7 World Trade Center

[TonyO]

> SPACE | NYC 01 24 06

BALANCE OF TRADE SHIFT AT 7 WTC?

Peter Slatin

http://www.theslatinreport.com/content/pictures/signpic.jpg

For the politicians, bureaucrats and Larry Silverstein, it was a banner day.

Surrounded by the former, the latter signed a letter of intent with Beijing Vantone Real Estate Co. Ltd. to lease 200,000 square feet in the top five floors of Silverstein's gleaming 1.7 million-square-foot 7 World Trade Center. Although Silverstein has signed two much smaller leases, with Ameriprise and the New York Academy of Sciences, the preliminary deal announced Jan. 24 was the first serious indication that the developer's Liberty Bond gamble will pay off in the long run.

It's also quite fitting that the first major commercial deal in the World Trade Center redevelopment should go to a company representing the country that is rebalancing the scales of global trade. In addition, rather than being a part of downtown's traditional Old World tenant base, Vantone represents a creative and entrepreneurial bent to China's nascent, supercharged capitalism that is reminiscent of but far more likely to persist than the technology tenants that flourished in and fled Silicon Alley five years ago. The landlord's need to reach beyond a traditional tenant base, and to rely heavily on financial incentives and political pressures from government officials indicate that enormous hurdles remain in downtown's struggle to move beyond a boom-and-bust economy. On the other hand, the out-of-the-box nature of the tenancy could presage a healthy changing of the guard in the makeup of downtown Manhattan's commercial base.



(Photo by Donald Bowers/Getty Images
Sighs at the signing. New York City and State as well as Chinese government officials and Vantone's CEO join Silverstein.
Vantone's eventual program is still emerging, though those close to the deal say it will most likely act as a facilitator and executive-suite purveyor for Chinese businesses, and that the buildout could include a club or even sleeping quarters on the top floor. The ultimate scale of its tenancy at Ground Zero is another unknown: Vantone first emerged as a potential tenant for Freedom Tower, and sources say it remains interested in that possibility as well as in additional space at 7 WTC.

While the deal is a true source of relief in the long, dry slog to heal the downtown office market, it thrusts a host of critical questions to the fore: first, is this the first wave in a surge? Silverstein spokesman Dara McQuillan thinks so, and tells The Slatin Report that the next deal is "not far off." Since the developer obtained a temporary certificate of occupancy late last year, he says, interest from potential tenants willing to accept the construction site sprawling around and in the building has grown rapidly. McQuillan declined to say whether the next deal would be for a small or large user, but said that Silverstein is targeting advertising agencies and design firms in an effort to get creative juices flowing in the building (and maybe to bring in tenants who will appreciate the huge Jenny Holzer sculpture in the lobby).

The Vantone deal also coincides with increasing talk, on this page and many others, about the tightening Midtown Manhattan market. Will the scarcity there lead tenants downtown? More to the point, it remains to be seen whether the lease, enabled by heavy lifting from all those politicians and bureaucrats, cements Silverstein's now-in, now-out, now-in role in the Ground Zero firmament.

[BrooklynRider]

Any fashionistas out there that can explain that thing on that red shirt?

[londonlawyer]

Whatever dude. I guess Shelly SIlver is more powerful than we imagined!

Uhh. OK, dude.

[Citytect]

Mr. Silverstein’s other two tenants, Ameriprise Financial and the New York Academy of Sciences, are leasing a floor and a half combined. Mr. Silverstein is taking a whole floor for his property company. Minus the ground floor, that still leaves about 43 floors to go.

43 floors to go??? The building only has 42 office floors, right? So Silverstein really only (ha, only) has 34 and a half floors to rent in 7WTC.

42 office floors
- 1 Silverstein's Co.
- 1 NYAS
- .5 Amerisprise
- 5 China Center

=34.5 floors remaining

Also, isn't 800 people on 5 floors a lot, even in shifts???

[Jake]

Also, isn't 800 people on 5 floors a lot, even in shifts???

Heh, it's Chinese efficiency my friend, one shift works 12AM-->12PM and the other 12PM-->12AM

Someone will give me shit for this but lol, you can fit a lot of Chinese into a shipping container in NYC harbor, I'm sure they'll fit into 7.:D

[ZippyTheChimp]

Any fashionistas out there that can explain that thing on that red shirt?I'm sure it's not Falon Gong.

[antinimby]

Any fashionistas out there that can explain that thing on that red shirt?LOL, fashionistas on this site? Good luck finding any. Speaking of luck, I'm almost certain it is a symbol of a dragon and a phoenix, the ying-yang Chinese symbols of harmony, good fortune, prosperity and wealth. BTW, the Chinese love the colors red and yellow (also the colors of their flag), red means success and yellow represents fortune.

http://z.about.com/d/chineseculture/1/0/u/g/4/blsl01017.gif

[Jake]

http://www.theslatinreport.com/content/pictures/signpic.jpg

Second guy on the right, look over his shoulder, that's as much of the FT as anyone at 7 will see for many many years

[NYCResident]

Heh, it's Chinese efficiency my friend, one shift works 12AM-->12PM and the other 12PM-->12AM

Someone will give me shit for this but lol, you can fit a lot of Chinese into a shipping container in NYC harbor, I'm sure they'll fit into 7.:D

You're right.. I'm going to give you shit for this.. why would you make a stupid comment like that? And yes, I am Chinese.

[lofter1]

http://www.theslatinreport.com/content/pictures/signpic.jpg

Second guy on the right, look over his shoulder, that's as much of the FT as anyone at 7 will see for many many years
Third guy from the left will be gone soon -- but not soon enough, dag nab it!

[BPC]

Third guy from the left will be gone soon -- but not soon enough, dag nab it!

I wish the second guy from the left would be leaving soon as well. Given that he has done more than most to sabotage Downtown's redevelopment, his smiling mug there is a particularly nasty joke.

[Ninjahedge]

Actually, they all look like they have s**t eating grins on there.

I don't trust a single one of them.


As for teh shirt, what is a Gwai-lo (sp) doing wearing a chinese celebratory shirt? The thing looks a little tacky to begin with, but on her it looks just plain wrong!


And as for the colors, it ain't "yellow" it's "gold" that they like.

[antinimby]

Actually, I'm correct (as always ;) ). Yellow is the color. BTW, it's gwai-paw for a woman. You can check with your sources.

[Ninjahedge]

Actually, I'm correct (as always ;) ). Yellow is the color. BTW, it's gwai-paw for a woman. You can check with your sources.

I will ask my GF about it.

Sorry if I did not know that women were treated differently with the insult "whitey"... ;)


And they keep telling me gold. It is gold on the envelopes, and also there was some sort of contestment about wedding invitations on another board that they did not have enough gold in them.


Red and gold (literally shiny gold) are symbold of wealth and happiness I believe. Again, I will confirm... :P

[wns808]

will the OEM offices still be on the 23rd floor of the new 7 WTC as they were in the original 7 WTC?

[macreator]

will the OEM offices still be on the 23rd floor of the new 7 WTC as they were in the original 7 WTC?

Nope. OEM built a new headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn.

[kliq6]

Its official, the NY Inst Science and Ameriprise deals are official and of record, they can be viewed on therealdeal.net

The China deal is still just a offer sheet, i will update when official

[BigMac]

Wikipedia
January, 2006

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/WTC7_alone.jpg/600px-WTC7_alone.jpg

[RS085]

whats with the glass? or lack thereof

[Jake]

^That's the collumn where the exterior elevator was. It hasn't been patched up yet, but they can pretty much do that in a single day.

[lofter1]

If you're gonna build a box this is one great way to do it.

[Nordica]

The neighbor looks a bit out of plumb.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Keystoning (http://www.microsoft.com/uk/homepc/digitalimage/more/ImageRescue.mspx), usually from tilting the camera up (in this case) or down.

[Stern]

NYPOST:

So, how solid is the presumed deal for Beijing-based Vantone Co. to lease 200,000 square feet at the top of Larry Silverstein's 7 World Trade Center?

Last week, both sides announced a term sheet had been signed. It's rare to hold a press conference to announce a term sheet, which is non-binding.

Vantone's broker, Jones Lang LaSalle honcho Peter Riguardi, said: "We have an extremely detailed letter of intent. I think both teams, us for Vantone and CB Richard Ellis for Silverstein, are very experienced and professional. We feel confident we can get through this."

[BPC]

Term sheets can be either binding or non-binding under New York law. It depends on a lot of things, most importantly the wording of the document.

[Zoe]

http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/4391/02010615155mf.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
A peek at the plaza design in front of 7 WTC

[BrooklynRider]

That refinished plaza will actually help this area alot. I hope it is a landscaped plaza and not all cement, maybe a fountain or something to give the area more life.

[Jake]

Keep in mind that it will be TINY. Probably enough room for maybe 4 benches. I think people will be drawn to the memorial park or Liberty park while this triangle of land will sit abandoned.

[Stern]

Keep in mind that it will be TINY. Probably enough room for maybe 4 benches. I think people will be drawn to the memorial park or Liberty park while this triangle of land will sit abandoned.

If thats the case, this plaza will naturally attract residents as compared to tourists.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Keep in mind that it will be TINY. Probably enough room for maybe 4 benches. I think people will be drawn to the memorial park or Liberty park while this triangle of land will sit abandoned.I don't think so.

North to south, it's one block long, so at least 200 ft. I've walked past there east to west many times, and I'd guess the distance from Greenwich to West Broadway is at least 100 ft. According to plans, this section of Greenwich St will not be open to traffic, so the effect of the plaza will extend up to 7 WTC.

I agree this will not be a spot for tourists, but I don't think it will be abandoned. Workers from the post office building and 7 WTC will use it.

[lofter1]

It is a fairly good size --- with lots of plumbing for the fountain, as well as large planted sections at both the north and south ends.

At the center is a large circular area where the fountain will be...

More pictures (click on "slideshow"): http://www.lowermanhattan.info/construction/project_updates/7_world_trade_center_75464.asp

http://www.lowermanhattan.info/construction/gallery/photos/WTC7_future_10.jpg

[antinimby]

I'm usually not a fan of too many little parks and plazas here and there, but even I believe this one here is good. It provides a good contrast (greenery, water, life) vs. the building's base (dark, stark, lifeless). This is a good feng shui solution to a bad base design. For even better results, they should encircle the whole building's base with plant life.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Designer brings light to Downtown projects

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_143/james.gif
Downtown Express photo by Ramin Talaie

Architect James Carpenter in his Tribeca studio with a model of his art design for the Museum of Jewish Heritage which will open in April. His lighting design for the base of 7 World Trade Center will also soon be visible.

By Ronda Kaysen

Whoever said a six-story Con Edison substation couldn’t be pretty? The boxy structure that makes up the base of 7 World Trade Center will come to life next month, dazzling passersby with shimmering light emanating from within and cascading in from the outside. Yes, that’s right, a mammoth substation will be something other than an eyesore.

Architect and sculptor James Carpenter has transformed the clunky base of the David Childs-designed glass tower into an airy wonder of light that will bring color to the streetscape.

“The results are going to be spectacular,” developer Larry Silverstein, who owns 7 W.T.C., told Downtown Express in a telephone interview.

The 10 transformers housed inside the tower need air to breathe, and so 7’s base is a porous series of prism-shaped slats set at varying angles, letting natural light in that bounces off interior prisms and returns to the street. At night, L.E.D. lighting mounted inside the structure will bounce off the prisms and out onto the street. Sensory cameras will pick up movement off the street and periodically reflect it as well. The result will be a moving stream of light and color that shifts throughout the day and a permeable building that hides the transformers from the naked eye.

“We needed to come up with a way of balancing daylight with artificial light,” said Carpenter, sitting inside James Carpenter Design Associates’ Hudson St. studio. The light display will be visible along the northern and southern facades of the building. The south faces Vesey St. and the Trade Center site. The north side faces Barclay St. The light will not dominate the street, said Carpenter. “It’s a very subtle light. It’s very quiet.”

Nearby residents hope Carpenter’s project will bring life back to the dreary corner of Barclay and Greenwich Sts. “I’m dying to see it. From the prototype, it looks like it’ll be fabulous,” said Community Board 1 assistant district manager Judy Duffy. “I love 7, it’s a really pretty building.”

Duffy added that she hoped it would set a precedent for the Freedom Tower, which will have a 200-ft. tall reinforced concrete base. Silverstein said it was too soon to tell what would come of the Freedom Tower base. “We haven’t gotten to that yet,” he said. Carpenter said he had not been tapped for any other Trade Center projects.

A 2004 Macarthur Foundation “genius award” recipient, Carpenter trained at the Rhode Island School of Design and specializes in light. Light plays a key role in the entire 52-story 7 W.T.C. building. Carpenter, who has worked with Childs’ architecture firm Skidmore Owings and Merrill since 1979, helped Childs design the tower’s skin to play with light from the sky. The surface of the glass structure absorbs light and at different angles it appears to fade into the sky itself.

Carpenter also designed the lobby’s interior wall, which features a permanent scrolling creation by artist Jenny Holzer. In various fonts and colors, a litany of American literature will march across the security wall, visible from the street.

“You’ll be able to feast your eyes upon American classic literature all of which will be wholesome stuff: motherhood, apple pie, the American Dream, all good stuff,” said Silverstein.

Carpenter, a Tribeca resident, started his business in 1978 on West St., across from what was then the elevated West Side Highway. He spent eight years in Soho, and then relocated to Hudson and Beach Sts., where he has been ever since. “This is our home until we drop,” he said. He is at work on two other Downtown projects to bring light and color to a neighborhood with narrow, crowded streets often darkened by looming office towers.

Carpenter, who worked on the Time Warner building in Columbus Circle and has been tapped for Moynihan Station, is teaming with architect Grimshaw to bring light into the new Fulton Transit Center. Light from the above-grade glass dome will reflect down into the subterranean levels, bringing daylight into the subterranean levels of the Lower Manhattan subway.

“How do you make people aware of their surroundings?” said Carpenter, adding that although the transit center was scaled back last year, it will still be infused with light.

Over on the western edge of Lower Manhattan, Carpenter is designing a purely aesthetic project—a permanent installation at the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. Another light project designed with L.E.D. light and an overlay of glass, the project is designed to play off the natural light of the New York Harbor. Several cameras will replay images of the harbor through the L.E.D., creating a dissonant effect. When the L.E.D. is filtered through glass, a live image of the harbor becomes clear to the viewer. “You have this opportunity to see the harbor and this way of looking at it and interpreting it,” said Carpenter. “It’s really about trying to make people more aware of the unique conditions of light.”

The project will open in April and be placed on the bridge that connects the original 1997 museum with the addition, which was completed in 2003. The only permanent Andrew Goldsworthy installation in the city, Garden of Stones, lies directly beneath the bridge.

The Carpenter project is “bringing the harbor into the museum,” said Ivy Barsky, deputy director of the museum. “His work is so poetic and beautiful and it’s such an interesting blending of light and space and time. It’s kind of cool that the visitor is going to be in between the core exhibition and the temporary exhibition and have time to be aware of his or her surroundings of the water and the air and the sky.”

Ronda@DowntownExpress.com

Downtown Express is published by
Community Media LLC.
Downtown Express | 487 Greenwich St., Suite 6A | New York, NY 10013

[JMGarcia]

The most interesting bit from the article.
Duffy added that she hoped it would set a precedent for the Freedom Tower, which will have a 200-ft. tall reinforced concrete base. Silverstein said it was too soon to tell what would come of the Freedom Tower base. “We haven’t gotten to that yet,” he said.

[MidtownGuy]

Parks and plazas "here and there" are part of what make a city LIVEABLE and attractive, and form a major part of the image of a city that lingers in the minds of both residents and tourists. Pocket parks here and there provide pleasant places to have lunch , read a book, and socialize, not to mention OXYGEN. They can soften a city. For many workers cramped in cubicles, they are an oasis in the middle of the day.
Saying you don't like parks and plazas here and there is puzzling, maybe you could explain this a litttle?

[lofter1]

For even better results, they should encircle the whole building's base with plant life.
They have just rebuilt the sidewalk around the building across the street from 7WTC on Vesey, but in an odd way ...

They have left the iron casing that used to encircle trees fronting on that building on Vesey, but they have now filled the inner-most circle (the openings for the trunks) with concrete.

Hoping that this is temporary and that they will dig that out and plant some trees along there to enliven that stretch of sidewalk.

[Jake]

said about the FT base:
“We haven’t gotten to that yet,” he said.

:eek: My comment would be filled with some unpleasnat words so I'll refrain from saying anything.


anyway, about 7, its base, and its plaza.

I'm pleased they're making one and let me rephrase what I mean by "TINY" I mean that it will never be a gathering place. Sure it's a nice little triangular, have a quick bite place, but it's not a "im going to the 7WTC plaza" kind of a place. Don't get me wrong, I support it 100% but this "plaza" better not be THE plaza of GZ. I appreciate it but I definately want something nicer nearby.

[antinimby]

Saying you don't like parks and plazas here and there is puzzling, maybe you could explain this a litttle?A place with a park and plaza every block or two is what they call suburbia. When they are not everywhere and are strategically placed, parks become even more cherished.

[antinimby]

They have just rebuilt the sidewalk around the building across the street from 7WTC on Vesey, but in an odd way ...

They have left the iron casing that used to encircle trees fronting on that building on Vesey, but they have now filled the inner-most circle (the openings for the trunks) with concrete.

Hoping that this is temporary and that they will dig that out and plant some trees along there to enliven that stretch of sidewalk.Years from now, they will redo 7's base when they finally realize how terrible this design is. Ditto with the FT.

[Jake]

^I think years from now we won't even give that base a second thought, you'll see it so many times you'll just become accustomed to it. The base is quite beautiful at night.

[Citytect]

A place with a park and plaza every block or two is what they call suburbia.

That's an odd statement.

I don't think you can make a judgement of a city's urbanity based on number, size, or overall amount of public space. Most suburbias have fewer parks than cities. When everyone has a yard, parks become redundant.

[antinimby]

No, not odd at all. When you devote too much land to green space, basically the city becomes very suburban in nature. Whether that green space is a park, plaza, people's backyards or empty fields, it all acts the same way. Things become spread out and the advantages and conveniences of a dense urban area is nullified.

I know it is very un-politically correct to argue against parks and open space in this city, but it makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

[Jake]

^I completely agree...I often miss green space but I find the NYC promenades and central park to be plenty of nature for those seeking it. If you're really in need of green just go to the Catskills or Vermont as many NYers including myself do.

NYC is steel, glass, and concrete. I think it's just a matter of taste. I like it and while I sometimes envy smaller cities that have their one skyscraper surrounded by greenery I wouldn't really want to swap our concrete jungle for their oak trees.

[BPC]

No, not odd at all. When you devote too much land to green space, basically the city becomes very suburban in nature. Whether that green space is a park, plaza, people's backyards or empty fields, it all acts the same way. Things become spread out and the advantages and conveniences of a dense urban area is nullified.

I know it is very un-politically correct to argue against parks and open space in this city, but it makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

Jane Jacobs devoted an entire chapter of "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" to this very point.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I don't think Midtown guy was talking about a Bryant Park every few blocks. The "pocket parks" are usually less than half an acre. They are not escapes into nature, but a part of the cityscape, no less than storefronts. Many are converted traffic islands. A good example is Tribeca Park on West Broadway and Beach St. It has good connections to several streets, and serves as a gateway into the neighborhood when moving south from Canal St.

I think the little Greenwich Plaza will serve that same function for the WTC.

The plazas and pocket parks don't define urban and suburban. You can have the same spaces in two different areas and wind up with completely opposite results. The difference is walkability.

Even the larger park spaces add to the urban setting. A long walk down Broadway would be less interesting without Madison Square and Union Square along the way. As luck would have it, they are perfectly spaced apart at 1/2mile.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Jane Jacobs was also locked in battle with Robert Moses, who was parks commissioner.

[Citytect]

Whether that green space is a park, plaza, people's backyards or empty fields, it all acts the same way.

Hardly. Green space in urban areas and suburbs act in completely different ways. Suburbs have more wasted space. Density is the real factor of urbanity not the number of parks. If a park is created in a dense area, more people use it. It is active and adds to the sense of urbanity.

If a park is proposed that people aren't going to use, then there's a problem. Otherwise, parks are a good thing, in my opinion.

[ZippyTheChimp]

That is in complete agreement with Jane Jacobs.
http://www.ce.siue.edu/CIVIL/class/ce475/Chap%2005.pdf

[antinimby]

If a park is proposed that people aren't going to use, then there's a problem. Otherwise, parks are a good thing, in my opinion.Right. I never argued against parks, just the overproliferation of them.

[pianoman11686]

When you devote too much land to green space, basically the city becomes very suburban in nature.

I don't think that's possible. Not in New York, at least.

I'm all for parks. I think New York would be a much nicer place if we devoted twice as much of our current budget for parks (which is really low as far as I know.) Just look at how successful Battery Park City is. Quality of life is often described as high, in large result to the open space and greenery. Hudson River Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and the East River Park will raise property values for sure and bring more people into those neighborhoods. The central area of Hudson Yards is also getting a sizeable park. My point? The more parks, the better. When's too much, you ask? Well, let's just put it this way: we won't be tearing down parts of the city just to add greenery.

[antinimby]

I don't think that's possible. Not in New York, at least.We (at least I wasn't) were not talking about NY or any city in particular, just the general concept of devoting land to open space.

My point? The more parks, the better.With that logic, then a city would be all the much better if we had a park every other block or wait . . . wouldn't it be even better still if we make every block a park?

My point is that parks are a good thing but like everything in life, too much of a good thing can be detrimental. For example, water is a good thing, it sustains life but if there was too much of it then it kills.

[TLOZ Link5]

That's an odd statement.

I don't think you can make a judgement of a city's urbanity based on number, size, or overall amount of public space. Most suburbias have fewer parks than cities. When everyone has a yard, parks become redundant.

Very good point. San Jose, which is almost entirely suburban in character, has the lowest gross and per-capita amount of parkland of any large city in the nation. While New York's population is massive — which thus skews the parkland-per-person figure against it, it actually devotes a much larger percentage of its land area to parks than most cities.

[BPC]

What Jane Jacobs argued is that parks are not inherently good. There are good parks and bad parks, just like there are good buildings and bad buildings, good streets and bad streets. Jacobs spends a lot of time in her book discussing what differentiates the good ones (she cites Washington Square Park as one key example) from bad ones. While she addresses a lot of factors, one of the biggest ones is that good parks are designed to draw the greatest number of users at the most widespread times. Another is that the park have a group of stakeholders vested in its well-being (think Central Park Trust or Battery Park Conservancy, although those post-date Jacobs).

Zip, you are correct that Jacobs's ideas were in reaction to Robert Moses, because Moses had the habit of bulldozing functioning New York City neighborhoods and replacing them with large-scale housing projects with lots of "green space." Today, if you ask most people today whether they would rather live in Soho or the West Village or Tribeca or other dense neighborhoods with little green space, versus neighborhoods loaded with green space like Coop City or Stuyvesant Tower or Peter Cooper Village, it really would not be even a close call. Real estate values tell the tale. Jacobs has been proven right and Moses has been proven wrong, in spades.

Anyway, I agree with antinimby that fetishizing green space is anti-urban.

[lofter1]

BPC: Don't you live in Battery Park City (which just might have more park space / green space than any other neighborhood in the Manhattan -- save for those bordering on Central Park / Riverside Park)?

[lofter1]

IMO the "greenstreets" policy has really enlivened NYC and is a real positive addition:

http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/trees_greenstreets.html

In 1996, Parks began converting barren concrete triangles and traffic islands into Greenstreets, making the pavement spring to life by planting trees, shrubs and flowers. So far, we've created more than 1,765 Greenstreets.

[BPC]

BPC: Don't you live in Battery Park City (which just might have more park space / green space than any other neighborhood in the Manhattan -- save for those bordering on Central Park / Riverside Park)?

I do. And while some of the green space (particularly the riverfront Esplanade) here is magnificent, other parts of it are rarely used and kind of pointless. Meanwhile, the main complaint of folks in this neighborhood is the lack of good RETAIL (stores, restaurants, etc.) -- which again is exactly what Jane Jacobs wrote about. Urban planners (particularly in her day, less so today) fetishize green space and ignore the importance of retail development.

[lofter1]

Active "use" of greenspaces is not the only way to judge their positive aspects.

Open, planted areas offer passive breathing / viewing space for the community -- and undoubtedly help property values in the immediate vicinity.

Imagine the buildings around the new "tear-drop" park with yet another structure -- retail or otherwise -- or roadway in its place; ditto for the Rector Place & N. End Avenue greenspaces.

One can enjoy the simple beauty of greenspaces without "fetishizing" them.

[Citytect]

One can enjoy the simple beauty of greenspaces without "fetishizing" them.

Exactly.

I find this whole debate puzzling. Who is fetishizing parks here? Is NYC on the verge of becoming suburban or something? What's the point in making statements like 'it's bad to fetishize greenspace'? What problem is that addressing? I don't see one. While the statement might be true, it seems to me it is really out of place here.

But if we're debating a hypothetical situation where NYC is creating numerous open spaces that aren't being used and are draining the livelihood of our neighborhoods, I think it's safe to say everyone agrees that that's not good.

[lofter1]

...a hypothetical situation where NYC is creating numerous open spaces that aren't being used and are draining the livelihood of our neighborhoods ...
Show me ONE place in NYC that matches that description and then I'll talk more about it ...

[BPC]

the future WTC Memorial Plaza

[ZippyTheChimp]

The WTC plaza could be a good example of what Jacobs was talking about.
" Parks are the creatures of their surroundings, and they are affected directly and drastically by the way the neighborhood acts upon them."She argued against the perception that parkland and open space were inherently beneficial.

To get this thread back to topic, it is a huge stretch to say that the 7 WTC plaza and the other parklets in the area, no matter how many, could make a dense area like lower Manhattan more suburban. If these spaces fail, then the surrounding neighborhood is already in trouble.

[NYatKNIGHT]

This open little triangle is hands down better than the wall that was once 7 WTC. It lets the sky into what will be a neighborhood of giants and provides a gateway from the north. Little odd shaped parks like this are all over downtown where different grids meet, breaking up the monotony - it's signature downtown NYC streetscape.

http://www.lowermanhattan.info/construction/gallery/photos/WTC7_future_10.jpg

[Stern]

Downtown Express:

Designer brings light to Downtown projects

By Ronda Kaysen

Whoever said a six-story Con Edison substation couldn’t be pretty? The boxy structure that makes up the base of 7 World Trade Center will come to life next month, dazzling passersby with shimmering light emanating from within and cascading in from the outside. Yes, that’s right, a mammoth substation will be something other than an eyesore.

Architect and sculptor James Carpenter has transformed the clunky base of the David Childs-designed glass tower into an airy wonder of light that will bring color to the streetscape.

“The results are going to be spectacular,” developer Larry Silverstein, who owns 7 W.T.C., told Downtown Express in a telephone interview.

The 10 transformers housed inside the tower need air to breathe, and so 7’s base is a porous series of prism-shaped slats set at varying angles, letting natural light in that bounces off interior prisms and returns to the street. At night, L.E.D. lighting mounted inside the structure will bounce off the prisms and out onto the street. Sensory cameras will pick up movement off the street and periodically reflect it as well. The result will be a moving stream of light and color that shifts throughout the day and a permeable building that hides the transformers from the naked eye.

“We needed to come up with a way of balancing daylight with artificial light,” said Carpenter, sitting inside James Carpenter Design Associates’ Hudson St. studio. The light display will be visible along the northern and southern facades of the building. The south faces Vesey St. and the Trade Center site. The north side faces Barclay St. The light will not dominate the street, said Carpenter. “It’s a very subtle light. It’s very quiet.”

Nearby residents hope Carpenter’s project will bring life back to the dreary corner of Barclay and Greenwich Sts. “I’m dying to see it. From the prototype, it looks like it’ll be fabulous,” said Community Board 1 assistant district manager Judy Duffy. “I love 7, it’s a really pretty building.”

Duffy added that she hoped it would set a precedent for the Freedom Tower, which will have a 200-ft. tall reinforced concrete base. Silverstein said it was too soon to tell what would come of the Freedom Tower base. “We haven’t gotten to that yet,” he said. Carpenter said he had not been tapped for any other Trade Center projects.

A 2004 Macarthur Foundation “genius award” recipient, Carpenter trained at the Rhode Island School of Design and specializes in light. Light plays a key role in the entire 52-story 7 W.T.C. building. Carpenter, who has worked with Childs’ architecture firm Skidmore Owings and Merrill since 1979, helped Childs design the tower’s skin to play with light from the sky. The surface of the glass structure absorbs light and at different angles it appears to fade into the sky itself.

Carpenter also designed the lobby’s interior wall, which features a permanent scrolling creation by artist Jenny Holzer. In various fonts and colors, a litany of American literature will march across the security wall, visible from the street.

“You’ll be able to feast your eyes upon American classic literature all of which will be wholesome stuff: motherhood, apple pie, the American Dream, all good stuff,” said Silverstein.

Carpenter, a Tribeca resident, started his business in 1978 on West St., across from what was then the elevated West Side Highway. He spent eight years in Soho, and then relocated to Hudson and Beach Sts., where he has been ever since. “This is our home until we drop,” he said. He is at work on two other Downtown projects to bring light and color to a neighborhood with narrow, crowded streets often darkened by looming office towers.

Carpenter, who worked on the Time Warner building in Columbus Circle and has been tapped for Moynihan Station, is teaming with architect Grimshaw to bring light into the new Fulton Transit Center. Light from the above-grade glass dome will reflect down into the subterranean levels, bringing daylight into the subterranean levels of the Lower Manhattan subway.

“How do you make people aware of their surroundings?” said Carpenter, adding that although the transit center was scaled back last year, it will still be infused with light.

Over on the western edge of Lower Manhattan, Carpenter is designing a purely aesthetic project—a permanent installation at the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. Another light project designed with L.E.D. light and an overlay of glass, the project is designed to play off the natural light of the New York Harbor. Several cameras will replay images of the harbor through the L.E.D., creating a dissonant effect. When the L.E.D. is filtered through glass, a live image of the harbor becomes clear to the viewer. “You have this opportunity to see the harbor and this way of looking at it and interpreting it,” said Carpenter. “It’s really about trying to make people more aware of the unique conditions of light.”

The project will open in April and be placed on the bridge that connects the original 1997 museum with the addition, which was completed in 2003. The only permanent Andrew Goldsworthy installation in the city, Garden of Stones, lies directly beneath the bridge.

The Carpenter project is “bringing the harbor into the museum,” said Ivy Barsky, deputy director of the museum. “His work is so poetic and beautiful and it’s such an interesting blending of light and space and time. It’s kind of cool that the visitor is going to be in between the core exhibition and the temporary exhibition and have time to be aware of his or her surroundings of the water and the air and the sky.”

[evil_synth]

This sounds like it will look good, but I'd like to see it in person or in a render before I get too excited.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I walked by the building today, and a crane was out front. Workers were removing the metal facade panels. Most of the panels directly over the lobby opening up to where the glass starts were already removed.

I thought I saw a huge sign partially covered with tarp. I couldn't make out all the letters, but I think it spelled out:

BLOOMBERG SUCKS

[NYguy]

I thought I saw a huge sign partially covered with tarp. I couldn't make out all the letters, but I think it spelled out:

BLOOMBERG SUCKS

That Silverstein. Always with jokes...

[Derek2k3]

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=57762327&size=o

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=36722060&size=o

[Funkytown]

WOW, at first glance I had no idea that first pic was 7wtc.It is practically transparent.This is going to change once the building becomes occupied though.I think it's growing on me more with time-it's my favourite box in New York City with the Seagram Building a close second:)

[BigMac]

Curbed
February 21, 2006

7WTC Scrolls, Freedom Tower Holds

http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_02_abcs.jpg

Behold! Down at the World Trade Center site, blogger A Test of Will (http://testofwill.blogspot.com/) snaps the above photo of a huge scrolling sign in the lobby of Larry Silverstein's 7 World Trade Center. (Suggested scrolling text: RENT NOW... SOMEONE... PLEASE....).

We kid. Because it's really not fair to make fun of 7 World Trade given that the thing is, you know, actually built. That's not the case for Larry Silverstein's Freedom Tower, of course, which is—get this—not going to be finished by 2008. Stunned? God knows we are. The NYT tossed around a 2011 date this past weekend just for sport, as like the Whole Foods opening date at Avalon Chrystie Place, this one is what you want it to be. The Freedom Tower will be ready when you are ready for it. Zen, baby. Soak it up.

Copyright © 2006 Curbed

[ablarc]

...it's signature downtown NYC streetscape.
Yeah, but where are the bollards to stop the truck-bombers?

[macreator]

Yeah, but where are the bollards to stop the truck-bombers?

Good point.

On a more serious note though, is it just me or is there a total lack of bollards in front of many important headquarters buildings around the City. Some building have even put up some strong planters in front of certain parts of their front but then neglected other sections that are vulnerable.

I mean how much could bollards cost? You'd think it would be worth it for certain buildings to install them, no?

[lofter1]

The stretch of street directly in front of 7WTC (between the triangular park and the building) is officially designated as a "Private Street" ( http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=54939&postcount=724 ), so most likely there will be security features at the interstections / corners of 7WTC -- plus the raised planters in the park will serve as barricades for the front entrance.

[Derek2k3]

Here's a close up on the crown (http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=100529461&context=set-72057594048138270&size=l)

Awesome Flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sciamano/sets/72057594048138270/)

[Jake]

The crane for the window washers is monstrous, looks like some kind of a shimmering insect sticking its head out over 7

[Kris]

March 6, 2006
At Ground Zero, Accord Brings a Work of Art
By GLENN COLLINS

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/03/06/nyregion/06wall.583.jpg
In the lobby of 7 World Trade Center: David M. Childs, left, the architect; Larry A. Silverstein, the developer, with his wife, Klara; and Jenny Holzer, the artist of the wall of words.

Cultural negotiations at ground zero between the artist Jenny Holzer and the developer Larry A. Silverstein have ended not just in an agreement, but in a work of art.

The initial disagreements might seem puny compared with the disputes between Mr. Silverstein and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, between Mr. Bloomberg and Senator Charles E. Schumer, and between Gov. George E. Pataki and various other stakeholders at the site.

But the accord is a rare and public sign of progress in this very disputatious neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. Already, thousands of moving, ghostly-white words of text have been programmed by Ms. Holzer evoking the history of New York; they will scroll across a glowing, 65-foot-wide, 14-foot-high wall in the lobby of 7 World Trade Center. Though the artwork resides in the lobby, it is already visible several blocks away. It is the ornament of the first skyscraper to have been built at ground zero, rising from the rubble of the first 7 World Trade Center.

The artwork — a continuing stream of poetry and prose written by dozens of different authors, from Elizabeth Bishop and Allen Ginsberg to Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman — will move along a screen made of acid-etched, diffused, translucent glass illuminated by whitish light.

It will take at least eight hours for the entire text to scroll by, Ms. Holzer said. The piece will dominate the lobby of the 52-story building, a shimmering, sharp-edged parallelogram sheathed in glass at the intersection of Greenwich and Barclay Streets at the northern edge of ground zero.

Though the $700 million building is not scheduled to open until mid-May, the artwork is already being tweaked. The letters appear in a five-foot-high band of text about two-thirds of the way up the high-tech wall, which was created, with Ms. Holzer, by James Carpenter, a Manhattan designer.

Under the high slabs of glass, white light-emitting diodes are threaded on 14-foot-tall metal ribbons. The laminated, structurally fortified wall is also a security amenity, screening the public from the private precincts of the building, and acting as a blast shield in case of terrorist attack.

As with so much related to the World Trade Center site, the lobby art for Building 7 did not come into being without initial struggle. Mr. Silverstein thought a competition among glass artists might yield a grand centerpiece for the lobby, but David M. Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the architects of 7 World Trade Center, had another idea.

He wanted Ms. Holzer, the 55-year-old art star whose enigmatic light projects — which often feature words that savage government and capitalism — have been displayed from the Guggenheim Museum in New York to the Reichstag in Berlin.

"The building is all about light and transparency," Mr. Childs said. "I thought the wall would be a prime opportunity to do something on a grand scale."

Mr. Silverstein was concerned that the location at ground zero imposed restraints. "Sometimes the message of artists is a downer," he said. "Down here, after 9/11, we need positive stuff. Good stuff, as opposed to the miseries of 9/11. I didn't know how we could work together." Mr. Silverstein added, "I decided not to do it because I felt that I'd have difficulties with her word program." He agreed only after prodding by Mr. Childs and an agreement from Ms. Holzer to remove text he found objectionable.

"I was taken aback at the gravity of the project," Ms. Holzer said. "I didn't want to make bad or insensitive art."

Mr. Silverstein asked his wife of 49 years, Klara, to work with Ms. Holzer. Theirs was an on-again, off-again collaboration for more than a year. Mrs. Silverstein reviewed Ms. Holzer's poetry selections and felt that several "were too graphic; I felt that they would bring back images that people might want to forget," she said. She worried that many of those who would pass through the lobby had personally experienced Sept. 11, 2001.

Among the rejected works was a poem, "Photographs of Sept. 11th," by the 1996 Nobel Laureate, Wislawa Szymborska; it focused on those who jumped from the World Trade Center. Ms. Holzer's texts became the poetry of compromise, and the project avoided the fate of famous disastrous collaborations like that of the artist Diego Rivera and John D. Rockefeller Jr. that resulted in the 1936 obliteration of the artist's anticapitalist mural in the lobby of the RCA Building.

"A lot of artists would have huffed and gone off," Mr. Childs said. "But Jenny didn't."

The Holzer-Silverstein collaboration was an odd fit. "He is very energetic and positive," she said, "and I'm energetic and always think the sky is falling."

There was little desk-pounding, but Mr. Silverstein said, "Conflict is part of the creative endeavor." Ms. Holzer has by no means finished with Mr. Silverstein's wall, and friction between artist and patron could resurface. After a while, she would like to refresh it with new text. "I hope to feed it again," Ms. Holzer said. "It would be nice to keep it alive."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[Citytect]

Art?

[kz1000ps]

My thoughts exactly -- that word is brandied about way too much. Maybe we need to trample on personal expression/perception a bit and narrow down what the definition of "art" is (..I know it'll never happen).

[lofter1]

I went by and checked out the Holzer piece today -- very entrancing and thought provoking.

This work will serve as a unique & welcoming entry point into the WTC site for those coming in from the north on Greenwich.

The triangular park in front of 7 WTC will be the perfect viewing spot (they have now installed 8 light posts encircling the fountain as well as three flag poles near the southern end of the triangle -- pavers have been installed in ~ 2/3 of the park -- and huge blocks of rounded dark green granite have been installed around the fountain). Looks like the park will be finished by summer.

[BPC]

My thoughts exactly -- that word is brandied about way too much. Maybe we need to trample on personal expression/perception a bit and narrow down what the definition of "art" is (..I know it'll never happen).

Since when is poetry NOT art?

[lofter1]

Art?
Maybe you were thinking of this ...

ART: http://www.kinkadecentral.com/paintings/tk2y2-01.htm

Artist: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-kinkade5mar05,0,4387601,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines

http://www.kinkadecentral.com/paintings/tk2y2-01b-lightfreedom.jpg

"The Light of Freedom"
by
Thomas Kinkade
Painter of Light

[Citytect]

Since when is poetry NOT art?

The poetry is art, not the ticker. Plugging in someone else's creative writing into an electronic board isn't very artistic, in my opinion. It might be cool to look at but that alone doesn't make it an art piece.

Maybe you were thinking of this ...

No.

[MidtownGuy]

That was my laugh out loud moment! I'm still cracking up.

[BPC]

The poetry is art, not the ticker. Plugging in someone else's creative writing into an electronic board isn't very artistic, in my opinion. It might be cool to look at but that alone doesn't make it an art piece.

I guess poetry is only art if it is jotted on to a papyrus with a quill and ink.

[BigMac]

In considering the wall of words, I think of the Guggenheim; the means of art display being artistic itself.

[TLOZ Link5]

My thoughts exactly -- that word is brandied about way too much. Maybe we need to trample on personal expression/perception a bit and narrow down what the definition of "art" is (..I know it'll never happen).

Ever been to the Tate Modern? There's a piece called An Oak Tree by Michael-Craig Martin that's literally just a glass of water on a high shelf.

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=27072

I'm not certain if there's an attendant somewhere who constantly refills the glass as needed to replace water lost to evaporation, or if the artist does it himself, or what. It is also not to be confused with The Oak Tree, which is a 1790 oil painting by Joseph Farington.

My favorite from that museum, however, is Concert for Anarchy; every minute or so the keys explode out from the piano as depicted in the photo before retracting back inside, resulting in a very jarring and amusing cacaphony.

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=26592&searchid=14973

[Citytect]

I wouldn't call photocopying a page from a book of poetry creating a work of art, just as I won't call scrolling someone else's poems on a wall creating a work of art. Credit where credit is due. The artists are the authors, not this Holzer woman.

[antinimby]

...not this Holzer woman.Calling her a woman is stretching it a little. Without the long hair, she could pass for a guy.

The people in this photo are all kind of ugly.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/03/06/nyregion/06wall.583.jpg

[lofter1]

Klara Silverstein is adorable ...

[lofter1]

Here's a better pic of Jenny ...

http://www.bundestag.de/bp/2002/bp0209/330_/Panorama_Holzer_dpa.jpg

[BigMac]

Curbed
March 6, 2006

7 World Trade Center: One Cool Tower

by Lockhart

http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_03_7wtc.jpg

Standing at the edge of The Pit with an architecturally minded colleague one evening last week, we found ourselves gazing at 7 World Trade Center with unexpected glee. Noting same, our friend agreed, "Hey, I've always said it's a good-looking building." As did plemeljr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/plemeljr/), who did up an ersatz photo essay documenting 7WTC in all its glory (including, alas, its non-glorious base) and added it to the Curbed Photo Pool (http://www.flickr.com/groups/curbed/pool/).

[Jake]

Holy shit, how did I never notice the little steel "7" on the corner of the base of that building!? Did that just get put on?


This building IMO will be redeemed when it's lit at night for the first time, with abundant light the base really shines.

[lofter1]

Holy shit, how did I never notice the little steel "7" on the corner of the base of that building!? Did that just get put on?
Nope, the 7 has been there for quite some time. They've just removed a great deal of scaffolding and construction material in front of the building, so it might have been obscured.

[NYguy]

ny times

MANHATTAN: A TOP RATING FOR TRADE CENTER TOWER

The United States Green Building Council, a nonprofit group that promotes energy efficiency in construction and design, today will designate 7 World Trade Center, a 52-story skyscraper at ground zero, as the first office tower in New York City to be certified as "green." The building, at Greenwich and Barclay Streets, developed by Silverstein Properties, is scheduled to open in May. The council cited the use of such design strategies as energy-conserving ultraclear glass, the recycling of rainwater to cool the tower, and construction from recycled materials.

GLENN COLLINS (NYT)

[BigMac]

Commercial Property News
March 8, 2006

World Trade Center Office Building Earns Gold LEED Rating for Environmentally Friendly Design

By April Michelle Davis, Northeast Correspondent

In an effort to bring environmentally friendly buildings to New York City, a Manhattan office building at the new World Trade Center has become the first ever green office building in the city's history. The building, 7 World Trade Center (pictured), received a gold rating today for environmental sustainability by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The U.S. Green Building Council, which has developed the only standard for a green building in the country, has certified the office building under its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, rating system. Silverstein Properties Inc., the owner of 7 World Trade Center, didn't return calls by deadline.

With the integration of natural resources, human health and community concerns into design and construction, buildings are becoming cleaner for occupants and the environment. According to reports by the U.S. Green Building Council, well-designed green building can often be cheaper to build and operate.

The gold designation at 7 World Trade Center was based on open space, energy-conserving natural lighting, improved indoor air quality through the installation of outside-air ventilation, energy conservation, water conservation and waste reduction.

© 2006 VNU eMedia, Inc.

[NYguy]

ny observer

Larry Shows Up Sasha Cohen


More good news for Larry Silverstein which coincidentally—we are sure—occurred less than a week before negotiations over his future role at Ground Zero conclude. His 52-story 7 World Trade Center earned the Gold LEED certification by the U.S. Green Buildings Council today, which means that it uses less energy than conventional buildings, provides cleaner air, and other good stuff.

There are four levels of this LEED system, and Silverstein never said that he was going for anything more than one of the two lowest: basic certification or silver certification. So the gold rating was a bit of a surprise—or maybe not.

“What we’ve found is that developers, especially developers of spec properties, under-promise,” Brendan Owens, director of LEED Design and Construction at the U.S.G.B.C., told us at the press conference today. It was clear from the beginning to those on the inside, he said, that Silverstein had wanted gold.

Among the final deciding factors that pushed the building to the next level was the little triangular park to the east, a feature that Silverstein likes to point to as evidence both of his profligacy and his advanced age. Younger and greedier developers, he has suggested, would just throw up some condos there and make a few million bucks.

At the press conference, Silverstein said that future buildings at Ground Zero (presuming he would build them) would also meet or exceed gold, which is quite a statement. The draft guidelines for the World Trade Center site issued by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation--and my goodness, they better get finalized soon because something might actually get built there before too long--only call for the silver rating, and then only the equivalent of silver rating, which means that one does not have to actually pay the U.S.G.B.C. for certification.

But while Silverstein earned the first-ever LEED medal for an office building in New York City, his came under the somewhat laxer “core and shell” requirements for spec buildings—buildings without one primary tenant, in which the developer does not have control over energy-saving features of the interior build-out. The Lord Norman Foster-designed Hearst Tower will be completed in a few months and is expected to receive a gold (or does that mean platinum?) certification for an owner-occupied building. Then, in 2008, 1 Bryant Park, the Bank of America tower, is expected to meet the core-and-shell platinum standard. And by platinum, we think the builder, the Durst Organization, really means platinum, since that is as high as anyone can go.

-Matthew Schuerman

[TLOZ Link5]

Only the first? There have been plenty of green buildings constructed in New York over the years. What rating did Condé Nast get, if any?

[Citytect]

Only the first? There have been plenty of green buildings constructed in New York over the years. What rating did Condé Nast get, if any?

Conde Nast was LEED certified. 7WTC will be the first commercial building in NYC to receive a LEED rating above "certified" - the lowest rating in the system. The ratings are certified, silver, gold, and platinum. Thus 7WTC will be NY's first "LEED medal" recipient.

Edit: But I think Conde Nast is the only other LEED office building in the city right now. There are several LEED residential buildings.

[antinimby]

The entrance:

http://static.flickr.com/53/109912071_8cb3e4d5f1.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/43/109912476_c3e3fd7bf2.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/56/109914017_77ae01dee1.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emilygeoff/109912476/

[BigMac]

Nice photos; thanks.

[Jake]

I really hate that lobby color though, would've been better if it was the color of the windows.

[BigMac]

Curbed
March 9, 2006

http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_03_7WTCHolzer.jpg

Copyright © 2006 Curbed

[lofter1]

The light color changes ...

[Jake]

when? I always catch it at purple or pink. The lobby looks great though.

[LeCom]

http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/6772/pict00257wtcucmar06lookingupto.jpg

http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/338/pict00237wtcucmar06basetothewe.jpg

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/1995/pict00267wtcucmar06basetothene.jpg

[Citytect]

Those gaps are still wide open between the rows of windows on the upper portion of the substation.

[lofter1]

methinks that those gaps are the way it is going to be.

odd, eh?

[LeCom]

No, not odd. Those are cooling gaps for the mechanical floors, I think.

[Jake]

Yeah I think they're staying,

BTW, what are the current plans for the lights in the crow, this was supposed to have a Bloomber-tower kind of crown, right? from what I remember of the renderings.

Any idea how this building will be lit at night once it's completed, which is soon?

[MidtownGuy]

I sort of like the gaps. The base looks nice and I love that pink color against all of the silver and grey- it looks very fresh.

[Citytect]

methinks that those gaps are the way it is going to be.

odd, eh?

I've always suspected they'd be left open. Seems so unfinished. And Zippy brought up pigeons earlier. Office workers might not like a swarm of birds hovering over the entrance of the building crapping on their heads.

It is odd that they spent so much time working on the metal part of the base, and then just leave holes in the facade above it. How hard is it to put up some vent covers?

[antinimby]

Can you see the reflection of the bombed-out looking Fiterman Hall? Could that also be another reason why they're having trouble finding tenants?

http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_03_7WTCHolzer.jpg

[Jake]

Oh yeah the views from the lower floors are great, pigeon shit, a graveyard, a constuction site, and a half-collapsed asbestos storage building.

[LeCom]

^don't forget an abandoned 40 story tower

[ZippyTheChimp]

I've always suspected they'd be left open. Seems so unfinished. And Zippy brought up pigeons earlier. Office workers might not like a swarm of birds hovering over the entrance of the building crapping on their heads.

It is odd that they spent so much time working on the metal part of the base, and then just leave holes in the facade above it. How hard is it to put up some vent covers?I still think they will be covered with louvered panels.

Today there were two workers on a scaffold removing some sort of film from the frames. Also, if you look at the opening to the left of the ladder, that rope hanging out may be gasket material.

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/3192/7wtc71c0og.th.jpg (http://img119.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7wtc71c0og.jpg)

[Citytect]

I'm still waiting.

That rope just looks like it's steadying the ladder. Why would they use a gasket for that?

[ZippyTheChimp]

The ladder is well back from the glass. I'm talking about the long piece of "rope" hanging down at the middle of the opening.

Also, if you look closely, the middle panel is clear, while the others have a blue film on them.

[LeCom]

Today I visited 7 WTC. All of it. The lobby, middle floors, top floor, the base, tech floors, basement, everything. Pics (the ones that aren't of anything confidential, like the lobby and views) coming later.

I even got to see Silverstein in the lobby.

[Zoe]

LeCom - can you send me a private message on how you got in to see the building. I have been trying to lease some space in that building and can't get anyone to return my calls. Granted I am not a bank looking to take 20 floors, but still I am frustrated at this point.
Thanks

[BrooklynRider]

I was by the building last night and it seems there is a blue neon (?) light that runs down the south east corner of the building. It is the same color as the blue on Conde Nast and Reuters. Not sure if this is a precursor to that shadow light that will move with pedestrians.

The park, too, is coming along. Even with Fitterman heap across the street, this is really looking like one lovely little spot in the middle of the WTC scar.

[ZippyTheChimp]

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/1912/7wtc72c0ww.th.jpg (http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7wtc72c0ww.jpg).

[antinimby]

I have been trying to lease some space in that building and can't get anyone to return my calls. Granted I am not a bank looking to take 20 floors, but still I am frustrated at this point.
ThanksI'm surprised. I would have thought Silverstein, at this point, is so desperate to just have some warm bodies in the building that he'd be willing give away some office space to anyone walking by. :D

[LeCom]

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/1912/7wtc72c0ww.th.jpg (http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7wtc72c0ww.jpg).
fine fine pic, something "Wizard of Oz" about it.

[NYguy]

ny post

LARRY WOOS STATE

http://www.nypost.com/img/cols/loisweiss.jpg


March 22, 2006 -- LARRY Silverstein is trying to snare 500,000 feet of state offices for 7 World Trade Center.

But that major block could become more fodder for the current renegotiation of Silverstein's pact with the Port Authority.

Four of the five agencies are now ensconced at 60 Broad St. where the lease ends on New Year's Eve, 2007.

The Office of Court Administration needs 125,000 feet, the Insurance Dept. 125,000 feet; the Division of Housing and Community Renewal needs 60,000 feet, the Division of the Lottery 5,000 feet and the Dept. of Labor another 80,000 feet. Staubach Co. is leading the state's search.

Meanwhile the agencies' space at 60 Broad is being marketed - starting in the mid-$30s a foot - through Arthur Stern and Anthony Stapleton of Cogswell Realty Group, which manages and leases on behalf of the Wells Real Estate Funds ownership. Spokespeople for Silverstein, Cogswell, Wells, Staubach and the governor's office had nothing to reveal.

[NYguy]

March 22, 2006 -- LARRY Silverstein is trying to snare 500,000 feet of state offices for 7 World Trade Center.

But that major block could become more fodder for the current renegotiation of Silverstein's pact with the Port Authority.


Its amazing how the Port Authority and the state (Pataki) continue to insist that Silverstein make some concessions and forgo some profits because this is not a "typical" development. Yet they continue to hold out for a better deal of their own (Silverstein's rates too high?). With the state and the PA looking for that much space, it should have been a forgone conclusion that they would be the first to jump to the WTC site. That would have done much more to jumpstart things at the site as well as send a signal to the business community that the government was behind this project 100%. If even the PA and the state have yet to commit to the site, why should anyone else?

[krulltime]

March 18, 2006:


http://i.pbase.com/o4/55/435155/1/57429917.IMG_8115.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o4/55/435155/1/57429888.IMG_8104.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o4/55/435155/1/57429926.IMG_8122.jpg

[ZippyTheChimp]

I see you waited around until the lobby changed color.

[lofter1]

I always catch it at purple or pink. The lobby looks great though.
Jake, those photos ^^ are for you ;)

[millertime83]

anyone notice that the crown was lit tonight? I never saw that before.

Also, here are some photos I took inside the building:
http://cornerpocketproductions.com/photos/misc/small1.jpg
http://cornerpocketproductions.com/photos/misc/small3.jpg
http://cornerpocketproductions.com/photos/misc/small2.jpg
the elevators are really interesting. You enter the floor you want on this keypad, and it tells you which elevator to go wait at.

[mgp]

the elevators are really interesting. You enter the floor you want on this keypad, and it tells you which elevator to go wait at.

That is a new trend in elevators that I have seen in a few of the newer office towers. It is supposed to group people together based upon the floors they are going to, thus eliminating the number of stops and improving the speed you get to your floor. Whether or not it does that, I do not know.

[Jake]

Allow me to introduce the line to the keypad. It's original I'll tell you that, will it work, hmmm, we'll see. I don't think this is that big of a deal, most "smart" elevator banks already know to hang out near the lobby or have designated rest floors, it's really only apartment buildings that have that stupid "press the button and every elevator will race to you" system.

[Ninjahedge]

That is a new trend in elevators that I have seen in a few of the newer office towers. It is supposed to group people together based upon the floors they are going to, thus eliminating the number of stops and improving the speed you get to your floor. Whether or not it does that, I do not know.

Reminds me of the elevators that could see into the future.......



42

[MrShakespeare]

LeCom - can you send me a private message on how you got in to see the building. I have been trying to lease some space in that building and can't get anyone to return my calls. Granted I am not a bank looking to take 20 floors, but still I am frustrated at this point.
Thanks

Happy to hear that, Zoe! This is the best news I have heard all morning - about your interest, not your frustration. Best wishes! Silverstein should be aiming for smaller tenants, in addition to his pursuit of the big ones, but he has been a bit preoccupied lately! :)

[MrShakespeare]

Reminds me of the elevators that could see into the future.......



42

Ah-ha! Another hitchiker! ;)

[WizardOfOss]

Ah-ha! Another hitchiker! ;)
From The Restaurant at the End of the Universe:
It should be explained at this point that modern elevators are strange and complex entities. The ancient electric winch and maximum capacity eight person jobs bear as much relation to a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter as a packet of peanuts does to the entire West Wing of the Sirian State Mental Hospital. This is because they operate on the unlikely principle of defocused temporal perception, a curious system which enables the elevator to be on the right floor to pick you up even before you knew you wanted it, thus eliminating all the tedious chatting, relaxing, and making friends that people were previoiusly forced to do whilst waiting for elevators.

Not unnaturally, many Lifts imbued with intelligence and precognition became terribly frustrated with the mindless business of going up or down, experimented briefly with the notion of going sideways as a sort of existential protest, demanded participation in the decision making process, and finally took to sulking in basements.


I rather take the stairs...

[thetunnelkid]

I wanna get in there again.

[antinimby]

WHAT ME WORRY?
Steve Cuozzo

http://www.nypost.com/photos/comm041106048.jpg
DÉJÀ VU: Larry Silverstein's 7 World Trade Center
is having a rough launch.
Photo: Lois Weiss

April 11, 2006 -- ANYONE who's sweating over the scarcity of tenants at Larry Silverstein's new 7 World Trade Center, opening next month, can learn from the example of another Silverstein project that faced an even rougher launch: namely, the old 7 WTC.

Silverstein's detractors can't make enough of the fact that the new 7 WTC has yet to find tenants for most of its 1.7 million square feet.

Omigod - only a few puny deals signed after two years of construction! A mere 60,000 square feet leased out of 1.7 million!

But although Mayor Bloomberg and others have seized on the plight of 7 WTC to argue against commercial reconstruction - and to try muscling Silverstein out of Ground Zero - it's a fool's game to make a mountain out of the project's molehill of signed deals.

For one thing, Silverstein has a term-sheet agreement with Chinese real estate company Vantone for 200,000 feet, and is in talks with others. But what if those deals fall through and 7 WTC is still mostly empty six months or a year from now?

Actually, quite a few Manhattan office towers have gone up without pre-signed tenants in the past 15 years - and all ended up fully leased and thriving by the time they were open or within a year or two later, even if some developers lost the buildings to their banks.

Those projects included 4 Times Square, 505 Fifth Ave. and 610 Broadway (fully or mostly leased at their completion) and three Times Square-area towers that stood empty for a brief interlude before filling up.

But the project whose troubled early history is most germane to the new 7 WTC is none other than the even larger, original 7 WTC, which Silverstein also built entirely on spec.

The first 7 WTC had 2 million square feet. From the time construction started in 1984, the building did not land an anchor tenant - Salomon Bros. - until 1988, a year after it opened.

Silverstein thought he had a deal with Salomon in 1986, when the Wall Street firm signed a term sheet for 1 million square feet. But later, Salomon chief John Gutfreund told Silverstein he wanted to move instead to a new project planned by Mort Zuckerman at Columbus Circle.

Silverstein then launched talks with Drexel Burnham Lambert, which wanted all of 7 WTC's 2 million square feet. But three days before the lease was to be signed that $3 billion deal collapsed, too, over the Michael Milken insider-trading scandal.

Just as today, the media predicted doom and gloom: the New York Times, on Dec. 3, 1986, warned, "The cancellation . . . throws 2 million square feet of prime office space back onto a market already weighed down with the largest vacancy rate in a decade."

Silverstein recalls, "I got a call from [late developer] Lew Rudin. He said, 'Larry, this is probably the worst day of your life. But I guarantee you, there will be other tenants to come along."

When 7 WTC opened in 1987, it had only a few small tenants. Salomon would not come to the rescue until 1988, when lawsuits bogged down the Columbus Circle project.

Other tenants followed, and soon, everyone forgot that the full and thriving 7 WTC had struggled at first.

Sure, 2006 is not 1986 - and downtown today faces challenges no one could have imagined 20 years ago. But history teaches us not to bet against a major new Manhattan office building finding tenants even in a market much worse than today's.

http://www.nypost.com/realestate/comm/66782.htm

[BigMac]

Curbed
April 10, 2006

http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_04_7wtc-thumb.jpg

Copyright © 2006 Curbed

[ZippyTheChimp]

For Greenie:

Still no final answer on the lower facade, but there is one change. Mesh screening was added behind the openings. It looks to me like one continuous roll, and not completely fastened.

I can't believe that this is the complete installation, because it looks like crap.
http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/5994/7wtc73c7ju.th.jpg (http://img123.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7wtc73c7ju.jpg)

[Ninjahedge]

Blast mesh?

That looks kind of like a catch screen for flying debris.....

[ZippyTheChimp]

In my world, pigeons = flying debris.

Some shots of the plaza.
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/575/7wtc74c4bs.th.jpg (http://img84.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7wtc74c4bs.jpg)

Great views! :) http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/4342/7wtc75c8hg.th.jpg (http://img153.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7wtc75c8hg.jpg) http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/3623/7wtc76c4xn.th.jpg (http://img153.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7wtc76c4xn.jpg)


http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/760/7wtc77c6ye.th.jpg (http://img153.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7wtc77c6ye.jpg) http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/4733/7wtc78c3io.th.jpg (http://img85.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7wtc78c3io.jpg) http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/8420/7wtc79c5my.th.jpg (http://img85.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7wtc79c5my.jpg)

[Jake]

It's looking slightly better than I thought although I still think it's too small. IMO it will never be a real gathering place, sort of like having lunch in the middle of Broadway, people feel weird with all the other people passing by.

[BPC]

It's a traffic island, but better than nothing.

[Citytect]

Interesting, Zippy. Thanks for keeping an eye on that - I don't make it downtown that often. The mesh is certainly an economical solution to the bird problem. I can't say it's an aesthetically pleasing solution, but that's not surprising. I suppose there's still hope something will be installed in front of the mesh, though. I'm hoping, at least.

The plaza is looking good. Going to be a strage juxtaposition between Fitterman and the nicely manicured, leafy park... And then there's the hole and DB beyond that.

[BigMac]

Nice pictures Zippy. The style of the lights and benches seems to evoke the former Tobin Plaza.

[antinimby]

Could the openings be an intentional design feature and therefore is permanent? For ventilation purposes? We're getting awfully close to opening for that to not be sealed up already.
Honestly, the ONLY thing this building's got going for it, is the glass.

[Jake]

The crown looks magnificent when lit, I love its bluish tint, makes a great impression on the skyline. If the building is lit in the same way 7 will surely be the best looking building at night in NYC.

[Citytect]

Could the openings be an intentional design feature and therefore is permanent? For ventilation purposes?

Yes. The openings are for ventilation. We're just speculating whether or not the openings will be covered with something like louvers or screens to visually plug the gaps between the rows of window panes while still allowing air to move around the substation.

[antinimby]

If that is true, then it is a terrible looking design. It just looks unfinished. I've never really noticed this method for ventilation used in any other modern skyscraper. Usually you see a dark screen but they are always flush with the rest of the facade so it doesn't appear to have a gap. Examples of this can be clearly seen on Bloomberg or the Hearst tower.

[BigMac]

Curbed
April 12, 2006

7WTC: Worth The View?

By Matt Lobron

http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_04_7WTC-thumb.JPG

Another day, another post about WTC redevelopment. Amy from NewYorkology posts some photos from a recent OHNY (http://www.ohny.org/ohny_website/start.html) tour of 7 WTC and gives us her run-down of the new building:

"During the tour there was no ignoring the fact that the building was designed with the terror attacks in mind. Not only is the southern view dominated by Ground Zero, but many of the building's features were designed to resist disaster. The building, with a gold rating for environmentally friendly design, is nearly ready for occupancy, although only a few tenants have signed on."

Forget for a minute questions about the downtown office market and obvious issues regarding safety. The lease might be cheap, but what remains unanswered is why would any company want to put up with the noise, mess and massive inconvenience associated with working next to a giant construction site for the next 5 - 10 years?

· The views from atop the rebuilt 7 World Trade Center (http://www.newyorkology.com/archives/2006/04/the_views_from_1.html) [NewYorkology]
· Prime Views of the Pit: 7WTC Amenity? (http://www.curbed.com/archives/categories/world_trade_center_redevelopment.php) [Curbed]

Copyright © 2006 Curbed

[BPC]

Curbed
April 12, 2006

7WTC: Worth The View?

By Matt Lobron

Forget for a minute questions about the downtown office market and obvious issues regarding safety. The lease might be cheap, but what remains unanswered is why would any company want to put up with the noise, mess and massive inconvenience associated with working next to a giant construction site for the next 5 - 10 years?

1. Because if you work in NYC these days, odds are that you already work near a "giant construction site" of one form or another.

2. Because smart business leaders take a long-term view in determining where to locate their business, even if that means a few years of noise and inconvenience in the short term.

3. Because, while noise and inconvenience are factors, they are not the ONLY factors, and mustbe weighed against economic considerations. If a new lease can save a business millions of dollars per year, allowing it to grow, hire more workers, expand operations, invest in technology, etc., a corporate officer who stays true to his.her fiduciary duties will not simply overlook that simply becaus ehe/she prefers not to walk next to a dusty construction site two times per day.

[krulltime]

Tycoon of Chinese Real Estate Is Leasing at Trade Center Site


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/04/13/nyregion/13wtc395.jpg
Feng Lun at Central Park, an apartment complex his group developed
in Bejing. They are seeking real estate investments in New York City.


By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: April 13, 2006

BEIJING — His office here on the other side of the world is stocked with ancient Chinese classics. When he travels, his suitcase is often packed with philosophical tracts. Occasionally, he quotes Mao.

But Feng Lun is no academic. He is one of China's biggest real estate tycoons. And he is heading to New York City, as the only major tenant so far at the World Trade Center site.

Mr. Feng's real estate company, the Vantone Group, has just agreed to lease the top five floors of the rebuilt 7 World Trade Center, the 52-story glass tower that overlooks ground zero.

Mr. Feng intends to open what he calls a business and cultural "China Center" in 2007 in the building, the first skyscraper built downtown since 1987. "We're going to do something bold," he said in an interview. "I think the world will pay attention to our project."

Feng Lun (pronounced Fung LEW-in) is a pioneer of China's booming real estate market, so influential that some of the biggest names in American real estate, like Jerry Speyer, Mortimer Zuckerman and Sam Zell, have expressed an interest in forming a partnership with him.

In early 2005, Gov. George E. Pataki and a group of high-powered corporate chief executives traveled to China to negotiate with Chinese executives and government officials.

After a yearlong courtship, Mr. Feng and his Vantone Group entered into a nonbinding agreement with Larry A. Silverstein, the developer, in January to lease 200,000 square feet of space for an estimated $53 per square foot to start, or about $200 million over 15 years, including price escalators.

And the Vantone Group is one of the few companies even considering a lease — as much as 500,000 more square feet — in the troubled Freedom Tower project. The deal might be seen as a good-will gesture by China, which has a troubling and widening trade surplus with the United States.

"They are the first major commercial tenant to come into the World Trade Center site," said Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group. "So it's a very important commitment. And it is highly valued by the city and the state. We hope it's a magnet."

But why does Mr. Feng, a developer more familiar with the Great Hall of the People and the Forbidden City, want to be in New York City?

"A few years ago, the Chinese government encouraged companies to go abroad, and New York is the center; New York is the place to be," he said. "Also, in New York a lot of companies want to know Chinese companies. They want to do business with Chinese companies."

Mr. Feng, 47, is no stranger to big deals. He has extensive high-level contacts in the Chinese government and industry. His Vantone Group has a huge portfolio of office towers, shopping malls, high-rise apartments and luxury villas that will soon span more than 27 million square feet in China, a portfolio bigger than those held by most of New York's largest developers. One of his biggest apartment projects in Beijing is even called Central Park.

"He's about as big as they get," said Vincent Luk, the Beijing-based general manager of DTZ Debenham Tie Leung, an international property consultancy. "Many of these guys came from government, and then they got into the real estate business. And now they're stars."

In person, Mr. Feng is charming and affable. Dressed casually in jeans and a green army vest, he smiled and chuckled frequently, as when he described his company's unusual ethics policy. "I have three rules for people in this company," he said half in jest. "One, you shouldn't have a second job. Two, you should never transfer money abroad. And three, you shouldn't have a foreign passport. You shouldn't be ready to run off to Europe."

He is, by most accounts, an unusual businessman, especially in China. He stresses vision and serving his country as much as the bottom line. He said his real interests were history, Marx, Hegel and Mao.

Then there are the pictures of Che Guevara and Yasser Arafat in his office. He explained that they were both revolutionaries, emphasizing that he admired Mr. Arafat's discipline and courage, not his politics.

"He spent his whole life trying to achieve one thing," Mr. Feng said. "He had great determination; real perseverance."

Mr. Feng grew up in northwest China, in the heart of coal country, during the Cultural Revolution, when the nation was disintegrating into chaos in the late 1960's and early 70's. His family fled the city of Xi'an amid violence. "It was a very chaotic period," he said. "I saw my teachers denounced. Some of them couldn't take it and went crazy. That period left a deep impression on me."

Mr. Feng studied economics at Northwest China University and then entered the Central Party School in Beijing, where future political leaders were trained. He taught Marxism and Leninism there after earning a Ph.D. in law.

Later, he joined an economic research bureau of the government but lost his job when the bureau was dissolved in 1989 because of its close ties to Zhao Ziyang, who was removed as general secretary that year for sympathizing with the student protestors who occupied Tiananmen Square.

Mr. Feng went to work for Mou Qizhong, then one of the richest men in China, helping to sell military weapons to the Soviet Union. (Mr. Mou was later sentenced to life in prison in 2000 for defrauding a state bank of $75 million.)

In 1991, Mr. Feng and a group of friends founded the Vantone Group, one of the country's first private real estate companies. The group bought and sold villas on the Chinese island of Hainan, then moved to Beijing just as the real estate market was opening up. The group became a real estate powerhouse, often by anticipating the government's development goals.

Today, Vantone has prime land in Beijing's new central business district and also other strategic locations in a city building feverishly ahead of the 2008 Olympic games.

While other developers are better known in Beijing, Mr. Feng is the first to go abroad in a big way. He first learned about the specifics of the ground zero project at a real estate training program at Columbia University in 2003.

Later, he met Mr. Silverstein and offered to invest in 7 World Trade Center (the developer demurred) before hitting on the idea of leasing space there as a hub for Chinese and American businesses.

He said the Chinese government gave him approvals and tax breaks but no money.

Now, Mr. Feng is working aggressively to find Chinese tenants. He's also asked a team of designers, including Weng Ling, the director of the fashionable Shanghai Gallery of Art, to create a cultural space. His plans include a media center, a tourism center and space that Chinese companies can rent while making the transition to New York.

Publicly at least, he is not concerned about the political infighting that has stalled the rebuilding at ground zero. His career in China has made him comfortable with projects that mix the public and private sectors. "I believe because of the government policy, they'll rebuild it," he said.


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[millertime83]

the crown when lit makes it resemble the Time Warner buildings a little at night.

[NewYorkYankee]

I agree. I was suprised to see it lit up the other night myself.

[BigMac]

Curbed
April 13, 2006

Night Light at 7 World Trade

by Lockhart

http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_04_7wtcnight.jpg

The NYT introduces the gentleman who's just rented the top five floors of Larry Silverstein's 7 World Trade: Chinese real estate tycoon Feng Lun. Beyond mere office space, Mr. Lun has a vision:

Mr. Feng intends to open what he calls a business and cultural "China Center" in 2007 in the building, the first skyscraper built downtown since 1987. "We're going to do something bold," he said in an interview. "I think the world will pay attention to our project."

Good, good. Really, though, this post is just an excuse to show off the above photo that plemeljr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/plemeljr/) dropped in the Curbed Photo Pool: "At night, 7 WTC changes from white to blue, and it is quite beautiful." Indeed. Thus, one plausible answer to yesterday's rhetorical question (http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006/04/12/7wtc_worth_the_view.php). We love it when that happens.

Copyright © 2006 Curbed

[evil_synth]

Can someone snap a picture of the crown lit at night?

[Gulcrapek]

I was in the tour, which was thoroughly satisfying. I did not gain more respect for the building or the work of its architects (though Nick Holt is a very personable character, not something I'd associated with SOM), but the views were incredible and the lobby was interesting. The base lighting scheme was interesting as well; it wasn't in full swing but parts were running including faint LCD lights moving across the base behind the facade material. And the base itself, at least from the east side, was looking mighty fine at sunset. Gold and stuff. Pictures within a week.

[TomAuch]

Here's the money shot:
http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_04_7wtcnight.jpg

Here are the rest of his pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/plemeljr/

[LeCom]

March 8

https://extranet.emporis.com/files/transfer/6/2006/04/451169.jpg

A week later I got to walk the corridor behind that glass.

[BPC]

Ground Zero's Saving Grace
The first building to rise from the ashes of the World Trade Center is cause for hope.

By Karrie Jacobs
Posted April 17, 2006


By the time the new 7 World Trade Center, a knife-edged 52-story office tower made of clear "water white" glass, made its nightlife debut in November of last year, I had stopped paying attention to the ongoing drama down at Ground Zero. Not that I was bored with the subject. It's just that from December 2003, when Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) design partner David Childs unveiled the shotgun-wedding version of the Freedom Tower--the one with the Brooklyn Bridge–inspired cable exoskeleton, the bird-eating wind turbines, and the Libeskindian torque--to September 2005, when the International Freedom Center was shoved out of the World Trade Center plans because it might encourage subversion, nothing good seemed destined to happen down there.

So 7 WTC snuck up on me. It had been an object of derision in the New York press because no one aside from the developer, Larry Silverstein himself, had leased a single floor until last December. From my vantage point on the walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge, where I run in the morning, what I knew about 7 WTC was that there was something unusual about the way the glass facade responded to daylight. The surface of the building changed color and mood the way the ocean does, interpreting the qualities of the sky. Then in November I attended a party for the Architect's Newspaper on one of the tower's 52 famously unrented floors. It was a cold, clear autumn night and the view from the 49th floor, lit by LED-filled balloons, was just astonishing. For the first time it seemed that this replacement for the old 7 WTC, an unexceptional 1980s granite-clad tower that caved in at 5:28 p.m. on September 11, was not just a snappy speculative building but a genuine piece of architecture.

The building went up quickly because Con Edison badly needed the two substations that had been at the base of the old structure. Because it sits north of Vesey Street, off the main Trade Center property, it was never part of Daniel Libeskind's master plan, nor did any of the WTC site's stakeholders consider it sacred ground. "It was a strange building because it had to go ahead right away," Childs says. "It didn't wait for any approvals or master plans."

SOM responded to Silverstein's call for a building ASAP, according to associate partner Chris Cooper, by attempting to conjure up the magic of Lever House or the Seagram Building. And the curious thing is that they succeeded. But 7 WTC is not a slavish imitation of New York's most iconic Modernist office towers: it is a rediscovery of the extraordinary sensuality of glass, a renewal of our romance with the elemental box. The SOM design team collaborated with James Carpenter--who was trained as a sculptor but is best known for his sophisticated work with architectural glass--to, in Carpenter's words, craft a "whole building… about the qualities of light and reflections of light." Then the developer, at SOM's suggestion, brought in artist Jenny Holzer to drive home that point.

According to Carpenter, the variegated ocean effect I've observed is due in part to the qualities of the glass. Because of its low iron content, it's almost clear; it's also coated with a new substance that keeps heat out of the building but is not highly reflective, so you don't get tinfoil glare. The real trick, he says, was to "move away from the monolithic monotonous flat surface that's typically found on building skins." To do so he devised a system of curved steel spandrels and polished reflective sills, which mirror the conditions of the sky above, bouncing the light off the spandrels and onto the big sheets of clear glass covering the building. Carpenter also created a system to conceal and ventilate the substations that occupy the lower floors. He wrapped the base in a two-layer system of screens formed by triangular rods of extruded steel and embedded with LEDs. At night the north and south sides of the base will emit a mysterious blue glow, and the lights are hooked up to a system of motion detectors that will cause bars of light to track the movements of pedestrians along the street.

Inside the lobby, positioned behind an entry wall of blast-resistant glass and clearly visible from the new park out front (which when completed will feature a Jeff Koons sculpture), is an installation by Holzer. Her unusually tall letters--"mostly san serif type, to be right for the building"--march across a wall of glass behind the security desk at what she calls "a processional pace." Instead of the aphorisms for which Holzer is best known, she's programmed a series of readings about New York. "We have everything from words by early explorers going 'Behold!' to Whitman and on up to relatively new poems," she says. The texts include E. B. White's classic book Here Is New York in its entirety, a poem by Allen Ginsberg, and David Lehman's reconsideration of the World Trade Center after the first attack in 1993. "I wanted to make a mash note to the city. I don't know whether that's proper or not, but after racking my brain, that's what I came up with."

And again because form and function in this building are effectively commingled, the glass wall across which Holzer's type moves is actually a sophisticated blast screen, a sandwich of glass and plastic layers mounted on an energy-absorbing steel spring designed to shield the building's elevator core and lobby from bombs.

Now I understand the message that this building, with all its aesthetic beneficence, is trying to send: Larry Silverstein is worthy; he is more than equal to the task of building the five towers planned for the WTC site. I'm not sure I'm buying. But while the building is hardly a real estate success story--although a Chinese firm has leased the top five floors--its beautiful skin and sophisticated integration of art and architecture make me feel, for the first time in a long time, that the place emerging from the ashes of the World Trade Center--ongoing power struggles be damned--will actually be a good one.

Indeed I was feeling uncharacteristically upbeat when I strolled into the Green Towers for New York exhibition, at the Skyscraper Museum in Battery Park City, and encountered--right at the entrance--a model of the current iteration of the Freedom Tower (yes, it's considered a green building). Last summer, when SOM released a different version of the tower in response to security concerns, I reacted much as I did to the torture scene in Syriana: I averted my eyes. However, confronted with the large model, I noticed that the Freedom Tower had morphed into an updated WTC tower.

Childs acknowledges that the revised Freedom Tower, although it tapers at the corners, has roughly the same dimensions as an old World Trade tower, a 200-foot-square base that tops out at 1,368 feet. An extra-tall TV antenna will stretch the tower to its symbolic height of 1,776 feet (the last vestige of Libeskind). The building, once overburdened with symbolism, has emerged as something more ordinary. But if 7 WTC is what SOM can produce starting from the spirit of Lever House, perhaps they can do something equally pleasing starting from the silhouette of an old World Trade tower.

Indeed 7 WTC reminds me that architectural magic is more likely to emerge from necessity--terrorism proofing, green strategies--addressed with technological sophistication and a modicum of imagination rather than overworked symbolism and hot air. It also suggests that if we are trapped in a world where truck bombs are an eventuality, the awfulness of our current circumstances can be eased a bit by embedding our blast screens with poetry.

http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=1894

[Kris]

http://www.businessweek.com/mediacenter/podcasts/innovation/innovation_03_28_06.htm

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/mar2006/id20060328_770161.htm?chan=innovation_architecture _product+spotlight

[panderson]

Then in November I attended a party for the Architect's Newspaper on one of the tower's 52 famously unrented floors. It was a cold, clear autumn night and the view from the 49th floor, lit by LED-filled balloons, was just astonishing. For the first time it seemed that this replacement for the old 7 WTC, an unexceptional 1980s granite-clad tower that caved in at 5:28 p.m. on September 11, was not just a snappy speculative building but a genuine piece of architecture.

Pictures from that party on the 49th floor mentioned in the Metropolis article are here: http://www.archpaper.com/feature_articles/partypics2.html

[PHLguy]

Nice view!


Ashame that it's the tallest building on the site