......

Its called evolution.

You've got to be kidding me. What if children fall in there?! I'm not saying a 3 m wall should be built, but at least a more secure barrier than that thin useless piece of metal! I don't care about the dog, that was just an example (the child chasing the dog). And what if someone faints right by the barrier? huh? Please......

Oops.. :P, my mistake, :D

I shouldn't have said anything.

But I would hope that a big hole is a big nono to a young child.

Or at least the parents would be more mindful of the actions of their children.

You've got to be kidding me. What if children fall in there?! I'm not saying a 3 m wall should be built, but at least a more secure barrier than that thin useless piece of metal! I don't care about the dog, that was just an example (the child chasing the dog). And what if someone faints right by the barrier? huh? Please...... i'm sure they will put something like a barrier or something else there. if they don't want a law suit for someone falling down there

^That same argument can be used for ANY banister - balconies, observation decks, etc. So now we should have six foot walls on every more or less open space? And besides, why would a dog jump into a waterfall?
Dogs have jumped off 600 ft cliffs before, sometimes they are chasing a bird or a leaf...

So... the main problem for a child and a dog in New York is a thin piece of metal... no problems for them with balconies on a 45th floor, with the traffic, with all kind of... I will call them unfriendly people, in the street and parks :|

There will be a normal barrier and that's ok. We can say something if the design has no fence because of some stupid modern design idea, but in the render I can see a fence/barrier.

I hope that works would increase speed and soon we could see the rising building. And then we'll speak about the important thing: the construction of a new skyscraper. This thread always has problems because the lack of construction events and images in the area...

Dog + Child + Small Barrier + Big Hole = Pointless Conversation :nuts:

Are there any pictures?

When's const starting?

It's already started.

I see...

I heard that it may not rise until after the NY Mets win another World Series.

^Real funny!

I heard that it may not rise until after the NY Mets win another World Series.



Ok, im a Mets fan now : )

GO METS !!!!! :lol:

Dogs have jumped off 600 ft cliffs before, sometimes they are chasing a bird or a leaf...
Gotcha. Let's fence off all the cliffs in the world, so random dogs don't go hopping into them. I'll get started on the Grand Canyon right away.

And let's cancel all planes while we're at it too. Cause, you know, they crash once in a while. Oh yes, cars, those evil things, those murder machines, let's outlaw them too. Then we'll live in even more of a nice little papmered world.

How deep will those waterfalls be?

This will be one massive tower ^^. Good design, unsure about if it would be better to have a twinset like altin said.

I heard that it may not rise until after the NY Mets win another World Series.

well they almost won the NLCS last year

Gotcha. Let's fence off all the cliffs in the world, so random dogs don't go hopping into them. I'll get started on the Grand Canyon right away.

And let's cancel all planes while we're at it too. Cause, you know, they crash once in a while. Oh yes, cars, those evil things, those murder machines, let's outlaw them too. Then we'll live in even more of a nice little papmered world.

you laugh now, but when your dog chases a leaf and hops into the grand canyon you'll look back to this thread and cry. let's build this fence.

http://img431.imageshack.us/img431/3425/freedomtowerandwtcga6.jpg

No one should really complain about the spire.

The first steel columns that will frame the 1,776-foot-tall Freedom Tower are arriving in lower Manhattan this weekend and victims' loved ones and average New Yorkers are invited to sign the 30-ton girders on Sunday.

The first three steel columns will be erected on Monday.

^^ A dog runs and jumps into the pit, the child chases after the dog and falls into the pit.

I suppose the child and his/her dog both deserved it, eh?

Dog shoulda been on a leash...If it was on a leash then whoever was holding it was not holding tight enough. Also kid should have used their brain and not chased the dog. Of course it is all the city's fault and the kid's parents should sue the shit out of New York..:ohno:

New York City braces for construction chaos

By Amy Thomson
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Published December 15, 2006


NEW YORK -- The bankers, traders and residents of Lower Manhattan are about to find out what it's like to be in the vortex of the most concentrated construction zone in New York City's history.
As many as 9,000 trucks a month will rumble through the district, hauling concrete, glass and metal. The amount of steel earmarked for the area will be enough to build Kuala Lumpur's twin 88-story Petronas Towers more than six times.
Most of the supplies will be headed over the next five years for ground zero, the site of the destroyed World Trade Center that will be home to the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, five adjacent skyscrapers, a transportation center and a memorial to the victims of September 11.
About 50 Lower Manhattan projects, costing $20 billion, are planned or under way, including the ground zero construction, a new headquarters for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and new underground water pipes, subway stations, parks and residential buildings. Getting around will become a challenge.
"The amount of construction that's ongoing in one square mile is unprecedented," said Charles Maikish, 60, a former JPMorgan Chase & Co. vice president who now heads the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center. "The Trade Center site itself is the epicenter."
The command center is a city-state agency overseeing the neighborhood's development, including any project south of Canal Street costing more than $25 million.
On Nov. 17, more than two years after the Adirondack granite cornerstone for Freedom Tower was laid, 70 trucks lumbered into ground zero to begin pouring the concrete base for the building.
The construction, involving a peak labor force of 7,100, will disrupt the lives of more than 438,000 daily mass-transit commuters for the next five years, according to LiRo Group, a New York construction management company working with the city command center.
Merrill Lynch & Co., whose headquarters overlook ground zero, already lists neighborhood road closures and demolition projects in its monthly employee newsletter.
"We get our employees and clients in and out," said Mike Cowan, senior vice president for the world's biggest brokerage firm. "And our employees are a pretty rugged bunch."
Merrill Lynch is holding talks to move its headquarters to a new building on the World Trade Center site, according to two persons with knowledge of the discussions. Merrill spokeswoman Selena Morris said the company, whose lease expires in 2013, is "evaluating our options."
Goldman Sachs plans to begin moving into its new $2 billion, 43-story headquarters a few blocks away by 2009.
This month, trucks began delivering 3,000 tons of steel beams for the base of Freedom Tower. The beams, each up to 40 feet long and weighing as much as 35 tons, were made in Luxembourg by Arcelor. The Luxembourg company has one of only three or four foundries in the world equipped to handle steel beams that size.
The beams were then sent to Lynchburg, Va., where they were trimmed and welded by another company, Banker Steel LLC, which handled the steel for the original twin towers.
The command center has coordinated details such as controlling the number of trucks rolling through Manhattan at any one time and determining what streets are wide enough for them, said Josh Rosenbloom, 28, director of city operations at the center.
Sensors throughout the area, using video cameras and microwave technology, will measure the volume of vehicles and their speed, Mr. Rosenbloom said, helping police to fix traffic snags.
"Everyone has to work together to maintain mobility," said Mr. Rosenbloom. "Otherwise the whole thing will come to a screeching halt."
Once in Manhattan, trucks, supplies and workers headed for the 16-acre World Trade Center site must pass security inspections.
Carmine Castellano, construction superintendent for Freedom Tower, said he has never been on a site like this one in more than 20 years in the business. Mr. Castellano said guards search his crews' trucks daily. Identification badges, which are issued after a background check and a training class, must be visible at all times.
"You've got to have patience," he said. "Think of where you're working and what we're building."
Jake Zamansky, a principal in the Zamansky & Associates law firm, lives and works in Tribeca -- now a quiet neighborhood just north of ground zero.
"It's going to be hard to live and work down here for a while," Mr. Zamansky said. "It was really a disaster in those first couple of months after September 11. All day and night, every major artery was being used to take the debris out."
When the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center in the 2001 terrorist attack, Mr. Zamansky said he watched from his office four blocks away. Today, he said, he can put up with any inconvenience to build the area back up.
"It's definitely worth it, number one, to show the terrorists that they haven't succeeded in changing the face of New York on a permanent basis," he said. "They haven't been able to dislodge me. My whole life is downtown."

9000 trucks a month isn't really alot. One of the motorways near me has 180,000 vehicle's using it everyday. That's like 5.4 Million Vehicles a day and 1/4 of those must be trucks.

9000 trucks a month isn't really alot. One of the motorways near me has 180,000 vehicle's using it everyday. That's like 5.4 Million Vehicles a day and 1/4 of those must be trucks.

Are all those vehicles on that motorway going to the same construction site? Comparing apples to oranges. :bash: :ohno:

These are construction designated vehicles, andy. Construction....

Although this article is more on Deustche Bank, it does talk about leading to a chain reaction on the rest of the WTC site.
http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_188/workerswalkatdeutsche.html
Volume 19 | Issue 33 | December 15 - 21, 2006

Workers walk at Deutsche

The delay-plagued removal of the former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty St. hit yet another bizarre snag this week as a subcontractor pulled its workers off the site just days after deconstruction had begun.

On Dec. 8, with final permits in place, workers began removing windows and exterior facades from the building in a process the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center called a “prelude” to structural deconstruction. On Dec. 11, however, workers from the John Galt Co., hired by primary contractor Bovis Lend Lease to assist in the deconstruction, walked off the site.

Though the Construction Center would not comment on the reasons for the walk-out, the New York Daily News reported Wednesday that Galt is asking for $30 million in additional funding to complete the job. Bob Harvey of the L.M.C.C.C. did say that the parties were currently negotiating and that Bovis, as lead contractor, was ultimately responsible for bringing its subcontractors back to the site. He added that he hoped that the dispute would be resolved as quickly as possible.

“If it’s resolved quickly, [the reduction in work force] shouldn’t have a material impact on the construction schedule,” Harvey said.

Based on the current schedule, the window and façade removal would continue until early January, when the floor-by-floor deconstruction of the building would begin. The deconstruction is slated for completion in December 2007. The cost estimate for the purchase of the building and demolition is $207 million.

Several World Trade Center projects — including a public park, a new Greek Orthodox church, the Port Authority’s vehicle screening and parking facility, and Tower 5 — cannot be completed until the shrouded 41-story tower comes down.

— Skye H. McFarlane

In your dreams. It's not going to slow construction of this building.

is it just me or does it take longer for a building to get approved and set its foundation in new york rather than building it?

It does tend to take long in general, although this is a special case, being that there are security issues, debate over whether anything should be built on the site, what should be built, etc etc. And it being owned by the Port Authority also made the situation even more entangled.

can't wait until pic's of the 1st Beam

The first steel beam for the the tower will be displayed to see and sign tomorrow morning, for families of those who died in the terror attack as well as the public.

The beam will be set up in Battery Park City at 200 North End Avenue.

I will be there tommorrow, though it won't be to sign those beams unless I can forge the signature of Osama Bin Laden.

I will be there tommorrow, though it won't be to sign those beams unless I can forge the signature of Osama Bin Laden.

I don't get it. Is that terrorist humor? That may be one of the dumbest things I have ever read in my entire life. I'm just going to give you the benifit of a doubt and assume you are severely retarded.

haha.............well im waiting too, cause it was just, i dont know, stupid? why bother putting sometihng like that up, actually taking time (although not much, just like im doing writing this) outta your life to write that.

I don't get it. Is that terrorist humor? That may be one of the dumbest things I have ever read in my entire life. I'm just going to give you the benifit of a doubt and assume you are severely retarded.

talb thinks that they (who ever decides what's built) are caving to OBL by not rebuilding the original towers...hence his OBL remark. i think he's wrong but that's his take on it.

the reason why i don't think they would be rebuilt because of what they now represent; death and destruction.

edit: talb, re-read the first post of this thread before you post again.

Still a very twisted comment. I'll try to go if i can make time tommorow (errr today).

haha.............well im waiting too, cause it was just, i dont know, stupid? why bother putting sometihng like that up, actually taking time (although not much, just like im doing writing this) outta your life to write that. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Daily News

Towers, excitement rising at WTC site

BY PAUL D. COLFORD
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

http://www.nydailynews.com/ips_rich_content/792-wtc.JPG

Workers mill around massive steel beams for Freedom Tower at Ground Zero. New Yorkers can sign one of the girders today.


More than five years after the destruction of the twin towers, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site has begun in earnest.

Hardhats are breaking up the stone floor of The Pit to make way for the official World Trade Center Memorial.

They've started to excavate at Church and Liberty Sts. to build a massive slurry wall that will support three office towers being constructed by developer Larry Silverstein.

They've poured 3,000 cubic yards of concrete to prepare the foundation for the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower.

And this week they'll raise the first of many massive steel columns, each up to 35 feet long, for the signature skyscraper.

The initial three columns will include one that relatives of 9/11 victims and average New Yorkers are invited to sign in Battery Park City today.

Eleven more of the columns will be delivered to Ground Zero by the end of the month.

After many drawn-out and often bitter disputes over the building plans, agreements hashed out this year reinvigorated the sluggish rebuilding process and created a six-year timetable for the main projects at the site, owned by the Port Authority.

"I love going down to the site now because it was quiet for so long," said PA Executive Director Kenneth Ringler, whose agency assumed greater responsibility this year for the rebuilding, including overseeing construction of the memorial.

"Months ago, you didn't have to wear a hardhat," Ringler said. "But now, all the important parts are moving forward."

Fifty-five construction workers were laboring at the Freedom Tower site last week, and the workforce for the $2.5 billion skyscraper is expected to grow by 20 this week, now that the steel is arriving.

"It's going good," said Tishman Construction superintendent Carmine Castellano.

In all, some 370 hardhats, maneuvering 70 pieces of heavy equipment, are working across the Trade Center site building the Freedom Tower, the memorial and the new transit hub.

A new headquarters for Goldman Sachs, miles of utility pipes and electrical lines and acres of parkland must also be completed - bringing thousands of trucks each month to the area around Ground Zero.

The ongoing projects, while enormous, are only a prologue to what lies ahead.

Under the new timetable, which calls for the concurrent rather than sequential construction of the significant aspects, work will peak in 2009.

That's when "the erection of structural steel and construction of concrete cores" for the Freedom Tower and Silverstein's three high-rise towers will be completed simultaneously.


http://www.nydailynews.com/images/wtc17.jpg

Things are going to get interesting.

Yea, we dont have a thousand construction workers making 4 bucks an hour here either.

Are all those vehicles on that motorway going to the same construction site? Comparing apples to oranges. :bash: :ohno:
So what. New York must have afew 1000+ trucks travelling in and out every day anyway. Deliveries, Construction vehicles, also sorts. There's already loads of buildings going up in New York. Anyone who thinks about it 9000 trucks a month is not alot. I was at the main royal mail depot in Manchester the other day. 1 articulated truck(or an 18 wheeler style to you guys) was coming in and out every 30 seconds. That wasn't on a motorway, that was about 1 minute from the city centre. Work that out its like 2000-3000 trucks a day.

Also their no difference between an 18 wheeler or shorter one and a construction truck. The truck its self is totally the same. Same engine, Same seats, Same shell the only thing different is the Back. It might just carry concrete or some steel instead of a load of boxes. Not abig deal.

Have you ever been to downtown Manhattan? Do you realize the overall volume of activity combined here? 9,000 trucks is quite a bit if you ask me, or any New Yorker. It doesnt exactly make things easier on our way to work.

So what. New York must have afew 1000+ trucks travelling in and out every day anyway. Deliveries, Construction vehicles, also sorts. There's already loads of buildings going up in New York. Anyone who thinks about it 9000 trucks a month is not alot. I was at the main royal mail depot in Manchester the other day. 1 articulated truck(or an 18 wheeler style to you guys) was coming in and out every 30 seconds. That wasn't on a motorway, that was about 1 minute from the city centre. Work that out its like 2000-3000 trucks a day.

Also their no difference between an 18 wheeler or shorter one and a construction truck. The truck its self is totally the same. Same engine, Same seats, Same shell the only thing different is the Back. It might just carry concrete or some steel instead of a load of boxes. Not abig deal.

May I ask what your purpose is in posting this obvious comment in this thread that 9000 trucks a month isnt a lot. Look, were talking about a construction site not how many trucks pass on a motorway, or in a city. We all know that its going to be more, but thats not the point. Your argument although true, does not pertain to this thread. Go argue that in the transportation section of this forum if you please.

Update: 12/17/2006
World Trade Center
http://img307.imageshack.us/img307/3888/wtc1ck7.jpg

http://img307.imageshack.us/img307/386/wtc2sl6.jpg

http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/1710/wtc3jh1.jpg

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/6664/wtc4ua3.jpg

http://img307.imageshack.us/img307/3864/wtc5xm7.jpg

May I ask what your purpose is in posting this obvious comment in this thread that 9000 trucks a month isnt a lot. Look, were talking about a construction site not how many trucks pass on a motorway, or in a city. We all know that its going to be more, but thats not the point. Your argument although true, does not pertain to this thread. Go argue that in the transportation section of this forum if you please.

The paper or news people are trying to say the areas around the world trade centre site are going really noisy and these buildings are going to be bad for the city while under construction because of extra vehicles. I am trying to tell you guys they are full of shite.

I LOVE THIS BUILDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nice renders!

Why the name "Freedom" Tower ?

The paper or news people are trying to say the areas around the world trade centre site are going really noisy and these buildings are going to be bad for the city while under construction because of extra vehicles. I am trying to tell you guys they are full of shite.

Think of the building site as your house in the middle of a very congested area of town. You honestly think 9,000 trucks/month will not hinder anything at all? Cause no disturbances to nearby occupancies? Though mathmatically, 9,000 trucks/month isn't that much... we're talking Manhattan here ;)

A few pics do no harm in case of a new thread

http://img336.imageshack.us/img336/8477/view1ry6.jpg



btw, that is freaking awesome looking!

The building is indeed awesome. Btw I saw the renders in the first page, there are some sort of "pit" beside the tower. Whats that? A watefall or something?

ya, a hole in the ground with a waterfall, theres two of them and its where the twin towers once stood.

Think of the building site as your house in the middle of a very congested area of town. You honestly think 9,000 trucks/month will not hinder anything at all? Cause no disturbances to nearby occupancies? Though mathmatically, 9,000 trucks/month isn't that much... we're talking Manhattan here ;)

9,000 trucks is only about 1 truck ever 2-3minutes, which when you consider how much traffic is already on Manhattans roads is really completly insignificant. Obviously it will make things fractionally worse, but in reality the problem is an existing one and completly independant of construction work at the World Trade Centre.
Also is the planned redevelopment going to involve any changes in the road layout to help traffic flow (one can assume there'll be an increased amount with all the extra buildings). Or is it going to remain much how it is, with a reliance on improved public transport and the reopening of the transit centre and PATHhub to cope with the extra people?

One truck every 2 or 3 minutes on major roads/highways that are designed and built to handle it is insignificant. One truck every 2 or 3 minutes in the middle of lower manhattan seems to me like it would be quite significant.

Have you ever been behind a large truck carrying a big load as it tries to maneuver through packed city streets? My experience is that one such truck can bottle things up pretty well. One such truck every 2 or 3 minutes seems like it will cause some significant congestion. Nothing that can't be dealt with, and certainly a worthwhile problem to deal with, but I'd bet it will take some planning on the part of people in the area for them to deal with, and I'll bet the congestion will be very noticable.

http://www.renewnyc.com/WebCamImages/pic06121914595900.jpg

And the first piece of steel for the world's tallest office tower is up.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061219/ap_on_re_us/attacks_freedom_tower

Steel column installed for WTC tower

NEW YORK - The first 25-ton steel column for the new Freedom Tower was installed Tuesday at ground zero, another milestone in prolonged efforts to build a new office tower to replace the World Trade Center.

The 31-foot high white steel column, painted with an American flag and the words "Freedom Tower," was picked up by a crane and set into place on the southern edge of the planned 1,776-foot building. Politicians and workers at the site cheered as the column was installed shortly after 11:30 a.m.

"Today the steel rises, the Freedom Tower rises from the ashes of Sept. 11, and the people of New York and the people of American can be proud," said Gov. George Pataki. A second column, about a foot taller and covered with signatures from steelworkers and politicians in Virginia, was installed a short time later.

Officials hoped to raise a third column later Tuesday.

In the next two weeks, more columns will be set around the perimeter, including two covered with signatures of Sept. 11 families, steelworkers, architects and politicians. Officials said the signature-free column that was installed Tuesday was a slightly different length than the others and was long ago scheduled to be installed first.

By next spring, builders say the jumbo steel columns will rise to street level — about 70 feet from the bottom of ground zero.

The 27 columns — among the largest made in the world — were forged in Luxembourg, then shipped to Lynchburg, Va., to be fabricated so they could be installed at the foundation. The entire tower will eventually be built with 45,000 tons of steel, builders say.

Virginia residents and steelworkers signed one of the columns earlier this month and Sept. 11 victims' relatives and first responders wrote messages on another on Sunday.

The tower has been redesigned several times; politicians lay a granite cornerstone in July 2004 to begin construction, but later had to move the building after city police said it would be vulnerable to terrorism in its location, too close to traffic. It was redesigned, the cornerstone moved off the site and construction began again this spring.

Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer and the incoming head of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is building the tower, recently said they planned to look again at the tower's designs. Spitzer has also questioned the tower's economic viability, although he has committed to moving the governor's office there when it opens in 2011. State and federal agencies have already agreed to occupy half of the building's office space.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k241/ebola111/12xc.jpg

^^

Doesnt look like the name 'Freedom Tower' is going away anytime soon, does it?

that's fantastic :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v120/mdiederi/buildings/freedom%20tower/19tower2.jpg
Andrea Mohin

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v120/mdiederi/buildings/freedom%20tower/19tower2-1.jpg
Andrea Mohin

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v120/mdiederi/buildings/freedom%20tower/2006_12_freedomtower.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v120/mdiederi/buildings/freedom%20tower/448_38520first20steel.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v120/mdiederi/buildings/freedom%20tower/image_24_hm_beaming.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v120/mdiederi/buildings/freedom%20tower/wtc_beams.jpg
Joe Woolhead, courtesy of Silverstein Properties.

A second beam has been erected too.

This one will be updated on a per-beam basis. Don't let anyone say it wasn't thoroughly documented.

This one will be updated on a per-beam basis. Don't let anyone say it wasn't thoroughly documented.

whats with all those prongs sticking out of the signature beam?

At 1,776 feet, the Freedom Tower will eventually become the world's tallest tower. Construction is expected to be completed by the year 2011.

I wonder who is the clueless idiot telling the media that the FT will be the worlds tallest ?:|
http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=65196

http://www.renewnyc.com/WebCamImages/pic06121914595900.jpg

And the first piece of steel for the world's tallest office tower is up.
Actually, in that picture I think you can see that the second beam is already up.

Here's another view of the second beam still connected to the crane cable.

http://www.renewnyc.com/WebCamImages/pic06121912595900.jpg

Those beams are a lot smaller then what i was imaigining.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k241/ebola111/12xc.jpg what are the beams for i know there part of the building but what part of the building, the core ?

Those beams are a lot smaller then what i was imaigining. same here:bash:

we have no way of knowing where that beam is going but its obviously going to be part of the foundation and not one of the regular floor beams they will be using.

This one will be updated on a per-beam basis. Don't let anyone say it wasn't thoroughly documented.

Pretty much.

Yes man!! It's time to rise!! :okay:

^^

Doesnt look like the name 'Freedom Tower' is going away anytime soon, does it?

Yeah i agree , it´s rising from ashes what part of putting the name of Phoenix tower to it is bad ? .

i don´t care about the state of phoenix , ho the hell is going to confuse both ! tell me .

Ohhh where is phoenix tower? in new york of course you idiot .:lol:

nice is finally rising , wish i was there to see it is historic . This tower is already an icon.

excellent news I cant wait to see this rising ;)

I usually never post, I always chech the board daily to keep track of this tower though, and I am so exited. It has been such a long time coming, almost five years sense the original renderings of the freedom tower was released. We were all getting so discouraged cause we thought the tower would never be built, BUT IT FINALLY ISSS!!!!!!!:banana: :banana: :banana: I sreriously think americans could care less if the building is the tallest in the world, cause it means so much more than that. It is trully a icon, and a great sign of resilience. Who cares if the chicago spire or Burj Dubai is taller, this tower has a hell of alot more meaning:) When are the really tall columns going to be erected that will be 15 or 20 feet above street level, and when will we see the first basement floor poured?

http://www.renewnyc.com/WebCamImages/pic06122013595900.jpg

the next couple months expect it to reach street level i believe.

i'm very happy that the new WTC is on the way now

@Jeremy-Stephen
quote "I sreriously think americans could care less if the building is the tallest in the world, cause it means so much more than that. It is trully a icon, and a great sign of resilience. Who cares if the chicago spire or Burj Dubai is taller, this tower has a hell of alot more meaning When are the really tall columns going to be erected that will be 15 or 20 feet above street level, and when will we see the first basement floor poured?"

I agree with the message BUT, and I don't wanna start a riot here, you have to admit that the WTC replacement main tower is, indeed stong looking and nice and all... but pretty plain anyway! It is a nice tower... but it's a tower at the end of the day! I believe the site (and the victims maybe???) deserved better then offices.
I'm French and truly, t-r-u-l-y love the US in all its greatness and 'over the topness' (I've lived there a bit and seen about 20 states including middle ones) believe it or not. But I strongly think it's an almost wasted opportunity.
Thom Mayne should have put his Morphosis creation there after tripling the size of it. Or something!! Not JUST a nice tower.

Final thing.
Who... Who is ever going to have the guts to top the new WTC? The entire world (US included of course) will see gigantic architectural designs rising from the ground but will NY have to be stuck with 1776 feet?

It's a shame not to make more of a stand in such an important area of the American land.

But hey! At least it's not a mosque ;-)

It's a joke people. Just calm down...

go go new york !!!

I agree with the message BUT, and I don't wanna start a riot here, you have to admit that the WTC replacement main tower is, indeed stong looking and nice and all... but pretty plain anyway! It is a nice tower... but it's a tower at the end of the day! I believe the site (and the victims maybe???) deserved better then offices.
I'm French and truly, t-r-u-l-y love the US in all its greatness and 'over the topness' (I've lived there a bit and seen about 20 states including middle ones) believe it or not. But I strongly think it's an almost wasted opportunity.
Thom Mayne should have put his Morphosis creation there after tripling the size of it. Or something!! Not JUST a nice tower.

Final thing.
Who... Who is ever going to have the guts to top the new WTC? The entire world (US included of course) will see gigantic architectural designs rising from the ground but will NY have to be stuck with 1776 feet?

It's a shame not to make more of a stand in such an important area of the American land.

But hey! At least it's not a mosque ;-)

It's a joke people. Just calm down...[/QUOTE]


Nice post, and good point about no one wanting to build higher than ft, dc has the washington monument, a lot of other citys also have something nothing else can be taller than.

I would say it is likely that WTC1 will be an unofficial--or even an official--height limit for NYC. I wonder though if anyone will end up building that is not taller than the spire but that has floors going higher? It would be easy to build an officially shorter building that looks much taller on the skyline. It will be interesting to see I guess.

Disregarding some of the attacks aimed at me and even the scapegoating, I did see both the outgoing Governor George E Pataki and the infamous architect Daniel Libeskind give an interview at noon on Sunday.

First steel for signature WTC skyscraper rises at ground zero
By AMY WESTFELDT
20 December 2006

NEW YORK (AP) - The Freedom Tower -- the 1,776-foot emblem of ground zero's renaissance -- has been so beset by setbacks that it has even had multiple groundbreakings.

But in a visible mark of progress, 25-ton steel columns are at last rising at the site of the soaring skyscraper that will replace the World Trade Center's twin towers.

"Today the steel rises, the Freedom Tower rises from the ashes of Sept. 11, and the people of New York and the people of America can be proud," Gov. George Pataki said on Tuesday, when a massive crane lifted the first column. Painted with an American flag and the words "Freedom Tower," the 31-foot-high column was set over steel bars on the southern edge of the tower's base.

The second column, also raised on Tuesday, bears the signatures of steelworkers and politicians from Virginia, where it spent time at a steel company before being shipped to New York. A third column -- covered with signatures of New Yorkers and Sept. 11 victims' relatives, as well as pictures of some firefighters killed in the 2001 attack -- will be installed in the coming days.

By next spring, 27 of the jumbo steel columns will anchor the skyscraper and rise to street level, about 70 feet from the bottom of ground zero.

The tower is expected to be one of the nation's tallest buildings when it opens in 2011. It has long been planned as the tallest and most symbolic of the five skyscrapers planned to replace the trade center.

"Rising from the heart of the World Trade Center site, the Freedom Tower will symbolize the spirit of our city and our nation: inspiring, soaring and undefeated," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

But lengthy negotiations over who would build the tower and security concerns have delayed the project.

Politicians lay a granite cornerstone in July 2004 to begin construction, but the building was later moved after city police said it would be vulnerable to terrorism because it was too close to traffic.

Construction began again this spring, after the site's owner renegotiated its lease with a private developer and took over its construction.

Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer, who takes office next month, recently said he planned to look again at designs for the tower. Federal and state agencies, including the governor's office, already have agreed to occupy half of the building's office space.

The columns installed Tuesday are among the largest made in the world. They were forged in Luxembourg, then shipped to Lynchburg, Va., where workers welded steel plates onto them so they could be properly set in place.

The entire tower will eventually be built with 45,000 tons of steel, builders say.

finally !!! :banana:

It's good to see the tower finally starting!

Great. When is it due to be delivered?

When will we see the first basement floor poured?

This could cause another delay.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12212006/news/regionalnews/more_bones_found_at_wtc_regionalnews_.htm
MORE BONES FOUND AT WTC

December 21, 2006 -- Two bones were recovered this week from debris in a manhole at Ground Zero, the first discoveries in more than a month.

They were found in a fourth manhole underneath a service road on the western edge of the trade center site, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the medical examiner.

More than 210 body parts have been found in manholes on the service road since Oct. 19. Most were in the first one, which utility workers had been digging up.

One bone was recovered Wednesday, the other yesterday, she said.

^^

:eek:

we have no way of knowing where that beam is going but its obviously going to be part of the foundation and not one of the regular floor beams they will be using.

You are correct. A friend of mine works for ARCELOR, the French-Luxemburg steel company (now called Mittal-Arcelor after being bought) and since a couple of months he had told me that Arcelor will supply special, very high strength steel columns for the Freedom Tower's foundations.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/21/wrongway.flag.ap/index.html
Freedom Tower's wrong-way flag removed

POSTED: 9:20 a.m. EST, December 21, 2006

NEW YORK (AP) -- An American flag plastered on the first steel column for the Freedom Tower at ground zero was removed Wednesday after the builders realized the stars and stripes were on the wrong side.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey removed the decal on the 31-foot column after the media questioned the display, with the 50 stars on the right side instead of the left.

"When it's laying down, it's correct," said Bill Dolphin, 73, of Ocala, Florida. "When it gets lifted up into the air, the blue field should be on the other side." (Watch for the wrong-way flag Video)

Federal flag code requires that, whether displayed horizontally or vertically, the blue field displaying 50 stars is always on the left side to the viewer.

When construction workers put the decal onto the column as it lay on the ground, the flag was horizontal and the stars were on the left, Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman said.

Once a giant crane raised the column, the flag was also vertical, with the stars on the right, Coleman said.

A decal that puts the stars and stripes in the correct place will be put on the column Thursday or Friday, Coleman said.

The column was one of two raised in a ceremony Tuesday. A third column -- covered with signatures of New Yorkers and September 11 victims' relatives, as well as pictures of some firefighters killed in the 2001 attack -- will be installed in the coming days.

In about 18 months, concrete will cover the flag and the columns as construction of the 1,776-foot building to replace the twin towers continues.

But the stars and stripes should be in the right place until then, said Joan Bury, 71, of Aberdeen, New Jersey, who said she found the wrong-way flag "disgraceful" when she saw it in her morning newspaper.

After learning that the flag would be set right, she said: "I'm so happy they're going to take care of that."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

/\ superbly silly.

The waterfalls idea (in place of where the two towers stood or whatever) is very nice. Something reflective and memorial-like about the idea... :)

some pics from Dec. 28th:

December 28, 2006

http://img313.imageshack.us/img313/4448/pict0007tw7.jpg

http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/4548/pict0008ze9.jpg

http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/870/pict0019zd5.jpg

http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/2305/pict0021iu0.jpg

http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/9725/pict0022xu0.jpg

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/9391/pict0024qj3.jpg

My signature (and SSP tag) is on that one
http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/3409/pict0026iw2.jpg

yeah, it finally start

I find it funny how this building has 'Started construction' over 7 times ;)

I was there yesterday, however - a few women from Times Square wanted me to show them the city, so I was screwed.

I told them I wanted to see a movie before camping at Times Sq., but noooooo, they wanted me all to themselves and forget about photography! I couldn't snap any photos of the Freedom Tower - damn tourists!

Happy New Year everyone!!

May 2007 bring the construction to New York City like never before.

Let us not dwell on the past mistakes made by many - such as the countless delays of the rebuilding.

Instead, let us begin the new year with a fresh start! :D

also a Happy new year to you :)

I find it funny how this building has 'Started construction' over 7 times ;)

yes, it has been a long process

still alot more to come

but when its done its gonna be AMAZING! :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana:

I wouldn't be surprised if more skeletal remains end up being found there within the next month let alone the next few weeks.

i was just about to ask that actually, if they keep finding bodies while doing ground works?

They found two bones 2 days ago i think.

I hope they do find all of the bones. I mean it'd be sad to know that they forgot some bones and built over them.

Wow the last couple of comments brang back some serious memories.

God bless the families and victims of 9/11.

Its like the WW1 battle fields. You could shut the site down for years and still find bones. Unlike over in France etc where they also find 1000s of bombs each year.

forsure they will 4get some bones.. its imposible to get all of them but.. life continues

btw sry 4 9/11

Good to see steel rise again there

wow, impressive.

Good to see steel rise again there

yes it is :cheers:, the last steel was raising was back in the 60's

Wonderful pictures about Freedom Tower construction area, I like it. The complex has a big progress during this days.

finally.. :D

I am surprised that even with the steel, there is still not kangaroo crane there hence it just shows another photo-op by Pataki.

Kangaroo Crane is not needed yet. The building won't rise out of the tub until next year, so t he crane won't be installed until later in the year.

next yr?

That is one sexy render!!! :banana2:



You think so? It looks really fake compared to the old render. X-|

The columns have been doubled in height now:

http://www.renewnyc.com/WebCamImages/pic07010914595900.jpg

Wow...it's crazy to think it's actually happening now! I bet it'll go up rapidly before we all know it :)

Kangaroo Crane is not needed yet. The building won't rise out of the tub until next year, so t he crane won't be installed until later in the year.i dont think there going to use a Kangaroo Crane

imagine....

http://www.pbase.com/czsz/image/61599319/original.jpg

that view in 5 years. You can see all 5 respective skylines. dont worry, Queens will get there, and Brooklyn especially, but the biggest transformation lies in downtown, and even JC. You can also expect some on the west side of Manhattan.

What the new WTC will do in that picture is beyond words.

Amazing pictures, and the construction has a very big progress, I see the columns bigger.

just curiosity, anyone here from New York and miss the old twin towers? not the sentimental value but its architecture.

I remember the first time visited New York and the car passed by the towers, I couldn't believe how big the bases were because ya so used to the images of the twin towers from afar in books and tv along with the New York skyline.

but when you're actually standing at the base of the buildings.....it's unbelievable.

The columns have been doubled in height now:

http://www.renewnyc.com/WebCamImages/pic07010914595900.jpg

great pic, can you please give me the link of the webcam?

^^ There is obviously a lot going on in that pit, but nothing beats the sight of progress :cheers:

There is a webcam of WeatherBug situated atop NYFD Engine 10/Ladder 10 headquarters at 124 Liberty Street. It refreshes every minute. This service is provided by Project Rebirth. I put here the link of the camera.

http://www.projectrebirth.com/film/cameras/camera_LiveCam.html

It doesn´t show working progress on Freedom Tower´s foundation at the moment. Freedom Tower´s structure will be seen here when they reach ground level.

What happened finally with the position of the flag in the steel beams?

great pic, can you please give me the link of the webcam?

http://www.renewnyc.com/Webcam/WTCSiteWork/Current.aspx

thank you very much sentinel :)

Wow, so no twin towers. :(

how do you come on twin towers?

Where is exactly that webcam, Sentinel? Maybe in an office of One Liberty Plaza?

What a View to Behold, and It’s Really Something
http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/5793/600blocks7to.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
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

thx for the article megatower

^^ no problem, anytime ;)

Kangaroo Crane is not needed yet. The building won't rise out of the tub until next year, so t he crane won't be installed until later in the year.


The crane is usually set up while the building is still at its lowest level.

The tower cranes will be erected in four weeks.

Will look amazing at night with the beam of light shining off the spire. New York's skyline will look even more fantastic and famous than it already is once this cluster is built.

to long time !!!

any one there???

any one there???

Quite fed up of reading your spam in every bloody thread...:bash:

any one there???

This is not instant messaging...Didn't I see that a moderator has already warned you earlier today for this?

didnt know if anyone has seen this yet, but i thought id share it. its a video of the new WTC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbx3AfJalPM

great video....funny music :lol:

haha funny video.

the music adds alot, but when you see the skyline in motion, it looks incredible. think about it, you got skyscrapers standing next to eachother that are 100+ years old. history meets modern and future.

that my friends, is NYC.

^^

Great buildings, great music and great city.

the core is taking shape:

http://i7.tinypic.com/453pg1d.jpg

Thanks for the updates. But from that picture I cant really see whats going on the the core, so can you explain to me the progress they have gotten done this far, and how much longer it will be till the core starts to rise?

the red color show's the core:

http://i9.tinypic.com/48q9g6o.jpg

until now it's only a hole. some days before it wasn't minted like now :), now you can see what it would become.

btw: i don't know when it'll start to rise

Thanks... Its weird cause it looks so small in the pictures, but in reality its massive. I can truly say, I never thought I would see the day when this building started to rise:)


Are they going to have an parking garage under the building?

great video....funny music :lol:

You don't recognize Sinatra?? :nono:

PRICE OF FREEDOM HITS TOWERING $3B

By TOM TOPOUSIS
February 5, 2007

The cost of the Freedom Tower has soared to $3 billion, according to the Port Authority's latest estimates.

Construction costs for the 1,776-foot tower have been pegged at $2.478 billion, up from the $2.2 billion estimate for steel, concrete, glass and labor projected last spring.

But the latest tally included in the Port Authority's capital budget includes an additional $507 million for "nonconstruction" costs that include security at the site, integrity monitors to keep an eye on contractors, the cost of selling bonds to finance the project, marketing the office space and fitting it out for tenants, The Post has learned.

Adding all the costs, the price tag for the Freedom Tower budgeted by the bistate agency is $3 billion - making it not just the tallest building in the city, but also the most expensive.

By comparison, a new state-of-the-art headquarters for Goldman Sachs under construction at a site directly across West Street from the Freedom Tower is expected to cost about $2.3 billion.

"The Port Authority's capital plan publicly accounts for every dime of spending on all our building projects over the next 10 years, including the Freedom Tower," said agency spokesman Steve Sigmund.

"During that period, the building has long-term soft costs, like brokers and marketing fees, tenant fit-outs, responsible contingencies and security, which go beyond hard construction costs."

Sigmund said the price tag will be offset by $900 million in insurance funds and about $1 billion in Liberty Bonds. The remainder of the cost will have to be recouped through rents charged for the 2.6 million square feet of office space after the tower is complete in 2011.

Contributing to the project's cost is the roughly $500 million to build an 80-foot-tall substructure in the Trade Center's "bathtub," atop of which the tower will be built.

The latest construction costs are a key factor that Gov. Spitzer said he will use to determine whether the massive tower should be built as designed. He has said he would balance cost against the projected revenue from rents.

So far, federal agencies have issued letters of intent to occupy nearly 1 million square feet in the tower. New York state has also agreed to lease about 400,000 square feet. And the PA has been in talks with the Chinese real-estate firm Vantone to lease another 1 million square feet.

Construction of the Freedom Tower's base is under way, and bids for nearly half of the project's construction have been put out.

The PA's capital budget includes a total of $8 billion to be spent at the World Trade Center, including the Freedom Tower, the transportation hub, the memorial, retail malls and site infrastructure.


i'm looking for the link

They should have hired Donald Trump to rebuild this place. I loved his proposal and as a business man he'd keep the costs much lower than $3billion.

Here's the latest shot from the renunyc.com webcam.

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a105/lelamay/49.jpg[/IMG]

I remember some time ago there was a really great website that offered a live ariel feed of ground zero with very decent image quality. I forget the website name though...

Is it 3 bill for the entire ground zero project or just for ONE building? It's ridiculously expensive if just one building.

$3 billion! That is a really large amount of money.

Still, with over half the space rented by federal agencies and the state, one wonders if you can still qualify it as a world trade center. :dunno:

Here's the latest shot from the renunyc.com webcam.

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a105/lelamay/49.jpg[/IMG]

I remember some time ago there was a really great website that offered a live ariel feed of ground zero with very decent image quality. I forget the website name though...

this is the link to the cam:

http://www.earthcam.net/users/interface.php?id=445&projectid=202&clientid=158

unfortunatley the cam doesn't work, it only show's a pic from September 11th last year

Thanks ZZ-II I apreciate the link; though I must say I am very dissapointed that the webcam is no longer in service and up to date. In my opinion it was the best live update feed one could find. Like the image above all the other sites are horribly pixelated.

They should have hired Donald Trump to rebuild this place. I loved his proposal and as a business man he'd keep the costs much lower than $3billion.

Wasn't his plan basically the twin towers again? Maybe I'm crazy but I would not work/buy office space in a building that looks exactly like what failed miserably five years ago.

I never thought I'd get to see construction start on this tower. Can't wait for contruction to start on 175 Greenwich :banana:

Maybe we should get a king with a dream and immigrant workers with a paycheck of $4 dollars a day. :|

Of couse not. But the city worker unions makes everything expensive too.

Update 4 februari.

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/9074/freedomtowerie3.jpg

http://img465.imageshack.us/img465/9803/freedomtower2no3.jpg

are they preparing the site's for the other WTC towers actually?

It looks like they are setting the foundations for the water falls.

This constructions is going not too fast. But is progressing.

I was wondering after the foundations are set and in place what are they going to do with all the extra space in that hole? Is that space going to be filled up with dirt? or perhaps concrete? Or maybe they are going to make the available space into an underground subway line/commercial area like what the last Trade Centers Had?

I cant wait! Im already saving now so if im lucky can make it to New York when it is open to the public. I feel in love with WTC (Twins) back when i was in 4grade doing a report on tall building. Unable to see them in real life, i cant miss these.

If anybody has new pics of contruction, or links plese feel free to message me at mrcambell07@yahoo.com

WE WILL NEVER FORGET 9/11 ! ! !

There is a chance that it could be delayed again.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/02072007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/saving_freedom_opedcolumnists_steve_cuozzo.htm
SAVING FREEDOM

WHY GOV. SPITZER SHOULD PUT PATAKI'S 'ICONIC' PLAN ON HOLD

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02072007/photos/po031.jpg
Why not get it right the first time? The Freedom Tower's ceremonial first column, shown here, at first featured an American flag — placed incorrectly, with the field of stars on the right.

February 7, 2007 -- FIVE and a half years late, Ground Zero is finally showing progress. The Port Authority is industri ously building the east bathtub so developer Larry Silverstein can start work on towers 3 and 4. It's the right time for Gov. Spitzer to liberate Pataki's Pit from the Freedom Tower - a defeatist scheme inappropriate to today's resurgent Downtown.

Spitzer needn't outright kill the "iconic" edifice that's now the PA's to build and rent. He doesn't even have to meddle directly in its design (as his predecessor did, with disastrous results).

But the Freedom Tower needs a caring intervention - which means putting it on hold. Not forever; only until Silverstein's first two new office buildings are rising and on their way to being leased. They will bring world-class architecture (by Richard Rogers and Fumihiko Maki) and vibrant life into the hole. Just as important, they'll re-legitimize the site as a place to do business - something the Freedom Tower, for now, can't.

ESSENTIAL work on the Free dom Tower's underground infrastructure, now in progess, must be completed. It is absolutely necessary to finish that job (likely to take 18 more months) so that everything will be in place once above-ground construction is ready to start.

But let's hold up on leasing efforts and letting out any more contracts (beyond what's already committed), until we know exactly what we want a "Freedom Tower" to be.

Properly handled, it can be the most valuable property in the world by late 2009 or 2010. That's when steel for towers 3 and 4 will be filling the sky.

Those buildings will be among the largest and tallest in town, rising to 1,155 feet and 957 feet. Once they're under way in earnest, no one will any longer be able to say that Ground Zero is going nowhere (as this newspaper first accurately called it four years ago).

Moreover, the plan on the table - calling for all four Ground Zero office buildings to open around the same time - threatens a glut. With the "iconic" tower on hiatus, Silverstein can bargain with tenants able to pay market rents - without being undercut by Freedom Tower's subsidized prices.

DOUGLAS Durst, builder of 4 Times Square and the new One Bryant Park, is one of many developers who know the Freedom Tower should wait for Silverstein's towers to be under way - but one of the few willing to say so. In his view, "as the World Trade Center site gets developed and people see progress, the value of it will increase, just as the value of 7 World Trade Center increased as people saw it was being completed and occupied."

Now, maybe Durst would rather minimize competition with his own buildings (although he has no argument with the 4.5 million square feet that towers 2, 3 and 4 will bring to the market). Or maybe, like others in his league, he secretly dreams of one day having a crack himself at what should be the city's most desirable development site.

But his argument embraces the reality of Downtown today: It's one of the hottest business districts in the world, commanding office rents unimaginable a few years ago and drawing ever more people to glamorous new apartment buildings, hotels, parks and stores.

The Freedom Tower should be the exclamation point proclaiming the area's rebirth. But an exclamation point must come last, not first.

After all the delays at Ground Zero, it's worth waiting a few more years to get the site's crowning achievement right.

TODAY, nothing about the Freedom Tower is right. The PA has little more enthusiasm to build it than Silverstein did. The project as now conceived, designed and scheduled was born out of desperation and political expediency four years ago, when Downtown's plight looked desperate. No one had any idea how to rebuild the WTC. No one was sure if companies would ever again want to be there.

The infamous Daniel Libeskind master site plan (chosen by then-Gov. Pataki) called for an "iconic" tower to reclaim the skyline while also, somehow, relating to the Statue of Liberty. Absent any other serious planning at Ground Zero, and with Silverstein tapping accomplished architect David Childs for the project, it seemed a good idea at the time.

It might even have worked. But Pataki brought the scheme to ruin - by letting Libeskind "collaborate" on it, by personally interfering in the design and by causing a 14-month delay that resulted from his inattention to NYPD security concerns.

The result, after a rushed redesign in 2005, lacks the majesty of Childs' original. Yet cost estimates are already rising - to $3 billion, as The Post's Tom Topousis reported this week. And the design isn't even truly finished - plans for its most symbolic feature, a "sculptural" broadcast antenna rising to 1,776 feet above ground, are still mired in the early stages.

YET, despite its staggering cost, the PA is prepared to peddle the project on the cheap. To kick-start leasing, the PA is negotiating with the federal General Service Administration and the state Office of General Services to take about half its total 2.6 million square feet.

That was Pataki's last and perhaps most lethal blunder. If those deals go through, the PA will likely have to find even more government offices to fill the remaining half. Why? Because private-sector firms of the sort that should be at a "World Trade Center" don't want to share a building with public-sector bureaucracies paying subsidized rents. "Having government tenants will take away from the value being created," Durst warns.

THE starting rent for GSA and OGS, which wouldn't take effect until the tower opens at least five years out, is $58.50 per square foot - more than government should pay, but ridiculously low compared with what new, first-class Downtown office space is certain to command by 2012. (Many real-estate insiders believe the rent is really $50 a foot because, they say, the PA undercounted the floor space.) By comparison, Silverstein is asking more than $60 a foot today for the remaining floors at his new 7 WTC.

Why should the most important new building ever to rise in New York be peddled as if it's damaged goods?

Well, because the Freedom Tower now on the table is damaged goods to the corporate world and the real-estate community. Its tortured history enables the negativism of brokers and prospective tenants who claim, without any rational basis, that the tower's great height - maybe even its Orwellian name - will encourage terrorists to strike again.

But naysayers just a few years back told us all that no one would want to live anywhere Downtown, and that the new 7 WTC would never draw tenants. All it took to refute the cynics was for the first new residents and office tenants to break the ice. Today, every apartment nearby is taken, and 7 WTC is more than 60 percent leased.

So it will be with the Freedom Tower, once the first companies sign leases for towers 3 and 4 - projects with giant floor plates specifically tailored to Wall Street firms.

PAUSING the Freedom Tower entails risk: If any thing goes wrong with the other office buildings, we could be left right where we were before. But in a booming market, and with dire financial penalties if he stalls, Silverstein has every reason to build in a timely fashion.

With a little good will all around and some luck, the PA ought to be able to name its price for the Freedom Tower by 2010. It will find corporate tenants who can pay what an iconic location is worth. It's not too devilish to suggest that the PA might even want to put it up for bid to private developers - who, if recent history tells us anything, would go to war over the rights.

Who knows? A pause might even prompt Spitzer to finally drop "Freedom Tower" and call the project by its rightful name: 1 World Trade Center.

scuozzo@nypost.com

Quick kill her! (FBI i do not mean this).

The Freedom Tower's ceremonial first column, shown here, at first featured an American flag — placed incorrectly, how the hell did they do that :lol:

Properly handled, it can be the most valuable property in the world by late 2009 or 2010. That's when steel for towers 3 and 4 will be filling the sky.

Haha, yea right!:lol:

silverstien knows nothing goes according to plan... all those towers will open nice and staggerd just like the article sugests they should

I will not find another delay to be something new, and Pataki was never good at keeping deadlines in the past anyway.

Why are we not surprised about more delys at Ground Zero. Just when things finally started to get going... :ohno:

OMG again. . :ohno:

Who knows? A pause might even prompt Spitzer to finally drop "Freedom Tower" and call the project by its rightful name: 1 World Trade Center.

hear hear

Taken a few weeks ago by the PANYNJ.


http://www.pathrestoration.com/drp/images/gallery/wtcth/2007/01/fredmtwr07.jpg

http://www.pathrestoration.com/drp/images/gallery/wtcth/2007/01/fredmtwr06.jpg

http://www.pathrestoration.com/drp/images/gallery/wtcth/2007/01/fredmtwr05.jpg

http://www.pathrestoration.com/drp/images/gallery/wtcth/2007/01/fredmtwr03.jpg

http://www.pathrestoration.com/drp/images/gallery/wtcth/2007/01/fredmtwr01.jpg

Good update

Amazing pics! Thanks for posting.

Thank you Ebola :)

Thanks for the update, but can someone explain to me whats going on and what are those metal things sticking up. and when the core is gonna start rising?

breathtakeing pics

would like the such pics from this month

Awesome pictures!

Good work.

Spitzer May Seek to Save a Beloved Staircase at Ground Zero

By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: February 11, 2007
nytimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/nyregion/11stair.html?ref=nyregion)

The “survivors’ stairway” at ground zero may survive a bit longer.
Until last week, it appeared that the badly battered staircase to the plaza around the twin towers — still rising 21 feet over Vesey Street as it did on Sept. 11, 2001, when survivors of the attack on the World Trade Center stumbled down its granite steps to safety — would almost certainly be dismantled, with only its treads and landings saved as commemorative artifacts.

On Friday, however, the Spitzer administration said its days were not necessarily numbered.

“We certainly recognize the emotional significance of the staircase to so many New Yorkers,” said Avi Schick, the downstate chief operating officer and president of the Empire State Development Corporation, a state agency.

The developer Larry A. Silverstein has said the staircase cannot stay in its current location, where he is planning a 78-story office building known as Tower 2.

And the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation has said that moving the entire 64-foot-long, 175-ton staircase to the memorial plaza or the underground memorial museum would confuse visitors and compromise the design.

But Mr. Schick, who was appointed by the new governor, Eliot Spitzer, said: “Those who are distressed by the reluctance of others to incorporate the staircase into the towers or the memorial should take comfort in the fact that we have not made a decision. We continue to invite public comment.”

A subsidiary of his agency is conducting a federally required preservation review.

The staircase must be moved to permit excavation of the Tower 2 site. At issue is whether it will be saved in its entirety and, if so, where it will go.

Preservationists have said the staircase should be kept intact and in place as the last three-dimensional aboveground link to the World Trade Center complex. And there are survivors who cherish the staircase as a tangible emblem of their awful journey on 9/11 and of their endurance.

But some neighbors look at the staircase as an unsightly ruin and an impediment to progress at the site.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/11/nyregion/11stairs.1901.jpg
The “survivors’ stairway” from the plaza at the twin towers to Vesey Street, in November 2005.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/12/news/companies/worldtradecenter/index.htm
Private funds eyed for WTC site

Report says government agency is talking to private equity firms, hedge funds to take stake in $3 billion 'Freedom Tower' that will replace twin towers.
February 12 2007: 9:48 AM EST


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The government agency that owns the World Trade Center site is trying to attract private equity or hedge funds into investing in the $3 billion replacement Freedom Tower, according to a published report.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the agency, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, also is in talks to sell development rights to one of the five planned skyscrapers there to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co (Charts).

The paper said that if the agency is able to win commitment of significant private-sector money, it would be a major advance for the development, which has struggled to advance so far by basically using only government support and insurance proceeds.

Robert Sammons, director of research for the real-estate services firm Colliers ABR Inc., told the paper there has been a recent a flood of investors - from private-equity firms to pension firms to foreign interests - looking to own a piece of Manhattan commercial real estate.

"Certainly you're not going to find a better time to try to sell that equity interest," he told the Journal. Just last week, private equity firm Blackstone Group won a bidding war for Equity Office Properties (Charts), the nation's No. 1 owner of office buildings, with a $23 billion bid.

The foundation of the Freedom Tower, the key building in the development, is now under construction, with lease commitments from the federal and New York state governments to take one million of the 2.6 million square feet of available office space.

But at a symbolic 1,776 feet tall, some worry that the tower that will be about 400 feet taller than the former twin towers and will be a terrorist target, and that it could have trouble attracting tenants worried about an attack. The first 200 feet of the tower will be taken up by a mostly unoccupied concrete structure to protect the building from possible truck bombs. It is due to be completed in 2012.

Because of those obstacles, the paper says a deal for ownership of the Freedom Tower is not imminent.

But a deal for Tower 5 of the complex could be as close as a month, the paper reports, with J.P. Morgan considering the purchase of a long-term ground lease from the Port Authority to build and occupy a 57-story, 1.6 million-square-foot office building.

Still, the paper reports there are problems with the plans being discussed for Tower 5. The plot is currently occupied by the building that formerly housed the New York offices of Deutsche Bank AG (Charts). Demolition of that building, which was seriously damaged in the attacks but remained standing, has been slowed by environmental concerns and the discovery on its roof of human remains from the attacks.

The current footprint of Tower 5 also is not big enough for the trading operations planned by JP Morgan Chase. To expand its footprint would involve encroaching on adjacent land, currently reserved for a park and to rebuild a Greek Orthodox church that was also destroyed in the attack.

Still if there are deals to develop Tower 5 and for equity investment in the Freedom Tower, the Journal reports it would be a blow for private developer Larry Silverstein, who had the lease to the former Twin Towers and is using insurance proceeds from those buildings' destruction to build three other office towers on the World Trade Center site.

Spokesmen for Silverstein and the Port Authority would not comment to the Journal.

Spitzer, in Reversal, Is Expected to Approve Freedom Tower, Officials Say

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: February 13, 2007
nytimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/13/nyregion/13freedom.html?ref=nyregion)

With the downtown real estate market improving rapidly, Gov. Eliot Spitzer is expected to abandon his criticism of the Freedom Tower as a looming white elephant and to approve construction of the tower, which would rise 1,776 feet at ground zero, according to city, state and Port Authority officials.

When the new governor took office in January, his administration had put the Freedom Tower, one of five towers planned for the downtown site, under review. But with tenants leasing about two-thirds of the newly completed 7 World Trade Center and vacancy rates falling in Lower Manhattan, officials say that the prospects for the 2.6-million-square-foot Freedom Tower are improving.

Officials say that the point of no return is fast approaching for the $3 billion tower. Critics of the project, who regard it as poorly designed for corporate tenants and too big and expensive, had hoped that Mr. Spitzer, or his partner at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey, would delay or kill the project.

Mr. Spitzer is expected to make an announcement about the Freedom Tower before a Feb. 22 meeting of the authority, which plans to vote on $460 million in contracts for concrete and electrical and plumbing work on the building. Next month, there will be another $300 million in contracts for curtain walls, elevators and escalators.

A spokeswoman for the governor, Christine Anderson, declined to comment.

The Port Authority, however, was buoyant about both the downtown real estate market and the tower. “While we are pleased that the market conditions continue to be strong and that the building is on schedule and on budget,” said Stephen Sigmund, a spokesman for the authority, “we have not reached any final conclusions or moved to final authorization.”

The officials said that the governor’s change of heart is not an indication that corporations are suddenly lining up to lease space in the Freedom Tower, which some potential tenants fear is a possible terrorist target. Yet some authority executives say those anxieties are subsiding as the city’s economy improves.

Indeed, a state official and two senior executives at the authority say the authority has received unsolicited inquiries from hedge funds and investment banks about buying the tower, but officials have not taken any formal steps down that road. In the last year, the city has been awash with investors eager to invest billions in real estate, be it office towers or large residential complexes. For example, Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, adjoining apartment complexes in Manhattan, sold for a record-breaking $5.4 billion in November.

A senior Port Authority executive said that a sale or lease to a private owner would entail the buyer’s guaranteeing that the tower would be completed on schedule. It would also mean that the authority would not have to finance nearly $1 billion to build the skyscraper, and it would not suffer continuing losses until the building was fully leased. The buyer, in turn, would enjoy the future appreciation on the property.

Still, some real estate experts questioned why the Freedom Tower was being built at the same time that the developer Larry A. Silverstein was getting ready to build three office towers with more than six million square feet of space. They complained that it had attracted only government tenants who were being forced to pay higher rents than they should.

The developer Douglas Durst and the real estate investor Anthony E. Malkin say the tower is ill conceived, the result of a hasty six-week “redesign” after the police raised security concerns.

Mr. Durst said that the value of the tower would increase over time, but added that it made little sense to build everything at once.

“People want to see an economically viable building in a resurging downtown,” Mr. Malkin said. “Why is government building a skyscraper for government tenants in what should be the most valuable cornerstone of the project, and maybe all of downtown? Private capital has shown a willingness to build, but perhaps not with this design.”

Mr. Durst and Mr. Malkin say they are continuing in the footsteps of their families.

Mr. Durst’s father, Seymour, and Mr. Malkin’s grandfather, Lawrence A. Wein, were ardent opponents of the original plan for the World Trade Center. In 1964, they formed the Committee for a Reasonable World Trade Center, which argued that the complex would flood the real estate market with subsidized space and compete unfairly with private landlords. By some accounts, the complex was not fully occupied and successful until shortly before it was destroyed.

Under the terms of a deal struck last fall, the Port Authority has taken over financial responsibility for the Freedom Tower from Mr. Silverstein. At $3 billion, the tower will cost $1,155 per square foot, which real estate experts said would require a net annual rent of as much as $80 a square foot.

The authority expects to get about $1.2 billion in insurance proceeds, $250 million from New York State and nearly $1 billion in tax-free bonds. That still leaves a considerable shortfall, although the state and federal governments have signed nonbinding agreements to lease one million square feet, or 38 percent of the skyscraper, for initial rent of $59 a square foot.

In order to get construction financing, lenders usually require private developers to secure leases for about half the space in a proposed office building. In addition, investment banks, companies often paying the highest rents in the market, have no interest in the tower, principally because the floors would be too small for trading operations.

State, city and Port Authority officials, even some who had been critical of the Freedom Tower in the past, say that the downtown market is improving faster than anyone expected. Mr. Silverstein is getting rents as high as $70 a square foot for 7 World Trade Center, they say.

JPMorgan Chase is talking with the authority about the possibility of acquiring the site of the former Deutsche Bank building near ground zero, soon to be demolished, and Midtown corporations and law firms are beginning to move downtown, drawn by rents that are 30 percent cheaper than those uptown.

Port Authority officials say that if the Freedom Tower is delayed, they will be unable to capitalize on the current market.

According to Newmark Knight Frank, a real estate firm, the vacancy rate for office space downtown has fallen to 10.3 percent, from 13.9 percent only a year ago. The Dutch bank ABN Amro recently signed a lease for 140,000 square feet at Mr. Silverstein’s 7 World Trade Center, at the northwest corner of Vesey and Greenwich Streets. But Goldman Sachs plans to vacate as much as 2 million square feet in several office buildings when it moves to its new headquarters at Battery Park City.

Barry M. Gosin, the chief executive of Newmark and a former critic of the Freedom Tower, said that he could now go “either way” on the project. “There’s some merit to building it later,” he said. “You’d get the full benefit of the created value. On the other hand, building now is fine.”

exclusive updates, thanks!!

at first i want to sure about this tower bur some of the renders and pics people have posted make it look very good!

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, but even if Spitzer does approove the Fraudem Tower, I don't think it could be celebrated as victory just yet. Keep in mind that both the PA and Silverstein have been unable to get the some of the insuarance money that they needed. Another thing could be that the demolition of Deustche was said to a major setback the FT and another delay was said to cause the entire site to be put on hold.

Why would the Deustche bank hold back constuction? Also i wish they could of saved the exterior that remained after they fell and reconstructed it for the memorial but im guessing its in a scrap yard.

What happens at 130 Liberty has absolutely nothing to do with the FT's progress, and I'm sure it will be fiscally sound. Some tower cranes will arrive in a few days.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02142007/business/freedom_ring_business_tom_topousis_and_steve_cuozzo.htm
FREEDOM RING$

BLACKSTONE EYES $3B ICONIC TOWER PURCHASE

By TOM TOPOUSIS and STEVE CUOZZO

February 14, 2007 -- Fresh off its acquisition of the largest collection of office towers in the nation, the Blackstone Group has set its sights on the Freedom Tower, The Post has learned.

Blackstone made an unsolicited approach to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey about acquiring the 1,776-foot-tall tower now under construction by the agency and due to be completed by 2012, sources said.

Sources said Blackstone is just one of several real estate investors expressing interest in the iconic tower, which will host a combination of federal, state and private tenants.

The Port Authority is considering a range of options for the Freedom Tower, including one or more private investors for all or part of the building, slated to cost roughly $3 billion. But any discussions with potential investors are in a very preliminary stage.

A Port Authority spokesman declined to comment. And a Blackstone spokesman last night denied his firm is trying to purchase the tower.

Port Authority officials in the past have been clear that the agency's investment in the Freedom Tower would have to work financially so as not to deprive resources from the core mission of building and operating regional transportation systems.

The Port Authority agreed to take over control of the Freedom Tower and a fifth World Trade Center tower a block south of the main campus in a restructured deal with Ground Zero developer Larry Silverstein.

J.P. Morgan Chase, as first reported in The Post, has expressed interest in developing Tower 5 as a commercial building, signaling that the Port Authority is open to reversing an earlier plan to use the 57-story building for housing and a hotel.

Silverstein will develop three towers, including about 6 million square feet of office space, along the Church Street side of the Trade Center.

As part of the deal, the Port Authority will get $900 million of the $4.6 billion World Trade Center insurance money, and access to $1 billion in low-interest Liberty Bond financing for the Freedom Tower.

Also part of the deal moving the Freedom Tower to the Port Authority are leasing commitments for 1 million square feet of space in the building from federal and state agencies.

But it's the boom in demand for Manhattan office space that has turned what was once viewed as a potential white elephant into a hot property. The Freedom Tower will include 2.6 million square feet of office space - a quarter of what the Twin Towers held.

Word of Blackstone's interest in the Freedom Tower comes on the heels of the firm's $39 billion acquisition this month of Equity Office Properties' portfolio of 543 office buildings across the nation with a total of 103 million square feet of space.

So how much longer till the tower crane is erected?

Hey, guys! Have you seen this video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKFdwJvo_Hg

It´s short but I hope you liked it ;) .

Wow, that vid is very interesting! I didn't realise so much was going on...and it was over a month ago!
I hope they hurry up with the construction.

i love the new york twalk, and the f bomb
the ball is rolling...

I have to say Freedom Tower is one of the buildings I am most excited about. I am very happy for New York City :banana:

Wow. 3 billion? Isn't Burj Dubai like 800 million?

^^ Now, that's the difference.. ;)

Can someone post updates from the freedom cam?

Wow. 3 billion? Isn't Burj Dubai like 800 million?

yeah, were in america where we care for our workers and pay them a liveable wage.

From a business owner perspective I would much rather prefer Dubai's labor laws than that of those here in the states.

From a business owner perspective I would much rather prefer Dubai's labor laws than that of those here in the states.

From a workers perspective I'd prefer the US labour laws, that way you'll live longer.

So how much longer till the tower crane is erected?

Maybe next year or perhaps never, but with the way the government plans it, there have been a number of false starts.

cant wait till they complete these buildings...Freedom 1,776ft.... 2 Greenwich
1,254ft will b the tallest in New York! !

Maybe next year or perhaps never, but with the way the government plans it, there have been a number of false starts.

According to the New York Times, tower cranes will be erected before this month is over. They will be going up very soon.

Great design :)

A Tower That Sends a Message of Anxiety, Not Ambition

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/19/arts/design/19towe_CA1.600.jpg

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: February 19, 2007
nytimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/19/arts/design/19towe.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)

Ground zero has gone through its own kind of war fatigue. With every step forward in the reconstruction process, New Yorkers were asked to buy into the rhetoric of renewal, only to be confronted by images that reflect a city still in a state of turmoil and delusion.

Perhaps if we close our eyes, one might wishfully imagine, it will all just go away.

But the widely anticipated announcement that Gov. Eliot Spitzer will support the construction of the Freedom Tower may signal an end to any hope that a broad vision — or even a level of sanity — can be restored to a project tainted by personal hubris and political expediency.

The most recent debate over the tower has centered narrowly on real estate values. With the developer Larry Silverstein set to build six million square feet of office space in three buildings just alongside the Freedom Tower, some have questioned whether it will be possible to lease enough of the $3 billion project at a high enough rate to make it profitable. The tower’s symbolism alone is likely to scare off tenants who will see it as a potential targets for terrorists. The suggestion that we simply pack the building with government offices is almost perversely Strangelove-ian.

Yet the problem is not simply whether enough bureaucrats can be coerced into working there one day; it’s also what the building expresses as a work of architecture. Governor Spitzer may recall the looming presence of the twin towers on the downtown skyline, at once proud and intimidating; the Freedom Tower will have an equally powerful effect on the daily lives of New Yorkers as well as on the city’s image throughout the world. Yet its message will be very different from the old towers.

Hurriedly redesigned more than a year ago after terrorism experts questioned its vulnerability to a bomb attack, the Freedom Tower, with its tapered bulk and chamfered corners, evokes a gargantuan glass obelisk. Its clumsy bloated form, remade by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, vaguely recalls the worst of postmodernist historicism. (It’s a marvel that its glass skin hasn’t been recast in granite.)

Recently cities like Paris, London and San Francisco have held major architectural competitions for towers that will reshape their skylines. All of them drew on an array of ambitious architectural talents; many of those designs pushed technological and structural limits while reimagining the skyscraper as part of a holistic urban vision.

Even in New York, which has lagged behind much of the world in its architectural ambitions over the last decade or so, projects like Norman Foster’s new Hearst Tower suggest that a higher standard is demanded in the design of our urban structures.

If built, the lamentable Freedom Tower would be a constant reminder of our loss of ambition, and our inability to produce an architecture that shows a genuine faith in America’s collective future rather than a nostalgia for a nonexistent past.

Nowhere is that failure of ambition more evident than in the tower’s base. In a society where the social contract that binds us together is fraying, the most incisive architects have found ways to create a more fluid relationship between private and public realms. The lobby of Thom Mayne’s Phare Tower in Paris, for example, is conceived as an extension of the public realm, drawing in the surrounding streetscape and tunneling deep into the ground to connect to a network of underground trains.

By comparison the Freedom Tower is conceived as a barricaded fortress. Its base, a 20-story-high windowless concrete bunker that houses the lobby as well as many of the structure’s mechanical systems, is clad in laminated glass panels to give it visual allure, but the message is the same. It speaks less of resilience and tolerance than of paranoia. It’s a building armored against an outside world that we no longer trust.

There is no reason to accept this as fate. Although construction has begun on the tower’s foundations, we are still a year or so away from the point that the building will begin to rise. The foundations could even be completed while a process is set in motion to begin rethinking the design. Meanwhile construction could begin on Mr. Silverstein’s towers to the south, which should prove much easier to lease.

Governor Spitzer of course would have to summon the will to venture into one of the most emotionally and politically charged sites in the world less than two months into his tenure. To do so he must first accept that the Freedom Tower’s message is not directed solely at real estate-obsessed New Yorkers but at the world, and that the message it’s sending now is the worst of who we are.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/19/arts/19towe_CA0.190.jpg

Can somone post some construction updates?

http://07021915595900

I find this article very interesting b/c the last time Nicolai Ouroussoff did an article on the FT, he was a major cheerleader for it and now he goes the other way.

The Freedom Tower will be 1,776 ft due to the pointed antenna, wish the design can change so that its height to roof that's 1,766 ft ! Anyway why design a building that's going to cost billions and yet ppl will doubt its height ! It actuall looks like a toothpick at the top. After so many design change, its still disappointing, its suppose to be an icon of America.

I really have no more interest in this tower. I agree with NoLimit says. It could have been so much more. Then again it could have been one of those hideous previous proposals that were approved.

$3bil tower better be insanely nice!

It looks pretty good as "just another skyscraper." But as a landmark... meh.

yeah, were in america where we care for our workers and pay them a liveable wage.

Oh yeah, good point. But still, it's almost 4x more expensive. And if you adjust that figure based on the fact that Burj Dubai is also much bigger and taller, the Freedom Tower becomes more like 7x as expensive. Could such a huge difference really be just because of the salaries?

For some reason I really like the new Freedom Tower. It may not be a imaginative as some of the buildings being planned for other cities around the world, but I think it fits. Now if they did a switch-a-roo and made 175 Greenwich (tower 3) 1,776 ft, I'd be in a state of bliss. :)

Metallitool....no. Land area in downtown Manhattan I assume is currently worth more than in downtown Dubai. If you have 6000 workers at say...4000$ a year and 3000 at say....50,000 a year (whatever workers in usa make) the dif is not that large.

6000 x 4000 x 5(years) = 120mill.
3000 x 50000 x 5 = 750 mill.

Thats if they have 3000 workers at the freedom tower which i HIGHLY doubt but I know theres supposed to eventually be 6000 at the Burj Dubai.

Thats a 630mill discrepancy. The rest...well Im not an expert but its probably the land cost.

Metallitool....no. Land area in downtown Manhattan I assume is currently worth more than in downtown Dubai. If you have 6000 workers at say...4000$ a year and 3000 at say....50,000 a year (whatever workers in usa make) the dif is not that large.

6000 x 4000 x 5(years) = 120mill.
3000 x 50000 x 5 = 750 mill.

Thats if they have 3000 workers at the freedom tower which i HIGHLY doubt but I know theres supposed to eventually be 6000 at the Burj Dubai.

Thats a 630mill discrepancy. The rest...well Im not an expert but its probably the land cost.

Hmm, you almost hit it on the head. First off your average unionized contruction worker makes more than 50k a year (at least in this city). Also there are health insurance costs plus the fact you can't and probably won't have/afford construction workers 24/7/365, so the actual cost rises as other variables such as weather or cost increases/inflation can hit a construction site because of the longer construction period.

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=66951

Governor Eliot Spitzer said that he is throwing his support behind the Freedom Tower, despite earlier concerns about the project.

How many times have we heard that the FT was approoved, b/c after each of them, it just became a false start?