SkyscraperCity Forum banner

NEW YORK | Liberty Park - WTC VSC / St. Nicholas Church & Nat'l Shrine | Com

587K views 799 replies 153 participants last post by  EMArg 
#1 ·
The VSC will utilize the latest technologies, including a vehicle scanning system, vehicle arrest devices, control gates and closed-circuit television, surveillance system, as well as security booths and an operations office.

From the PA:












Discovery's The Rising:


ArchPaper:




Some more:


 
See less See more
11
#103 ·
From the PANYNJ WTC Progress Report August 2012:

Building the Base for Liberty Park as the Vehicular Security Center Rises

The southwestern corner of the World Trade Center (WTC) site is a hive of activity as workers erect the steel framework of the below-grade Vehicular Security Center (VSC). When completed, the VSC will be just as busy, screening vehicles heading to WTC’s underground parking lots and loading docks. The public, though, will likely only know the VSC as a place of quiet contemplation. That’s because Liberty Park, a 1.4-acre public park intended for community reflection, will be constructed on top of the VSC. Following the building’s roofline, Liberty Park will slope upward from Greenwich Street to connect pedestrians to the Liberty Street Bridge over West Street. In between the stairs and accessible ramps threading through the space, pedestrians will be able to linger on benches in the shade of flowering trees, stroll alongside 17,000 square feet of planting beds, and people-watch on amphitheater-style ledges overlooking the rest of the WTC site. The northern edge of Liberty Park will double as a 27-foot-high promenade overlooking the 9/11 Memorial Plaza.

Liberty Park will also be the new home of St. Nicholas Church, the Greek Orthodox house of worship that was crushed by the collapse of Tower Two on September 11, 2001. It is anticipated that the church and Liberty Park would be constructed concurrently. The designs for the church and the park are not yet final, but are being refined through regular input from community stakeholders. The start date for construction of the park and church depends on when the VSC is completed. By mid-2015, however, residents and visitors should be able to see how the conceptual renderings of this new contemplative space have become reality.
 
#105 ·
from http://www.lowermanhattan.info/construction/project_updates/world_trade_center_south_12620.aspx

August 9, 2012
Liberty Park and WTC Screening Center Take Shape

At the southern end of the World Trade Center (WTC) site, steel framework is forming both the Vehicular Security Center entrance and future Liberty Park foundation. In the area bounded by Greenwich and West Street, and Liberty and Albany/Cedar Streets, Port Authority crews are currently at work in two phases.

Phase 1 is the western portion, where crews spent many months excavating and installing slurry walls around the perimeter. That section has structural steel now five stories high, and with its concrete roof in place is forming the ground level of the 1.4-acre Liberty Park.

At Phase 2 of the site, on the east side between Greenwich and Washington Streets, the steel that forms the spiral driveway is visible and rising. A large mobile crane continues to erect the helix structure, where in the coming years vehicles will be screened before heading into the WTCs underground parking lots and loading docks.

Once completed in mid-2015, the Port Authority plans to have Liberty Park completed above both Phase 1 and 2 sub-grade areas. St. Nicholas Church will be rebuilt at the Greenwich Street side. Designs for the new park include 17,000 feet of planting beds, pathways, benches, and ledges overlooking the rest of the WTC site, though full details for both the park and church are yet to be finalized.

 
#112 ·
from http://www.archpaper.com/news/articles.asp?id=6247

Securing Liberty
World Trade Center site below Liberty Street takes shape.


The Vehicle Security Center's Liberty Street entrance provides access for large trucks.

As the 11th anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaches, another major design element has quietly moved forward at the World Trade Center site: the design of the St. Nicolas Greek Orthodox Church and an above grade park that will mask the Vehicle Security Center (VSC) at the southernmost edge of the site.

Most World Trade Center maps don’t include the VSC or the Greek Orthodox Church, which will sit south of Liberty Street. It was less than a year ago that the Governor Andrew Cuomo brokered an agreement that allowed the church to return to the site near its former home on Cedar Street. A decade-long battle with the Port had kept its fate in the courts.

Now, the steel latticework of the VSC’s truck ramp is clearly visible from nearby towers. In addition to being the entrance and exit for deliveries, the center of the doughnut-shaped ramp will also support the 60 by 60 foot church sanctuary. Steve Plate, the Port’s director of construction, said work on the park will begin this time next year. AECOM is designing an open space that will swell approximately 30 feet above the Liberty Street entrance to the VSC, creating a man-made hill on the south side of the World Trade Center site. State of the art security, engineered by Liberty Security Partners, will allow all vehicles to be x-rayed on their way in.

The church sanctuary will rise another 56 feet above Liberty Street, a full 78 feet above the sidewalk. Church architect Nicholas P. Koutsomitis said that the Port stipulated that the church not rise above the September 11 Memorial Museum’s roof plane. An additional emergency exit will drop Cedar Street below grade and into the VSC complex.

Fritz Koenig’s Sphere for Plaza Fountain, which sustained substantial damage on 9/11 and now sits in Battery Park, appears destined for the VSC site as well. It appears prominently in the renderings, and Koutsomitis confirmed that the sculpture will be included in the new park.
Tom Stoelker


The doughnut-like steel latticework adjoins the VSC entryway on Liberty Street.


View of the rooftop plaza from West Street shows St. Nicholas Church in the distance with Fritz Koenig's sculpture.

http://www.archpaper.com/news/articles.asp?id=6247
 
#117 · (Edited)
Saying the sphere is too ugly for the WTC memorial plaza is like saying the USS Arizona is too ugly for the memorial in Pearl Harbor. Having a major relic like that is what gives the Arizona Memorial it's meaning and significance, likewise with putting the sphere in the plaza. It would give that place a much needed dose of meaning; the memorial should be significant and give people a connection to what happened on 9/11, not sanitize it the site and sweep the history under the rug.
 
#128 ·
From the PANYNJ WTC Progress Report, October 2012:

Vehicular Security Center

October 2012

The WTC Vehicular Security Center and Tour Bus Parking Facility (VSC) is a below-grade structure that will be used to screen buses, trucks, and cars entering the WTC site when it is operational. The above- grade portion of the VSC, located on the southern side of Liberty Street between Greenwich and West streets, will act as an entrance to the screening facility that will connect to an underground roadway system passing under the entire WTC complex. This roadway system will serve WTC loading docks, bus parking, as well as a connection to commercial parking. On top of the above-grade VSC structure in the southwest corner of the WTC site, will be the publicly accessible Liberty Park. Construction is progressing quickly on the VSC, with structural steel erection at approximately 90 percent complete and concrete installation at approximately 40 percent complete. Steel erection is expected to be 100 percent complete by the end of October.
 
#131 ·
With "topped out" you mean all steel has been placed? Cause the part with the higher elevation on the western part has been finished some time ago (except for the link to the pedestrian bridge..). So topping out means setting the last steel piece, not necessarily on "top" of the building? :)

edit: just noticed on the KPI TV cam that the yellow crane left the site yesterday..
 
Top