Man, there has been a ton of progress on the WTC site redevelopment. The Tower #1 (Freedom Tower) is almost 30 floors up, the Memorial and museum are moving along nicely, and the new transportation hub construction is in full swing.
You have to check this out!
Head over to skyscrapercity.com for more info.
Here is a quick link to the discussion thread that is chock full of pics:
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=419362
And a separate thread for the transportation hub:
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1119329
A separate progress information website:
http://www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress/index.html
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4142/4904648482_6b3a2a6857_b.jpg)
It's amazing that the building is 30 stories, yet doesn't even come close to rising above the skyline yet. In Jax, 30 stories would stick out like a sore thumb.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Maybe the first set of stories is for parking in which the floors would be more closer together, and actually the 30 stories is 15 stories (for the parking if this is true). 30 stories is the same amount of stories I believe for the AT&T Tower, and what I see in this photo is not nearly the same height as the AT&T Tower.
Maybe that's an outdated picture?
"HU"
Building appearance as far as height is concerned is all context. A 20 story building by itself would look huge, but a 20 story building in a dense skyline would look small. It is the context that makes this building look so small. Keep in mind that NYC buildings don't need floors of parking, as very few people drive to work.
I have a hard time believing that the building in Lunican's pic is 30 stories....looks to be more like 24-25 floors
I took pictures of the Freedom tower about 3 months ago from another angle. At that time, it was about 3 or 4 levels over the "A" shaped struts pictured above. Compared to an adjacent older building, I counted it to be about 18 stories. If you count to the top of the blue netting in this picture, you would be a bit under 30 stories (say 25 to 26 floors). I guess some would call that "almost 30 stories". ;) Maybe NY floors are shorter in height than some of the buildings here.
WTCProgress of flickr claims it is 200ft from the street to the top of the red steel.
wonderful site: Check out the Live Camera Feature
http://www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress/image-gallery.html
Floors are usually spaced around 10' between them! Standard rule of thumb......used it for years to establish height!
Quote from: jcjohnpaint on August 19, 2010, 08:51:26 PM
wonderful site: Check out the Live Camera Feature
http://www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress/image-gallery.html
When you click on the August 3rd image it claims the current height at that point is 34 floors!
Today's NY Times. Goal is to finish the memorial by the tenth anniversary on 9/11/11. Visit the link for 20 more pictures of behind the scenes photos of the site. It's an amazingly complex construction site as you have multiple high rises, NY's 3rd largest train station, an underground museum, and the surface memorial complex with the largest man-made waterfalls in the U.S. There will be more new activity in this one superblock when completed than Jax has probably accomplished in the last 50 years downtown ;)QuoteSeptember 3, 2010
World Trade Center Complex Is Rising Rapidly
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
The tower at 1 World Trade Center, expected to be completed in 2013, rises behind one of 16 swamp white oak trees specially cultivated for the site. (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/05/nyregion/ZERO-2/ZERO-2-articleInline.jpg)
THIS article about the new World Trade Center is already out of date.
The pace of construction is so swift that any status report these days gets overtaken rapidly by the arrival of new beams and columns, rebar and concrete, pipes and conduit. About 2,000 construction workers are on the job, weekends included, officials said, and that number will just keep rising. Visiting the site brings to mind the tumultuous first impressions of arrival in New York City: people, vehicles and objects are headed toward you from every direction at startling velocity, and the only prudent thing to do is to keep moving.
Two years ago, it was difficult to imagine how the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site of the trade center and is building most of it, could ever finish the eight-acre memorial in time for the 10th anniversary of the attack, on Sept. 11, 2011. Today, it is difficult to imagine what would stop them (though, given the site’s tortured history, the possibility shouldn’t be completely dismissed).
The great square voids in the plaza marking where the twin towers stood are fully formed and almost entirely clad in charcoal-gray granite. Enormous pumps are standing by to send thousands of gallons of water cascading into the voids, creating what memorial officials say will be the largest human-engineered waterfalls in the United States. A metal fabricator in New Jersey is incising bronze panels with the names of all 2,982 victims of 9/11 and of the trade center bombing in 1993. And last weekend, 16 swamp white oaks began to take root on the plaza. Four hundred more will follow.
But in the public’s mind, it is still “ground zero†â€" as in, “When are they ever going to build something at ground zero?†Or as in, “ground zero mosque,†the shorthand reference for the Islamic community center planned two blocks to the north. While much of the nation has been debating who should be allowed to build what on that site, a former Burlington Coat Factory store, little attention has been paid to the fact that things really are being built on the spot where something actually happened.
A recent editorial cartoon in The San Diego Union-Tribune depicted the Islamic center as a giant salt shaker on the “wound†of ground zero, drawn as an empty expanse of earth. Apart from the issue of the Islamic center, the cartoon stoked frustration among those working at the site. Just at the moment they have something to show for nine years’ effort â€" 300,000 square feet of underground space, the shell of New York’s third-largest train station and two skyscrapers on the rise â€" the image has been resurrected of a barren, silent pit.
There was some truth to that image as recently as 2008. The trade center site was a dust bowl in summer and mud pit in winter. The only visible sign of progress was the silvery 7 World Trade Center tower across Vesey Street.
So many conflicting demands were imposed on the site â€" it was to be a solemn memorial, a soaring commercial complex, a vital transportation hub, a vibrant retail destination and the keystone in Lower Manhattan’s revival â€" that none could advance. And the many competing players seemed unable to break the logjam for long. They addressed one another as “stakeholders†in public, but the stakes they wielded usually seemed destined for someone else’s back.
What seems, in retrospect, to have been a key turning point was the politically unpalatable prospect that the 10th anniversary would come and go without a permanent memorial. In 2008, prodded in part by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who heads the memorial foundation, the Port Authority adopted new schedules, approaches and construction techniques. Dozens of firms, including many of the city’s leading developers, architects and engineers, are involved.
The progress since then has been visible, tangible and audible. You no longer have to be inside the sidewalk barriers to get that. Just stand on Church Street and take in the sight of two giant steel towers-to-be, framing a crazily angled forest of crane booms. Or you could try to cross Church Street against the frenzied, never-ending convoys of construction vehicles entering and exiting. Good luck.
Perhaps the most surprising phenomenon occurs at bedrock level, seven stories beneath the street, in the great chamber of what will someday be the National September 11 Memorial Museum. Here, the ceremonial “last column†from the twin towers already stands in a climate-controlled cocoon. At certain moments, the room echoes. Dull and distant noise is transformed into profound, inchoate reverberation.
As the ninth anniversary approaches, it has begun to sound like a memorial.
A memorial pool at the World Trade Center, one of two that mark the footprints of the original towers. (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/09/05/nyregion/05zero-span-take2/05zero-span-take2-articleLarge.jpg)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/nyregion/05zero.html?hp
I have been watching the Freedom Tower for about over half a year. I make updates on it on youtube :D.
The Freedom Tower and Memorial is such a great idea. Yet some people want the twin towers rebuilt. I think the Freedom Tower is amazing in many ways. It is currently 36 Stories (A story below the Modis Tower), concrete is being poured around the 25-27 floor.
(http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn111/Skylegend90z/47519_428144194686_30453124686_4596638_3754280_n.jpg)
The Memorial is also amazing. It will be opening next year on September, 11, 2011. I will be there :)
(http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz153/Jaboy_03/freedom_tower.jpg)
Will there be a rotating restaurant topside?
I am of the opinion that the twins should NOT be rebuilt. The current plans are amazing and have also given lower Manhattan a mini Central Park oasis in the the midst of a concrete jungle. When complete it should easily top Lakelander's list of the best urban parks in the country.
I just know noticed that this building's facade (front, not sides) kinda look like a giant Transamerica Pyramid. I'm sorry, but IMO it doesn't hold a candle to the old WTC. The old WTC was majestic, well placed, and imposing. If I had to sum up the new with one word, it would be Singapore.
Quote from: I-10east on September 11, 2010, 08:48:01 AM
I just know noticed that this building's facade (front, not sides) kinda look like a giant Transamerica Pyramid. I'm sorry, but IMO it doesn't hold a candle to the old WTC. The old WTC was majestic, well placed, and imposing. If I had to sum up the new with one word, it would be Singapore.
Singapore Sling?
"HU"