WTC Tower One - by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (formerly "Freedom Tower")

[scumonkey]

Good Gawd....Not that Rat Tail AGAIN!!! :mad:

[lofter1]

With the way the world is going we're gonna need some FUN (http://www.joyrides.com/las_vegas/big_shot2.htm) downtown ...

http://www.joyrides.com/las_vegas/photos/big_shot2.jpg

[Dagrecco82]

Good Gawd....Not that Rat Tail AGAIN!!! :mad:

I think it looks rather beautiful. Much better than the original WTC's antenna.

[Ebola]

There's something about the newest version that makes me think everything will turn out fine now. Calling it a rat's tail seems pretty stupid now. I'd still like to see more and better quality renderings, but from that one picture, I can say that the entire building will look many times better. I love how you can see more structure on the top; it matches the base. If this doesn't at least make you content, you're utterly hopeless. It looks as if there's a little twisting going on, but nothing too showy, which is good because all the lighting will blow us away for sure. It also looks like its a few feet larger than the old version, which, also, is better. It seems to be around 30 feet wide. I wonder how it will compare to, say, the spire on T101 or the Petronas Towers. I bet it will look much better in both cases.

[BrooklynLove]

what i want to know is whether the eyes on the scene of this board will be on site with cameras at the ready when the antenna arrives on the flatbed ... in the year 20?? ...

[lofter1]

If not us ^ then ... who :confused:

[Jeffreyny]

New York's latest trend of skyscrapers with spires, antennas and rats tails baffles me.
If the FT antenna is 400ft., that is only 50 ft. less than Trump Soho. That's incredibly tall.
400ft. is a skyscraper in itself. Might it not look ridiculous towering 400 ft. above the FT.?

[TREPYE]

^Moot point, the top and base already look ridiculous.

[Ebola]

2 or 3 new towers u/c with spires is a trend? I can currently name other cities with just as much and more.

Oh, and quite frankly, there was no other building in NY's history with a antenna around 400 feet tall, not ever, and if there ever were one, it clearly must have been the most horrible building ever because it's like having a smaller skyscraper on top of a skyscraper. How stupid.

I doubt many people consider 400' a skyscraper, unless they're from a place with a lot of low/midrises and want to make a BS claim that they have the most skyscrapers.

I'm going to be laughing in the faces of people who think this building isn't anything special in terms of design when in three years everyone, including the same people, will all be 'ohhh and ahhh'ing over how amazing it looks. The base and spire will most likely turn out being the best parts, and even better at night with all of the lighting. The massive base with its visible diagonal columns will be one imposing but beautiful thing to be near. The spire will add much more of an impact to the skyline compared to that of the old WTC, and it looks much better too, along with everything else. I think the current plan fits the place nearly perfectly; anything less would have been a letdown and anything more would be way too showy.

[Daquan13]

I'll just be go glad when the whole thing is completed and open for business!

[Dagrecco82]

New York's latest trend of skyscrapers with spires, antennas and rats tails baffles me.
If the FT antenna is 400ft., that is only 50 ft. less than Trump Soho. That's incredibly tall.
400ft. is a skyscraper in itself. Might it not look ridiculous towering 400 ft. above the FT.?

The original WTC1's antenna was 360ft and it didn't look that ridiculous. Forty more feet can't make it seem that much more out of place.

[Eugenius]

It's encouraging how wide the antenna is relative to the building itself. One trend that I definitely don't like is building needle-like antennas on square buildings (a la NYT Tower). Here, the spire has some heft, making it look more like an integral part of the building.

[DarrylStrawberry]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01032008/photos/freedom_tower_new.jpg (http://javascript<b></b>:SLIDES.hotlink())

It seems from the drawing that the spire will be about 35 feet wide at the middle.

[Jeffreyny]

The original WTC1's antenna was 360ft and it didn't look that ridiculous. Forty more feet can't make it seem that much more out of place.

That is true but the antenna on WTC 1 was not as prominent. I'll wait to see the finished product prior to passing final judgement but looking at the design, it's not my cup of tea.

[lofter1]

It was pretty damned prominent from any I angle saw it from.

[Jeffreyny]

It was pretty damned prominent from any I angle saw it from.

Did it really seem as prominent to you as the one will be on the FT?

[lofter1]

Looking from my windows I'd say the prominence will be about equal.

Couldn't miss the first one.

Hoping that the new one will look big and bold against the SW sky.

Am wondering how the new 1WTC will shadow the low winter sun in comparison with the Twins ...

[GreenwichBoy]

http://www.panynj.gov/info/images/12-19-2007-wtc-tower.jpg

[GreenwichBoy]

http://www.panynj.gov/info/images/12-19-2007-wtc-tower-1.jpg

[GreenwichBoy]

Web-Cam 1/10/08

[BrooklynRider]

Those columns look awfully small for such a big building.

Never-the-less, it finally begins to rise.

[ramvid01]

^^ They are huge in person.

I guess they look small since the webcam is about 900 feet form the site. :p

[NoyokA]

Plus they'll be encased in concrete.

[elfgam]

Just compare the column in the foreground of the pic with the columns you see in photos of the Goldman Sachs building... they look like toothpicks in comparison. Also note the double-profile, rather than the typical I-shaped profile... and the fact that each plate of steel that makes up the shape is super thick... these are custom columns probably, welded from major, major plates o' steel.

i wouldn't want to kick them. ;-)

[Matysiak]

Do you have some renderings of Freedom tower with view from Brooklyn Bridge?

[DarrylStrawberry]

this one's a bit old and not taken from the bridge, but it's the closest thing I know of.

http://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/freedom-tower/images/5-freedom_tower.jpg (http://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/freedom-tower/index.html#freedom-tower5)

[DarrylStrawberry]

And this one too.

(Maki seemingly didn't want to point and say "Cheese".)

http://gothamist.com/attachments/jen/2007_12_larrysilver.jpg

[Matysiak]

Thank you :) This first I saw long time ago.

[GreenwichBoy]

1/26/2006 and 1/26/2008 2 years later.

[Jeffreyny]

1/26/2006 and 1/26/2008 2 years later.

so who's got an estimate of when we will actually see floors rising above street level?
Can you tell I'm anxious?

[BrooklynLove]

i'd imagine that we'll be well on our way come summertime.

[GreenwichBoy]

Posted: Monday, 28 January 2008 3:54PM

Bids Sought for Restaurant High Above Trade Center Site

NEW YORK (AP) -- Call it the second incarnation of Windows on the World.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is seeking a restaurant operator to occupy the 100th and 101st floors of the Freedom Tower at ground zero.

"This is another step forward in the redevelopment of the historic site,'' said Port Authority spokeswoman Candace McAdams. "The Freedom Tower is an iconic structure that calls for a world-class dining destination.''

The restaurant, scheduled to open in 2013, will offer 360-degree views of New York City and the Hudson and East Rivers.

The Port Authority will issue a formal request for expressions of interest on Tuesday to design, build and operate the 34,000-square-foot restaurant. Interested restaurateurs will have until the end of February to respond.

The Port Authority signed an agreement with Cushman & Wakefield Inc. last year to find tenants for the Freedom Tower, which will also be called One World Trade Center.

The 1,776-foot tower's foundation is under construction, and it is expected to open in 2012 -- 11 years after the attack on the trade center.

Windows on the World occupied the 106th and 107th floors of the north tower of the old World Trade Center and was destroyed along with the rest of the complex on Sept. 11, 2001. All of the restaurant staff members and breakfast patrons who were present died when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the tower.

[GVNY]

"All of the restaurant staff members and breakfast patrons who were present died when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the tower."

You would believe the Associated Press would correct a mistake like that, or at least edit the statement as to avoid reader's error.

Anyways, I wonder what, if any, restaurants will be particularly enthused about working at 1 World Trade. I know this sounds dismal, but lately I have been pondering my return to the completed Trade Center site for normal errands and activities, etc., and my emotions have not been what I would have expected. I find the idea sort of uncomfortable, or aching. But I am positive this will evaporate when the time comes.

[BrooklynRider]

January 29, 2008

Developer Sought for Restaurant in Freedom Tower

By DAVID W. DUNLAP (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/david_w_dunlap/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
For the price of a meal, Windows on the World atop 1 World Trade Center offered diners a spot in the stratosphere, a spot that was lost — along with so much else — on Sept. 11, 2001.

“It may be merely a footnote to a national calamity,” William Grimes, then a restaurant critic for The New York Times, wrote a week later, “but the collapse of the World Trade Center’s two towers ended an era in New York City dining.”

On Monday, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/port_authority_of_new_york_and_new_jersey/index.html?inline=nyt-org), which is building the new 1 World Trade Center (also known as the Freedom Tower), set out to find whether anyone wants to try to revive that era.

It issued what is called a request for expressions of interest from developers who would design, construct, operate and manage a 34,000-square-foot restaurant on the 100th and 101st floors of the new tower.

The space, commanding a 360-degree panorama nearly 1,250 feet above street level, would be served by as many as five express elevators.

The grand opening is planned for early 2013.

The restaurant operator may also be chosen to run the 24,000-square-foot observation deck on the 102nd floor.

But a question posed by Mr. Grimes yet to be answered:

“Will diners ever again find that perspective enchanting?” he wrote more than six years ago, and added, “Exhilaration has now become too closely interwoven with terror.”


Copyright 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[Alonzo-ny]

"All of the restaurant staff members and breakfast patrons who were present died when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the tower."

You would believe the Associated Press would correct a mistake like that, or at least edit the statement as to avoid reader's error.



Whats the mistake?

[GVNY]

No one working at Windows on the World perished (or, at least I do not know how they could) when the plane hit the tower.

Of course, I know what they meant, but the AP needed to phrase that better.

[BigMac]

Right...it was the collapse, not the crash. That was a little vague.

[antinimby]

Well, to be really nitpicky, it was the fire and smoke that did those poor souls in, long before any of the above causes did.

[Alonzo-ny]

Nitpicky is the right word. One way or another they died as a result of the plane hitting the tower, i dont think that is the focus of the article.

[Edward]

I have created a Freedom Tower (http://flickr.com/groups/freedom/) group on Flickr and encourage anyone with pictures to share them in the group, at flickr.com/groups/freedom/ (http://flickr.com/groups/freedom/)

[ZenSteelDude]

Would the freedom tower contain 108 floors or just 82? The Freedom Tower will be the worst supertall if it has 82 floors. Will the base contain any floors or will it be just one big, near-200-foot-high atrium?


The floor count is 84 full floors, however, the mechanical levels have partal floors above them, eg. 3mechanical,3mezanine. The base, or Podium is floors 1 through 6 then it skips to the 20th floor to the 93rd floor then skips to the 100th floor to the 104th floor. the roof is the 105th floor then there are 3 floors of curtain wall covering the cooling towers and the base of the comunications rings. The 105th floor slab well be the same hight as the WTC South Tower.

[BrooklynRider]

Hi Zen-

Welcome to the forum. Are you working on this project?

[ZenSteelDude]

We are awaitting word on our bid proposal, with luck we well be, starting in April.

And thanks for the welcome.

[TonyO]

NY Post

THEY WILL DO WINDOWS
LOOKING FORWARD TO WINDOWS ON THE WORLD III

February 13, 2008 -- THE new restaurant planned to replace Windows on the World won't be as big as the original. It won't be quite as high. And it's still at least five years away.

But what a thrill, this Valentine's Day week, to know that it's coming. New Yorkers who have come to doubt every announcement of "progress" at Ground Zero should know that, of all things planned there, a new, sky-high restaurant is the closest thing to a done deal.

This month, I sorely miss, as I have for the past six years, the reservation request that always gave me fits - for a Feb. 14 table at Windows on the World.

Friends said they'd settle for bad tables. But on short notice, I couldn't find them space in the broom closet, much less near a 107th floor window.

Ever since 9/11, Windows on the World's absence has been most painfully felt at holidays. That's why the Port Authority's request for proposals from eatery operators is so heartening in a week that celebrates the romantic heart.

Many will write off the planned opening in early 2013, still a long way off, as a joke. But, in fact, the new restaurant's home, now called "One World Trade Center, The Freedom Tower," is already rising. The steel has started from the earth.

The PA will not want for suitors to re-create what was the highest-grossing restaurant in the land. Who will make offers remains to be seen.

Lower Manhattan Development Corp. president David Emil was once head of Night Sky, the outfit that ran Windows pre-9/11; but he's no longer in the business, having sold most of his interest and left his executive role. However, Night Sky, which made a deal to run the Plaza's Oak Room, will surely give the RFP a close read.

[Edward]

Freedom Tower photos (http://www.flickr.com/groups/freedom/pool/show/) on Flickr.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2383/2263506211_2301fe2b59_o.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/groups/freedom/pool/show/)

[Alonzo-ny]

More columns

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2112/2263548309_f18fdeb0a4_o.jpg

[ramvid01]

The columns were placed about 2 weeks ago but thanks for the pic regardless.

Question though, is that picture from today? If so the tarp signifies that floor b3 of the northern core will be poured later on this week (maybe monday at latest).

[Alonzo-ny]

I believe it is from today, and judging from the crappy weather.

[ramvid01]

There we go they are pouring core walls for B3 of the northern core today.

[GreenwichBoy]

Pouring today

[ZenSteelDude]

Just a few fun facts about the Freedom Tower.

The "Rat tail" (communications mast) is going to tip the scales at 480 tons, give or take 10 tons.

All of the structure below grade, with the exception of the perimiter tower columns and some existing columns and beams in the area of the PATH, is fero-crete and even they are encased in 5 foot square reenforced cement columns.

Personally, I would have no problem with my wife working in the FT after it's finished, it'll be the safest 1,368 foot tall tower in the world !

[antinimby]

Haha...send the old wife up there thing? I'd bet you wouldn't say that if she was hot. :D

Yeah, I don't think anyone would be foolish enough to target this FT next time around. It is literally built like a tank.

Much easier and more effective targets elsewhere, sadly.

[ZenSteelDude]

I would like to state for the record, my wife is hot !

that is all, thank you.

[DarrylStrawberry]

Cue LondonLawyer!

[GreenwichBoy]

http://www.wtcrising.com/images/FE/chain217siteType8/site187/client/photoGallery/189/IMG_1751%20copy_big.jpg

[DarrylStrawberry]

Forgive me for the obviousness of the following post.

Every once in a while I step back and am just amazed at how complex this construction site is. The Memorial, Museum, Path Station, WTC 1, 2, 3, 4, JP Morgan and perhaps Performing Arts Center all going forward at the same time is un-freakin'-believable.

[Tectonic]

I'm always amazed by that.

[ZenSteelDude]

It is amazing to see so much construction going on in such a relativly small area. You did leave out one strucure in your list, the entire 16 acre site is also a 5 story building with it's roof at street level.

I havent been this excited about lower Manhattan construction since . . . well, since I was a boy watching the Twins going up.

[NYatKNIGHT]

There's much, much more. There will be a Vehicle Security Center with branching roadways and parking below; there is a new and/or reinforced slurry wall surrounding the entire site (not just the west bathtub); a new permanent structure supporting the 1 train subway box and a new Cortlandt St. station are being rebuilt WHILE REMAINING IN SERVICE; the power, mechanical rooms, chiller plant, and major utilities lines all lie beneath the surface; utilities are being connected around the periphery; West Street is being reconstructed and realigned; new retail areas above and below ground extend throughout the site; a new corridor beneath West Street connects to the Wintergarden; St. Nicholas Church is to be rebuilt.

There are also major projects within a stone's throw that need to share valuable street space: Goldman Sachs, Fulton Street Transit Center, eventually 99 Church Street. Major repairs to 90 West St., Verizon, and the Wintergarden are now complete, but should be listed with this group.

And most amazingly, all this is happening while adjacent streets are open to traffic, tens of thousands of commuters are using the transit station in the heart of the project, tourists visit the site continuously, and the city around it is vibrant.

[BigMac]

Thanks for those summaries. "Wow" is about all one can really say.

[USSManhattan]

I havent been this excited about lower Manhattan construction since . . . well, since I was a boy watching the Twins going up.

Sadly, there's a few people who still believe the Twin Towers will be going back up, even in the light of this...

[antinimby]

the entire 16 acre site is also a 5 story building with it's roof at street level.I've always thought the pit was at least 7 stories deep. I said 'at least' because I understand they've had to dig even deeper this time around as opposed to when the original Center was being built.

[antinimby]

a new permanent structure supporting the 1 train subway box and a new Cortlandt St. station are being rebuilt WHILE REMAINING IN SERVICE; the power, mechanical rooms, chiller plant, and major utilities lines all lie beneath the surface; utilities are being connected around the periphery; West Street is being reconstructed and realigned; new retail areas above and below ground extend throughout the site; a new corridor beneath West Street connects to the Wintergarden; St. Nicholas Church is to be rebuilt..Just out of curiousity...who's paying for all the non-Port Authority, non-Silverstein related items, e.g. subway, West St. realignment, etc.?

[USSManhattan]

I'm guessing the MTA would be overseeing the rebuilding of Cortlandt Street station?

[ZenSteelDude]

I've always thought the pit was at least 7 stories deep. I said 'at least' because I understand they've had to dig even deeper this time around as opposed to when the original Center was being built.


The "Bathtub" is 70 feet deep, but average floor to floor hight on such a building is 13 feet so 70 divided by 13 is 5.3846. They did go deeper so the foundations could be set into solid rock, there are also about 90 rock anchors that go down 80 more feet. Tower One is being built on the former WTC #6 site so things had to be redone down there.

[NYatKNIGHT]

I'm guessing the MTA would be overseeing the rebuilding of Cortlandt Street station?I'd guess that too, but it's complicated with all the overlap. There are shared stairwells, power, etc...

The underpinning of the 1 & 9 box is a Port Authority project. West Street is being constructed by NYSDOT.

[NoyokA]

It would be a nice touch if they made the streets some kind of stone but we all know that's not going to happen.

[DarrylStrawberry]

Long Journey of Freedom Tower Steel

By AMY WESTFELDT – 6 hours ago
NEW YORK (AP) — The steel bound for the Freedom Tower at ground zero travels thousands of miles, from a plant in Luxembourg where columns are rolled through casting machines at temperatures approaching 2,340 degrees.

Scrap metal melted into liquid steel in an electric furnace is cast, heated, cooled and heated again at the ArcelorMittal steel mill in Differdange.

The steel makes its way to a plant in Virginia where the huge columns are cut to size. Eventually, it is shipped to New York City, where the columns are lifted by crane and painstakingly set on top of each other at ground zero.

The jumbo steel columns — foot by foot, ton by ton — are forming the skeleton of the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, designed just after the 2001 attacks to replace the destroyed World Trade Center. Each column makes a 4,700-mile journey, taking weeks and sometimes months to arrive at ground zero.

Jim Brown, a steelworker at the Virginia factory, sees the symbolism in each column.

"It stands for something. It represents something. It represents strength," Brown said. "You can tear down a building, but you can't tear down the spirit of people."

Steel for the Freedom Tower comes first from Luxembourg, location of one of the world's only plants that builds columns of that size.

Poured into an H-shaped mold, the steel passes through a continuous casting machine in Differdange, cooled, cut down and reheated while engineers work at computers in distant control rooms.

The first shipment left Europe in 2006; some 9,400 tons have been ordered so far from ArcelorMittal. Nearly 50,000 tons will be needed to build the 102-story tower.

About two weeks later, the steel arrives at New Jersey or Virginia ports and are trucked to Banker Steel in Lynchburg, Va., where Brown is waiting.

Fabricated with base plates to connect the pieces and milled so that the ends are completely flat, the steel leaves Virginia, stopping at a New Jersey trucking yard before making the last leg of the trip to the trade center site.

The first Freedom Tower columns to rise at the end of 2006 were painted white, bearing signatures of ironworkers, New Yorkers and family members of Sept. 11 victims. They are gone from view now, covered with concrete.

The current columns — plain brown, with quality codes scrawled on their ends — are surrounded by hundreds of slender steel rods, trailers and hundreds of Tishman Construction Corp. workers. Meanwhile, commuter trains snake through the site every few minutes.

Last month, six columns came from New Jersey and were set into place on the building's west side. Ironworker Richie Shuler was there. He returned to the site last October, for the first time since trucks removed over a million tons of rubble from the destroyed towers just after the attacks.

"I was here two hours after the trade center fell," Shuler said.

In the beginning, the return to rebuild the site was "a little eerie," he said, "but it becomes a job."

By summer, steel will rise above street level for the first time; the Port Authority of New York and Jersey, which owned the trade center and is building the Freedom Tower, says it will take four more years to build: 102 stories, the same height as the twin towers, topped by a spire once likened to the Statue of Liberty's torch.

Brown is waiting eagerly.

"We want to bring that completion," he said. "We won't be happy until we see the needle put on top of it."

http://ap.google.com/media/ALeqM5grqH99eh5LF7pfoB7df0aNJefgBg?size=m

http://ap.google.com/media/ALeqM5j9-BKkXHF_wod21fLtj2JmfRhq2g?size=m

http://ap.google.com/media/ALeqM5iH0ua5l-bruxUtn9uk9MKfHdK51g?size=s

http://ap.google.com/media/ALeqM5iJVn0dd2I8bPeaT31Rlp-o3HIGIQ?size=m

http://ap.google.com/media/ALeqM5grO72iE4w53TkCRYALGK8Hc6YbiA?size=m

[DarrylStrawberry]

Are they still planning on using the original cornerstone? I think it had been intended for the northwest corner of the building...

Where did they take it after the photo-op? Trucking that thing back and forth was a retarded waste of money.

[BrooklynLove]

It would be a nice touch if they made the streets some kind of stone but we all know that's not going to happen.

more specifically - what did you have in mind? i like how this is sounding.

[BrooklynRider]

Are they still planning on using the original cornerstone? I think it had been intended for the northwest corner of the building...

Where did they take it after the photo-op? Trucking that thing back and forth was a retarded waste of money.

Hopefully, they reconsider keeping that heap of "survivors stairs" and dump it in the ocean. Then, they can dump the old cornerstone on top of it as a historic marker on the bottom of the ocean. Any cornerstone is really Bloomberg's to set.

[ZenSteelDude]

Hopefully, they reconsider keeping that heap of "survivors stairs" and dump it in the ocean. Then, they can dump the old cornerstone on top of it as a historic marker on the bottom of the ocean. Any cornerstone is really Bloomberg's to set.



Funny you should mention it, there is a contract listed on the PA web site for removing the "survivors stairs"

[ZenSteelDude]

This is probably the most accurate article written on the subject of Tower One's steel columns, 80% correct rather than the inverse.

http://freedom-tower-news.newslib.com/story/1591-3068960/

Look at the pics in the article DarrylStrawberry posted on page 305 (ignore the article it's 80% wrong)

[joshj928]

are they going to rebuild a pedestrian bridge from the winter garden to the new freedom tower?

[BrooklynLove]

zen - what's good? did you get that contract?

[NYatKNIGHT]

are they going to rebuild a pedestrian bridge from the winter garden to the new freedom tower?No. There will be an underpass to the winter garden beneath West Street. Overpasses will remain at Vesey and Liberty.

[arcman210]

Overpasses will remain at Vesey and Liberty.

I thought the Vesey St overpass was temporary... to be replaced by the underground connection between WFC and WTC?

[NYatKNIGHT]

Stand corrected, yes. It will remain until that opens.

[NoyokA]

more specifically - what did you have in mind? i like how this is sounding.

Ideally a polished stone or brick.

[ZenSteelDude]

zen - what's good? did you get that contract?

Things are looking mixed. The package we bid on has been broken up into 6 parts and it looks like we well get 3 of those parts. That's the good news, the bad news is the parts we are probably going to get don't start tell some time this summer.


You have no idea how frustrating it is having a non-disclosure agreement in one hand and a full set of drawings in the other ! !

[BrooklynLove]

You have no idea how frustrating it is having a non-disclosure agreement in one hand and a full set of drawings in the other ! !

i hear you - leverage is a bitch - when you're on the wrong side of it of course.

anyway, glad to see you're getting at least some work in this.

[BrooklynLove]

Ideally a polished stone or brick.

that would look mighty fine. but durable?

[NoyokA]

Very. About 10 blocks up you have Tribeca's Cobblestone Streets, those must be atleast 100 years old.

[BrooklynLove]

^true. stoned greenwich would be nice.

[NoyokA]

Its not that big of a deal to me, it would be nice though. I was just thinking though why didn't they make the base of the Freedom Tower a nice stone instead of metal? It would add quite a bit of class and prestige to it and for such an important building it would be entirely appropriate, especially since the building is so tall, prominent, and already looks like an obelisk. People would think "this is a nice touch", not "this is a fear response".

[antinimby]

I don't think red brick is a good idea for pavement for this area simply because it seems like every Tom, Dick and Harry small town paves their main street/square with brick.

We should strive to be more sophisticated than that. We need to look at the Paris' and London's of the world, not Anytown USA.

[Alonzo-ny]

I cant help but think how amazingly unique it would be to have supertalls on 100 year old cobbled streets.

[DarrylStrawberry]

http://www.wtcrising.com/images/FE/chain217siteType8/site187/client/photoGallery/189/eastern%20slurry%20wall_big.jpg

http://www.wtcrising.com/images/FE/chain217siteType8/site187/client/photoGallery/189/men%20on%20rebar%20march%202008_big.jpg

From WTC Rising

[ramvid01]

Is it just me of did they add a steel beam abutting the PATH tunnels today?

[GreenwichBoy]

http://i32.tinypic.com/10z2vx5.jpg

[Alonzo-ny]

I walked past that spot yesterday, I can confirm it is a big pile of steel columns and beams.

[DarrylStrawberry]

http://www.wtcrising.com/images/FE/chain217siteType8/site187/client/photoGallery/189/installing%20beam%20march%2008_big.jpg

[DarrylStrawberry]

From The Sun (San Bernadino)

Freedom Tower test Lab sees how much mock-up can stand

Canan Tasci, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 03/20/2008 09:42:21 PM PDT

MONTCLAIR - It's a good thing Construction Consulting Laboratory West doesn't have any houses near its facility.

The independent accredited testing lab is the home of a Curtiss-Wright aircraft engine attached to a 15-foot-high three-blade propeller.
For two weeks, the laboratory has been performing a sequence of 26 different tests - all of them more than loud enough to wake the neighbors - on various building facades for a mock-up of 1 World Trade Center, sometimes known as the Freedom Tower.

1 World Trade Center will be the first building to rise on the site of the destroyed Twin Towers in New York City.

The laboratory's job is to test if the mock-up performs to the design criteria specified by Benson Industries of Portland, Ore.

Blown by the roaring propeller and engine, water from a spray rack simulates a wind-driven rain at 74 mph to test water penetration during high-wind conditions.

Company workers performed the test on the 40-foot-high by 20-foot-wide wall four times March 11, and twice Thursday, for 15 minutes at a time.

"Yeah, it gets pretty loud," yelled Steve Stanec, sales and marketing manager, on Thursday.

Other tests on the mock-up include structural loading, floor deflection, seismic movement and thermal expansion and contraction.

Stanec said the work on the World Trade Center project is "a little different." "Everyone is aware of what happened on 9/11 and everyone is doing a little bit extra just to make sure it all comes out just right," he said.

He said his firm has been working on the materials since March 8. In his industry, that's a long time to work on one project.

"We worked seven days just on thermal testing," he said.

Stanec said it's an intense project because the building is not vertical - it rises to a point while also twisting as it goes up.

On Thursday, while a group stood watching outside of the tower, another group was inside the chamber monitoring water leakage.

"Here we'll test the second-story wall section," said Jack Jackson, president of CCL West.

He later said they would test the integrity of the wall for seismic movement.

It's not the only material being tested at the center. There's also a project from clients in San Francisco, as well as a mock-up of the Kaiser Permanente medical offices in Ontario.

1 World Trade Center was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP, architects, and is being built by Tishman Construction.

The steel used in the mock-up came from Macsteel Service Centers in Fontana.

The completed building will include about a million square feet of glass. The 84-story 1 World Trade Center will soar to 1,776 feet. Its scheduled completion date is in 2011.

[Optimus Prime]

Very. About 10 blocks up you have Tribeca's Cobblestone Streets, those must be atleast 100 years old.

No doubt the stones themselves are incredibly durable. The problem is that over time, especially with weather, they expand and contract, and the mortar in between and under them cracks and you get uneven surface. That is a pain and requires a lot of maintenance work. I have been on several college campuses where they are constantly fighting with the stones to get them to sit flat and not jut out and trip people.

Not saying it's a bad idea, just something to consider. Unless Silverstein or the PA offers to do all of the maintenance, the city isn't going to lay down stone on a public street. JMO.

[ZenSteelDude]

A picture is worth 1,000 words!


The pic Darrelstrawberry posted of the column being set is a perfect example of why "Luffing tower cranes" are preferred over T cranes. A T crane can't buddy up with another T crane to lift loads too heavy for a single crane. Some of the columns in Tower One tip the scales at 50+ tons, not a problem when you have a pair of 30 ton Luffers on site.

In case anyone was wondering, the 2 cranes on the Tower One site are the same make and model as the one that came down last Saturday.

[Alonzo-ny]

You mean they can buddy up, right?

[ZenSteelDude]

Yes, as the pic shows, 2 "Luffers" with the aid of a lifting beam are setting a column together on column line B-9, eastern most Tower column line, second from the north.

[BPC]

http://www.wtcrising.com/images/FE/chain217siteType8/site187/client/photoGallery/189/installing%20beam%20march%2008_big.jpg


DS, did you take this photo??? If not, where did it come from? It's an unbelievable shot.

[GreenwichBoy]

^^^ Photo from WTCrising.com

[DarrylStrawberry]

I wish I had that kind of access.

[Tectonic]

Boy don't we all.

[antinimby]

'FREEDOM' RATTLED


By TOM TOPOUSIS

April 1, 2008 (http://www.nypost.com/seven/04012008/news/regionalnews/freedom_rattled_104483.htm) -- The Freedom Tower is being put to the test.

A 40-foot-tall section of the tower's glass outer wall at a California testing lab is being pelted with rain, hammered with sustained winds of 74 mph, exposed to extreme heat and cold, and shaken by ground-shaking vibrations.

The mock-up of a corner section of three upper floors of the tower includes 24 glass panels like those that will one day make up the tower's outer skin - 1 million square feet of glass that will rise 1,368 feet when completed in 2011. An antenna will make the total height a symbolic 1,776 feet.

Technicians at Construction Consulting Laboratory West in Ontario, Calif., are putting the mock-up through two weeks of testing that covers 26 structural and meteorological conditions.

An enormous Curtiss-Wright airplane engine churns up the wind power aimed at the glass wall, which will face the whipping winds off New York Harbor when it is constructed at Ground Zero.

The Freedom Tower, designed by architect David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, will have a skin made of 4-inch-thick glass panels that will stretch panel to panel, with no structural elements between the 13-foot-tall panes of glass.

The testing will take about two weeks.

Copyright 2008 NYP Holdings, Inc.

[Optimus Prime]

I would love to see a picture of that panel section. :D

[Clarknt67]

No doubt the stones themselves are incredibly durable. The problem is that over time, especially with weather, they expand and contract, and the mortar in between and under them cracks and you get uneven surface. That is a pain and requires a lot of maintenance work. I have been on several college campuses where they are constantly fighting with the stones to get them to sit flat and not jut out and trip people.

I agree they're pretty to look at and not terrible for people in flats to walk on. But once I started biking I pretty quickly had to learn routes to avoid those darn cobblestone streets. Yuck. They're awful.

[lofter1]

I would love to see a picture of that panel section.


All you gotta do is GOOGLE (http://dailybulletin.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=18228406&event=479640&CategoryID=34950) ;) ...

Pics below \/ VIDEO HERE >>> Freedom Tower Test (http://medianewsgroup.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/4ac25e31099f32c556a43fe4e1bf24f936c86830/current/launch.html?maven_playerId=dailybulletin&maven_referralObject=4270ed0f-92c5-4d81-b9b9-0a915374ddab)

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site203/2008/0321/20080321_123554_dba1_300.jpg (http://www.dailybulletin.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentItemRelationshipId=1873304 )
(David Pardo/Correspondent)
Jack Jackson, president of Construction Consulting Laboratory West
in Montclair, looks at a building model on Thursday. The structure is
a mock-up of 1 World Trade Center, the project to be built at the site
of the destroyed Twin Towers in New York City. CCL West has been
running 26 different tests on the mock-up, including tests for structural
loading, floor deflection, seismic movement and thermal expansion and
contraction. The 84-story 1 World Trade Center s scheduled completion
date is 2011.

Photos from Jeff Malet ...

http://dailybulletin.mycapture.com/PHOTOS/IVDB/479640/18228406E.jpg
(Jeff Malet/Staff Photographer)
Caption: Supervisor Chad Jackson checks an airplane engine
at Constructing Consulting Lab West in Montclair where they
have built a three story building of 1 World Trade Center where
they are doing 26 tests. During one of those test was using
an aircraft engine and water to simulate 74 mile-an-hour winds.
1 World Trade Center will be the first office tower to be built on the
former Word Trade Center site where the tower will soar to 1,776 feet.
Album ID: 479640 Photo ID: 18228406

http://dailybulletin.mycapture.com/PHOTOS/IVDB/479640/18228400E.jpg
(Jeff Malet/Staff Photographer)
Caption: Robin Ryan, project coordinator with Benson Industries LLC
New York observes water hitting the test building Thursday March 20, 2008.
Constructing Consulting Lab West in Montclair has built a three story building
of 1 World Trade Center where they are doing 26 tests. During one of those
test was using an aircraft engine and water to simulate 74 mile-an-hour winds.
1 World Trade Center will be the first office tower to be built on the former
World Trade Center site where the tower will soar to 1,776 feet.
Album ID: 479640 Photo ID: 18228400

http://dailybulletin.mycapture.com/PHOTOS/IVDB/479640/18228395E.jpg
(Jeff Malet/Staff Photographer)
Album ID: 479640 Photo ID: 18228395

***

More from Photographer David Pardo ...

http://dailybulletin.mycapture.com/PHOTOS/IVDB/479642/18228415E.jpg
(David Pardo / Correspondent)
Caption: ON20-TOWERS-DPChad Jackson is a supervisor at
Construction Consulting Lab in Ontario where they performs
various test to the exterior glass wall for the World Trade
Center Freedom Tower on Thursday, March 20, 2008.
Album ID: 479642 Photo ID: 18228415

http://dailybulletin.mycapture.com/PHOTOS/IVDB/479642/18228416E.jpg
(David Pardo / Correspondent)
Album ID: 479642 Photo ID: 18228416

http://dailybulletin.mycapture.com/PHOTOS/IVDB/479642/18228421E.jpg
(David Pardo / Correspondent)
Caption: ON20-TOWERS-DP Construction Consulting Lab in Ontario
performs various test such as a wind test by using a airplane engine
at 74 mph for 15 minutes to the exterior glass wall for the World Trade
Center Freedom Tower on Thursday, March 20, 2008.
Album ID: 479642 Photo ID: 18228421

http://dailybulletin.mycapture.com/PHOTOS/IVDB/479642/18228422E.jpg
(David Pardo / Correspondent)
Album ID: 479642 Photo ID: 18228422

http://dailybulletin.mycapture.com/PHOTOS/IVDB/479642/18228424E.jpg
(David Pardo / Correspondent)
Album ID: 479642 Photo ID: 18228424

http://dailybulletin.mycapture.com/PHOTOS/IVDB/479642/18230624E.jpg
(David Pardo / Correspondent)
Caption: ON20-TOWERS-DP Construction Consulting Lab in Ontario
performs various test to the exterior glass wall for the World Trade
Center Freedom Tower on Thursday, March 20, 2008.
Album ID: 479642 Photo ID: 18230627

http://dailybulletin.mycapture.com/PHOTOS/IVDB/479642/18230628E.jpg
(David Pardo / Correspondent)
Album ID: 479642 Photo ID: 18230628

http://dailybulletin.mycapture.com/PHOTOS/IVDB/479642/18230629E.jpg
(David Pardo / Correspondent)
Album ID: 479642 Photo ID: 18230629

http://dailybulletin.mycapture.com/PHOTOS/IVDB/479642/18230631E.jpg
(David Pardo / Correspondent)
Album ID: 479642 Photo ID: 18230630

http://dailybulletin.mycapture.com/PHOTOS/IVDB/479642/18230629E.jpg
(David Pardo / Correspondent)
Album ID: 479642 Photo ID: 18230631

http://dailybulletin.mycapture.com/PHOTOS/IVDB/479642/18230632E.jpg
(David Pardo / Correspondent)
Album ID: 479642 Photo ID: 18230632

© MyCapture, Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2007 Los Angeles Newspaper group

[injcsince81]

Pretty cool stuff you found, lofter1.

Un-friggin-believable.

Google is pretty scary sometimes.

[dtolman]

So is that a realistic preview of what the exterior glass will look like?

[lofter1]

It's difficult to tell with all the wind producing & water spewing hardware piled up around the glass :cool: ...

But these are technical tests to gauge the performance of actual materials to be used in construction, so that would indicate that this is the real thing.

It appears to be clear glass, so I'd guess this is what will be used on the floors above the 200' high bomb-proof base.

[BrooklynLove]

man oh man this is nuts. i need to start working on a plan to get my employer to take office space here.

[Tectonic]

The glass looks good.

[Alonzo-ny]

You can also see how the tower will be clad at the sloping corners.

[lofter1]

The slope of the facade appears to be quite pronounced, eh?

[Alonzo-ny]

Very noticable.

[ZenSteelDude]

That mockup is as close as possible to what the actual curtain walls construction well be. I believe that it's doing double duty as the "Material aperance and asthetics" mockup also. So what you see is what yer gona get. The corner trim has to be wide enough to cover the columns behind it so it's going to stand out on the finished tower. All visible metal is either stainless steel or aluminum with a brushed finish. My heart goes out to the window washers !

[dtolman]

If thats representitive then this tower may end up being pretty stunning after all. What ever you say about Silverstein, he can pick a good exterior.

[Daquan13]

He's also one of the most consumate developers around!!;)

[ZenSteelDude]

I suspect someone at SOM reads this forum. I was flipping through the revised drawings we received last week and came across cobble stone ! Not in the street mind you, but in the east and west plazas. There, between the stainless steel grating and the granite steps, cobble stone pavers .

[antinimby]

Well, if that's the case.

Hey SOM people, stop giving this city any more uninspiring four-sided boxes (7WTC, 300 Madison, Extell Diamond tower, Times Square tower). We want innovative, sexy and interesting shapes. Please. Thank you.

[BrooklynLove]

I suspect someone at SOM reads this forum. I was flipping through the revised drawings we received last week and came across cobble stone ! Not in the street mind you, but in the east and west plazas. There, between the stainless steel grating and the granite steps, cobble stone pavers .

nice! by the way, i don't know if it was intentional, but listing "sphelling" as the edit reason for your last post had me chuckling.

[ZenSteelDude]

It was intintional. To quote Spock "it is not logical" . Sp-hell-ing and I have had a running fude for almost 40 years now. ;)

[smackfu]

Interesting. They did the same kind of tests for the Burj Dubai facade, although they also threw sand in front of the wind machines. At least New York doesn't have sand storms!

[lofter1]

Replicas of New Tower Endure Nature’s Fury
and a Test Blast


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/09/nyregion/09freedom-650.jpg
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
A mock-up of the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center, in Ontario, Calif.,
was built to be exposed to extreme conditions.

NY TIMES (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/nyregion/09freedom.html?ref=nyregion)
David W. Dunlap

April 9, 2008

One World Trade Center has not yet emerged from below ground, but its facade has already survived earthquakes, hurricanes and an explosion that shook the earth a quarter-mile away.


In recent months, two full-size mock-ups of a few floors of the glass and aluminum facade have been built and tested. One is outside Los Angeles, in Ontario, Calif. The other was at a site in central New Mexico that can be reached only over dirt roads in four-wheel-drive vehicles.


At 1,368 feet, with 23 acres of glass-clad surface area, 1 World Trade Center will be subject to tremendous natural forces. The building, also known as the Freedom Tower (at a symbolic 1,776 feet, when its mast is counted), will be the tallest in New York City and as the skyscraping phoenix on the site of ground zero, it may be the target of terrorist attacks, too.


The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is building 1 World Trade Center, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which designed it, said both mock-ups performed well. The facade, called a curtain wall, is being made by Benson Industries of Portland, Ore. The engineering firm Weidlinger Associates is the consultant in blast-resistant design.


“Physical testing is a confirmation that curtain-wall contractors are in fact meeting performance requirements,” said Carl Galioto, a Skidmore partner. “Full fabrication of the curtain wall cannot begin until the mock-up specimen passes these tests.”


Almost invisible to passers-by, the foundations of 1 World Trade Center are rising every day toward street level.


The first mock-up was subjected to a blast test in Socorro, N.M., at the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center, a division of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Because details might arm a prospective attacker — providing information like how much force the curtain wall is designed to withstand — officials would say almost nothing about the test of this mock-up.


“The simple answer is, yes, it passed,” said John McCullough, the project executive for the Port Authority.


He was more forthcoming about the tests last month at Construction Consulting Laboratory West in California. There, a $537,000 mock-up was built to represent a corner of three typical tower floors, with laminated glass panes one and a half inches thick. The largest are 5 feet by 13 feet and weigh half a ton. An enclosed steel chamber was constructed behind the glass and aluminum cladding.


The goal was to find out how much air and water leakage could be expected under storm conditions that could be expected at least once in 50 years.


Water jets simulating winds of 74 miles per hour were sprayed at the facade. During the 15-minute test cycle, each square foot of glass was hit with more than a gallon of water.


In another test, a dismounted airplane propeller was switched on to simulate even-stronger and more-scattered winds. “It’s pretty colorful,” said Mr. Galioto, who witnessed the test. “It’s very noisy. Water is blowing in every direction and smoke is blowing from the engine.”


Air infiltration is measured by gauges. Water infiltration is measured by witnesses who are inside the chamber.


“Water is coming into the face of the curtain wall with such intensity that you can’t see,” said Bruce Fox, the deputy project executive for the Port Authority. “Then you’re looking into and opening up all the different pieces to see if there’s any evidence of leakage.” There was none.


Hydraulic jacks were used to simulate the different horizontal sway of various floors, both fully occupied and empty. The surface was also chilled to 10 degrees (refrigerated piping was applied to the glass) and baked at 100 degrees (by heat lamps).


Gusts up to 167 m.p.h. were simulated by using pumps to pull air out of the chamber, creating a condition in which the external air pressure was far greater than the internal pressure. The process was reversed, too, by pumping air into the chamber, simulating conditions on the side of the tower away from the wind.


An earthquake was simulated by jacks pulling the mock-up in different directions. Finally, a much stronger earthquake was simulated. At this point, the designers no longer expected the mock-up to remain airtight and watertight. But the criteria required that no glass could crack and no panes could be dislodged.


Mr. McCullough of the Port Authority said the mock-up met all the performance criteria.


And Mr. Fox marveled: “Sometimes on these tests, you have to do forensics and do corrections. Here, we had no failure at all.”


Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

[RandySavage]

That's actually an attractive cladding!

[BrooklynLove]

awesome. FU alqaeda.

[injcsince81]

I like the flag on the mockup.

[kz1000ps]

The glass reminds me of that on Philly's new Comcast Center, which is a good thing IMO.

[NoyokA]

The glass and metal look great. It looks better than the treatment on Comcast Center, it looks more along the lines of 7 World Trade Center where the treatment is absolutely superb. I wish David used this glass on TWC.

[Alonzo-ny]

Couldnt agree more guys, especially regarding TWC.

[DarrylStrawberry]

awesome. FU alqaeda.

well said.

[212]

April 9, 2008, 2:40 pm
On a Clear Day, You Can See Connecticut
By DAVID W. DUNLAP


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/09/nyregion/09dunlap.large.jpg

The scene atop and from the observation deck of the World Trade Center in May 1999. (Photo: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)


With the Freedom Tower headed steadily skyward (though not yet in view of sidewalk superintendents), the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is looking ahead to the moment when the public will want a slice of that sky.

It said Wednesday that it has begun searching for a private operator for the observation area planned on the 102nd floor of the tower, also known as 1 World Trade Center. Early next month, the authority will ask prospective candidates for their qualifications. Qualified bidders will be asked to submit proposals at the end of 2008. A firm will be chosen in early 2009. The observation area is expected to open in 2012.

At 1,300 feet above street level, the new observation area will be about 10 feet lower than the one atop the south tower of the original trade center. The new observation area will be about half the size and will not include an outdoor deck. Ogden Corporation operated the old observation deck under a lease from the Port Authority.

“The observation deck that sat atop 2 World Trade Center prior to 9/11 was a can’t-miss stop for those who lived and worked in Lower Manhattan, as well as two million tourists who visited each year, generating business for local merchants and others,” Anthony R. Coscia, the chairman of the authority, said in a statement. “We intend to recreate the same experience for future generations.”

Anthony E. Shorris, the executive director of the authority, said the observation deck was also intended to help make the tower “an open, lively public space integrated with the rest of the city.”

In the first step of its search for a restaurant operator at the top of the Freedom Tower in January, the Port Authority received 11 responses.

[Jasonik]

Maybe Blackwater can manage the observation area. :rolleyes:

[BrooklynLove]

startling to think how much has happened in the city and the world in less than 10 years since when that photo was snapped

[Alonzo-ny]

That picture is almost like heaven, I cant remember life before 9/11, when i was a tender 15 years old.

[Bloodlust617]

That picture is almost like heaven, I cant remember life before 9/11, when i was a tender 15 years old.

Thats so true. I was 15 yrs old when it happened too, saw it from my High School classroom. And funny too, I live in Astoria as well. Ha!

I'm eager for the Freedom Tower to start rising, it's gonna be a good next couple of years.

[BrooklynLove]

i don't think that i'll get over 9-11 until this is all completely rebuilt - not until then will this be a memory instead of a current event in my view.

[Alonzo-ny]

Exactly how I feel BL, still an open wound.

[TREPYE]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/09/nyregion/09dunlap.large.jpg

The scene atop and from the observation deck of the World Trade Center in May 1999. (Photo: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

The new observation area will be about half the size and will not include an outdoor deck.

Another testament to the FT being a cheap imitation. On a positive note, at least it seems like they are not going to botch up the glass -an SOM forte.

[Kalitechne]

And another indicator of New York's steady decline and self-destruction. Being on the cutting edge no longer seems to matter for New York, sadly. It's as if there is a desire to cut all ties with the past, and get rid of exciting features like an outdoor observtion deck. Just like with the whole design for the area, New York has to settle for whatever it can get, morbid parks excluded.

[BrooklynLove]

settling? enough with the trolling, okay.

[Kalitechne]

settling? enough with the trolling, okay.


But I still haven't received my toll.

[ZippyTheChimp]

^
Keep it up and the toll booth will be closed. I'm not kidding.

[GreenwichBoy]

Posted: Tuesday, 15 April 2008 6:15PM

Weak Concrete Removed from WTC's Freedom Tower Foundation

NEW YORK (AP) -- Builders of the Freedom Tower poured a bad batch of concrete into the foundation of the skyscraper replacing the World Trade Center and spent the last few weeks removing it after tests showed it wasn't strong enough, officials said Tuesday.

About 50 cubic yards of concrete was jackhammered away from the core foundation of the 1,776-foot tower under construction at ground zero. More than 22,000 cubic yards of concrete have been poured so far, and no other batches have failed strength tests, said Steve Coleman, spokesman for the building's owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The tower, the symbolic replacement to the twin towers destroyed on Sept. 11, is being built with concrete stronger than any other building in New York City.

The foundation should be able to withstand 14,000 pounds per square inch, about three times the strength of concrete in an average home and over five times the strength in a sidewalk. A tower rebuilt north of ground zero two years ago, 7 World Trade Center, was built with concrete at a strength of 12,000 pounds per square inch, officials said.

Experts said many factors could create a poor batch: weather; the temperature at which concrete is poured and hardens; the time it takes for concrete to travel from the plant; and the way it is mixed. The issue is likely to affect the trade center site more as concrete trucks roll in over the next two years to build the memorial to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the concrete for up to five office towers.

The concrete that was removed from the Freedom Tower varied in strength between 6,000 and 10,000 pounds per square inch, Coleman said Tuesday. It was tested once it was poured, on Dec. 18, and separate pieces were removed from the batch and tested successfully a month after the pour, he said.

But contractors working on the site noticed a 6-inch section ``did not look right'' and appeared to have excessive air pockets trapped in, he said. The builders removed core samples from the area, tested their strength, and decided in mid-February to take the concrete out, he said.

The work was done over the past several weeks in areas to be north and south of planned elevator shafts, as well as from three other small sections, Coleman said.

Concrete was poured in other parts of the building over the past few months, and the construction schedule for the tower, expected to open in 2011, wasn't affected, Coleman said.

A message left with the main concrete supplier, Quadrozzi Concrete Corp., wasn't returned Tuesday. Tony Arnold, president of iCrete, the company that developed the high-strength technology for the tower, said the small amount concrete must have been mixed improperly.

``We have had no batches that have not achieved the strength,'' he said.
Removing below-strength concrete that has already been poured is rare in the industry, said Greg Vickers, managing director of operations for the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association.

``Everything about the construction process is overdesigned to avoid failures,'' he said.

From: 1010wins.com

[Clarknt67]

I suppose it's to hope in vain they'd change their mind about there being no outdoor deck.

After the twins came down, one thought that kept going through my mind was, "Damn! I never went up to the observation deck!!!" It was just one of those touristy things I never did myself and assumed guests would drag me to someday. So after nearly a decade in the city, I still hadn't made it up there. But what did it matter? It would always be there...

[BigMac]

It's a shame there won't be an outdoor deck, but would its proximity to the antennae be a factor due to possible safety issues?

[smackfu]

Well, we did get the Top of the Rock observation deck, which is outside. It's the law of conservation of observation decks.

[Alonzo-ny]

Im quite interested to know the reason actually because there was an outdoor deck in the design after it was redesigned.

[Ebola]

It looks like they put up a big poster on the side of 7WTC, maybe for the whole Pope thing or something else. I'd like to see a picture of it. I'd say it's about 85 feet by 45 feet. It's facing ground zero and more on the Freedom Tower side; you can't miss it.

[brianac]

It's a shame there won't be an outdoor deck, but would its proximity to the antennae be a factor due to possible safety issues?

Phillippe Petit. 7th. August 1974.

[brianac]

TRASHY WTC SECURITY

HOMELESS GUY FINDS KEY PLAN IN A CAN

By JEREMY OLSHAN and KEVIN FASICK

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04182008/photos/news007.jpg (http://javascript<b></b>:SLIDES.hotlink())
PRINTS & THE PAUPER: Mike Fleming, who lives on the streets, yesterday holds up the confidential, floor-by-floor schematics of the Freedom Tower that he stumbled upon in this trash basket.

http://www.nypost.com/img/newsart/article_storybottom.gif
http://www.nypost.com/img/sl/exclusive.gif

April 18, 2008 --

It's a good thing Osama wasn't walking through SoHo yesterday morning.
Two sets of confidential blueprints for the planned Freedom Tower, which is set to rise at Ground Zero, were carelessly dumped in a city garbage can on the corner of West Houston and Sullivan streets, The Post has learned.

PHOTO GALLERY: WTC Blueprints Found In Trash (http://www.nypost.com/seven/04182008/news/regionalnews/tower/photo01.htm)

Experts said the detailed, floor-by-floor schematics contain enough detail for terrorists to plot a devastating attack.
"Secure Document - Confidential," warns the title page on each of the two copies of the 150-page schematic that a homeless, recovering drug addict discovered in the public trash can.
"Any time a sensitive document is unintentionally left behind, it's a treasure trove for a potential adversary," aid Robert Strang, CEO of Investigative Management Group, a global security firm. "It enables them to look for vulnerabilities in design that they can target - an age-old military tactic."

Informed of what the homeless man, Mike Fleming, had found, shocked Port Authority officials called it an egregious security lapse.

"Violating these protocols is cause for serious disciplinary action - up to termination for employees and breach of contract and legal action for contractors," said Candace McAdams, PA director of media relations.

One of the identical sets was missing the first 14 pages, which is particularly alarming.

Besides the PA, there are 11 entities listed on each page of the blueprints, including the builder, Tishman Construction, and architects Skidmore Owings and Merrill.

Although the documents, dated Oct. 5, 2007, are not a complete set of blueprints, they do contain details such as plans for each floor, the thickness of the concrete-core wall and the location of air ducts, elevators, electrical systems and support columns.

"Certainly, if you know the thickness of concrete, someone with an explosive background can develop and plot an attack," Strang said.

That was exactly the thought that ran through Fleming's mind when he found the documents and alerted The Post.

Fleming, 28, originally from Ohio, said he was rummaging through the garbage in search of cardboard, "because the concrete is so cold to sleep on," when he noticed the documents and the warning to "properly destroy if discarded."

"They were right on top, and the garbage truck came along 10 minutes later," he said. "I was outraged, because this is priceless and it could gets into the wrong hands.

"I am an honest guy. This could have ended up on eBay or gotten to al Qaeda."

The schematics were distributed to PA officials, architects and contractors, and the state's inspector general will be investigating who improperly disposed of the sensitive materials, which the agency had no intention of making public, McAdams said.

"We don't tolerate carelessness and stupidity, which is why we have these strict protocols in place," she said.

According to McAdams, the plans are several versions old, "not very detailed" bidding documents that are given to anyone bidding on contracts.

But Steve Yang, an architect who reviewed the schematics for The Post, said that even though they do not contain every detail, it would be easy to fill in the blanks.

"An expert in explosives, demolition or biological weapons certainly could glean enough here to develop a game plan," he said. "You can see where all the concrete walls are, where the emergency stairwells are, and the electrical and HVAC systems."

The air-intake and ventilation systems in most modern office buildings would make it extremely difficult to cause widespread damage with a gas or anthrax attack, thanks to the filtration systems, a security source said.

Security sources say that such breaches tend to be inside jobs and that the garbage-can drop might have been intentional.

"The insider threat is always a corporation's biggest threat, and a terrorist adversary will try to locate disgruntled employees," a security-industry source said.

Relatives of 9/11 victims say that lapses in security over Ground Zero have ceased to be surprising.

"I'd certainly be pretty leery going to work in the building knowing that security on the plans was so lax that even a vagabond could find them," said Bill Doyle, whose son, Joseph, was killed in the Twin Towers.

"The whole thing is kind of frightening, but at the same time totally expected, because we have been failed time and again."

As shocking as such dangerous lapses in security are, experts contend that they are bound to happen again.

"Outrageous security breeches like this amplify how vulnerable New Yorkers are," said Nicholas Casale, former head of security for the MTA.

Additional reporting by Murray Weiss
jeremy.olshan@nypost.com

Copyright 2008 The New York Post.

[JCMAN320]

WTF!!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? My god the incompetance is astounding!!!! I swear these people could f*** up a wet dream!!! This cannot be tolerated, whoever had them last should be fired. Be sheer dumb luck are we lucky this honest guy found them, but 14 pages are missing from an identical blueprint which scares the crap out of me!!!!! Who has them???

[JacobNYC]

Hey man, just relax a bit. You need a massage and some Jack. This is the Post blowing things out of proportion to sell newspapers... I mean tabloids.

If a terrorist wanted to know the thickness of the concrete walls/core, they can just go to www.wtc.com (http://www.wtc.com) and measure the diagrams to scale. I don't think the challenge is knowing WHERE to place explosives but HOW to sucessfully do so in the first place.

[Alonzo-ny]

It will be virtually impossible for explosives to bring this building down even if they knew where to do it. It would take days just to set up a explosive demo like that.

[antinimby]

You need a massage and some Jack.Who's going to volunteer to do this dirty deed? londonlawyer, where are you at?

[kz1000ps]

Unless Salma Hayek is the human behind the jcman handle, I doubt he'd be up for it :cool:

[Clarknt67]

Phillippe Petit. 7th. August 1974.
That just scares the crap out of me whenever I think of it.

[The Benniest]

I'm going to partially agree with JacobNYC and say that I think the Post is blowing this a 'tad bit out of proportion. Wouldn't you think if this were entirely true that it would be the headlines on the sites like the NY Times and the NY Daily News. From what I can see, its not on either.

[rmannion]

It looks like they put up a big poster on the side of 7WTC, maybe for the whole Pope thing or something else. I'd like to see a picture of it. I'd say it's about 85 feet by 45 feet. It's facing ground zero and more on the Freedom Tower side; you can't miss it.
http://www.ardiem.org/images/28847.jpg
Taken 4/18/08.

[brianac]

Thanks a million rmannion.

[brianac]

Picture Tour: Building the Freedom Tower on Ground Zero

byEliot Brown (http://www.observer.com/2007/author/eliot-brown) | April 18, 2008

http://observer.cast.advomatic.com/files/imagecache/article/files/wtc%208.jpg Eliot Brown
The steel beams of the Freedom Tower as it reaches upward from below street level

Yesterday morning we took a little jaunt downtown to check out the progress of the Freedom Tower. Accompanied by some folks from the Port Authority, which is developing the tower, we took a few shots from the construction site. Work is slated to rise above street level later this year.
For now, the sub-grade work seems to have a whole lot of workers installing a whole lot of cement and rebar. The site was mostly empty and the vast majority of the work has come within the last year. The Port Authority said they still are on schedule for completion in 2012.

http://observer.cast.advomatic.com/files/041808_wtc-1.jpg
The steel beams poking form a perimeter for the building’s edge, while the bulky concrete structure in the center is the tower’s core, holding its elevators and stairs.


http://observer.cast.advomatic.com/files/041808_wtc-2.jpg
A worker amid a forest of rebar


http://observer.cast.advomatic.com/files/041808_wtc-3.jpg
A worker at the northern wall of the site


http://observer.cast.advomatic.com/files/041808_wtc-4.jpg
A bit less activity at the site for Tower 3 and Tower 4. Developer Larry Silverstein received the site from the Port Authority in February 2008, and is now doing foundation work.


http://observer.cast.advomatic.com/files/041808_wtc-5.jpg
The site for Tower 2. The Port Authority has until June 30 to excavate this down to bedrock, when it will owe Silverstein Properties $300,000 for each day’s delay. There is an incentive of around $10 million for the contractors to finish on time, according to a Port Authority spokeswoman.

Copyright 2008 The New York Observer.

[BrooklynLove]

wow. go get em nyc.

[Ebola]

http://www.ardiem.org/images/28847.jpg
Taken 4/18/08.


Great job and thanks. You can even see that small Tishamn poster. I hope that they don't take them down for a long time. Maybe they put them up because they wanted people to be more aware of what's being built and knew it would be a good time because of the media with the Pope or maybe they wanted to just show how we are rebuilding. Seems like perfect weather too.

[BrooklynLove]

safe bet that the new path entrance being there had something to do with it. i'd love the chance to buy the one on the right once it's time for it to come down.

[JCMAN320]

Lol I'll take my girl doin the message and if anyone wants to pour me some Jack I'll gladly take it. :)

[Ebola]

People, I just found another new place about rebuilding and such. I haven't had much time to look at it, but it seems like they post good pictures too and they even have a cam that faces the other direction of the HD cam, giving us the ENTIRE view of the Tower 3 and Tower 2 plots:

http://www.rebuildgroundzero.org/

The Freedom Tower's plot can be seen too, and in a totally new perspective.
Going to my faves list.

[DarrylStrawberry]

http://www.observer.com/2008/architects-have-blast-testing-freedom-tower (http://www.observer.com/2008/architects-have-blast-testing-freedom-tower)

Architects Have a Blast Testing Freedom Tower

In a hillside bunker in a New Mexico desert two weeks ago, a New York architect peered through a periscope as, about 1,300 feet away, a simulacrum of the Freedom Tower’s exterior was blown up.

“Once the charge was detonated, even from a quarter of a mile away, the entire bunker shook,” said Carl Galioto, a partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the architecture firm that designed One World Trade Center. The 1,776-foot-tall, spire-topped skyscraper, formerly known as the Freedom Tower, is slated to rise at the northwest corner of Ground Zero by 2012.

“The specimen performed beautifully, far exceeding our expectations,” Mr. Galioto said.

Which is to say that only portions, and not all, of the so-called specimen—a three-story mock-up of the building’s glass-and-aluminum facade—shattered in the isolated desert 90 minutes south of Albuquerque.

Mr. Galioto wouldn’t reveal the strength of the explosive device for security reasons, but said that a Port Authority security consultant and New York City law enforcement officials determined the criteria for the test.

“It is something that, having seen it, having participated in it, certainly raises my confidence in the project,” he said.

“Dynamic” testing—i.e., blowing up materials destined for building exteriors—is not standard operating procedure for skyscrapers. The technique, developed about a decade ago, is generally reserved for the construction of highly sensitive government buildings in foreign countries, like the American embassy that Skidmore, Owings & Merrill built in Beijing.

“But it’s now being applied to [other] buildings,” Mr. Galioto said. In fact, materials intended for another New York City tower—Mr. Galioto wouldn’t name the project, though he did say that his firm wasn’t designing it—were tested at the same laboratory days before the tests for One World Trade Center.

Thankfully, rainstorms and high winds are more commonplace than bombs in New York City, so Benson Industries, the contractor building the glass exterior for the architect, had to make sure the material could handle those environmental pressures, too.

Testing of another mock-up of the glass, which will cover one million square feet of the tower, took months and spanned a continent—wind tunnel tests outside of Toronto; thermal tests in Ontario, Calif.—all to ensure that the future tower can withstand apocalyptic wind speeds of up to 150 miles per hour, deluges of rain the likes of which New York has rarely seen, a low-level earthquake and rapidly changing temperatures.

But none of that compared to the drama of the blast test.

“The only way to reach the exact site was drive by four-wheel-drive vehicles for a number of miles,” Mr. Galioto said. “There was a dirt-and-rock road.”

[DarrylStrawberry]

People, I just found another new place about rebuilding and such. I haven't had much time to look at it, but it seems like they post good pictures too and they even have a cam that faces the other direction of the HD cam, giving us the ENTIRE view of the Tower 3 and Tower 2 plots:

http://www.rebuildgroundzero.org/

The Freedom Tower's plot can be seen too, and in a totally new perspective.
Going to my faves list.

You're right. Good find.

[ZenSteelDude]

<Rant on>
OMFG I'm over here watching what I say to suppliers and subs and this forum and some simple minded ^$(*#^$@(&*^ throws a set of prints in a trash can, on the street !!!!! String him/her up I say !!!
<rant off>

If that was the bundle of prints I think it is, no harm done. They are "location" drawings and have no, for a &#^$(&$^@ terrorist, usefull info on them. Also, as the article said, they are several revisions out of date.

Thanks Ebola for the new site, they have some good pics and videos.

Oh, just something I was thinking about the other day. Once all the towers are up we well have WTC 1 through 5 and 7, I don't think there ever well be a new #6 unless they change there minds about what's going to take the place of the Deutscha Bank building.

[ramvid01]

Deutche Bank would be #5. #6 is either the performance art center or the memorial museum. I am not sure which.

[Ebola]

Sometimes I think of #6 as the GS Tower since if it were not for the WTC it would not be going up right now. But I guess they'll call number six the PAC or Memorial building or Hub or maybe another low-rise they build on site, but if we get lucky and they decide to build another tower, then it will be that, I'm sure.

[21&Invincible]

I remember sending an email to the people at wtc.com a while back and they said there were no plans to have a 6 WTC... or rather a building with that designation.

[antinimby]

^ No need to ask them. Just look in the trash cans on your street to get answers. :D


...some simple minded ^$(*#^$@(&*^ throws a set of prints in a trash can, on the street !!!!!I thought that was one of those rare, isolated incidents but apparently this is becoming a regular occurence to where even a forumer here have encountered the same thing (http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=226808).

[DarrylStrawberry]

http://www.wtcrising.com/images/FE/chain217siteType8/site187/client/photoGallery/189/1%20wtc%20april.lookringnoth_big.jpg

http://www.wtcrising.com/images/FE/chain217siteType8/site187/client/photoGallery/189/concrete%20pour%202april%2015%202008_big.jpg

http://www.wtcrising.com/images/FE/chain217siteType8/site187/client/photoGallery/189/1%20wtc%20april_big.jpg

http://www.wtcrising.com/images/FE/chain217siteType8/site187/client/photoGallery/189/below%20grade%20work%20for%20corridor_big.jpg
From WTC Rising

[Just_Dennis]

Hi guys,

that's my first post here. I'm from Germany, so please don't be mad at me for all the grammer mistakes I probably make, I'll try my best, I swear :o

During my last visit in New York, a week ago, I saw these new pictures at the WTC 7 tower. I've recognized something what I never saw before:

http://www.ice-fanpage.de/rendering.jpg

It seems that there are severall floors in the middle of the tower without regular office floors. I'm wondering what big thing need to be right in the middle of this building?

Have a good day!

[ZenSteelDude]

Guter Tag, Just Dennis und welcom zum Forum. I have to type the rest of this in english becouse my translator (wife) just left the room. By the way, your english is quite good.

The area you point out on the tower are air intake grills. The artist has drawn them about 4 floors too low. The bottom of the intake well be at the 92nd floor, 3 floors above the highest office floor. Though it can't be seen in the rendering there is an air exaust area in the base of the tower.

[Alonzo-ny]

Wie gehts?

[Just_Dennis]

Guter Tag, Just Dennis und welcom zum Forum. I have to type the rest of this in english becouse my translator (wife) just left the room. By the way, your english is quite good.

The area you point out on the tower are air intake grills. The artist has drawn them about 4 floors too low. The bottom of the intake well be at the 92nd floor, 3 floors above the highest office floor. Though it can't be seen in the rendering there is an air exaust area in the base of the tower.

Hello everybody,

thank you so much for the nice welcome ;-)

When this air intake thing will not be on the highest floor of the building, what else will be above it? Obviously it must be the restaurant and the observation deck, but something else too?

Isn't it normally to have this kind of stuff on the highest floors of a building? Why is it different here? The only reason I could imagine would be the space needed for the technique and the thinner becoming tower.

Greetings from Germany

[Daquan13]

I think 7 WTC has this as well, and the other towers will also more than likely feature it.

I think the purpose of it is to bring in fresh air from the outside - possibly to cool the mechanical equipment such as elevator machinery, HVAC, etc..

[GreenwichBoy]

http://www.panynj.gov/info/images/April08_WTC_1.jpg

[GreenwichBoy]

http://www.panynj.gov/wtc/images/wtc_lease_1wtca_main1.jpghttp://www.panynj.gov/wtc/images/wtc_lease_1wtca_main2.jpg

[antinimby]

Will the observation deck be on the same level (altitude) as the one in the original 2 WTC?

I believe that one was also a floor or two below the uppermost floor.

[Daquan13]

I believe that it will.

[Eugenius]

As far as I recall, there was an observation deck on the roof of one of the towers. I believe that the new observation deck will be indoors, and so will have to be a tad lower than the old one.

[theWatusi]

I believe that it will.
Eugenius is right. The FT obs. deck will be lower than the original WTC.

[Daquan13]

Just one though, not two.

[theWatusi]

yes, you are right captain obvious. One FT, one obs deck.

[antinimby]

The former 2 WTC had 2 observation levels, one inside a few floors below the one on the roof.

I should know, I went on both (back in the 80's). ;)

[BrooklynLove]

i concur

[antinimby]

A little bit of what it was like to be on top of the World...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3020/2495835718_5d0d1409d3_b.jpg
jordipostales (http://flickr.com/photos/jordipostales/2495835718/sizes/l/)

[Tectonic]

Wow, imagine Burj Dubai :p

[Daquan13]

yes, you are right captain obvious. One FT, one obs deck.



Don't start this shit up again!

You're nothing but a goddamn troublemaker who is here to start up goddamn drama, turmoil and controversy, as well as to personally attack me, and the sooner that your ass is banned from here, the happier I'll feel!!!

[econ_tim]

A little bit of what it was like to be on top of the World...

great find. look at BPC.

[kz1000ps]

I agree, great pic. When is that from.. mid-late '70s?

[ramvid01]

Just looking at the webcam, it seems that another peice of steel has been added to the eastern side of the building and is the first to break street level. :eek:

[Daquan13]

I'd like to see a pic of it, please! Must be something to behold!!

[theWatusi]

I'd like to see a pic of it, please! Must be something to behold!!

go look at the webcam

[EugeneNYC]

Looks like they added an extention to another one (second from the right on the southern side).

http://www.earthcam.net/users2/interface.php?id=445&projectid=202&clientid=158

[scumonkey]

Are you guys dreaming?
I know I'm getting up there in age and,
my eyes aren't what they used to be but....
I ride by there every day on my bike and,
I do not see any thing above street level yet?
If you watch the time lapse portion of the web cam,
you will not see (at least I didn't) much height change,
(if any) to the vertical beams-on either side of the site?
:confused:
I will admit I've seen the beams come close to street level
(been that way for a while), but not above it.
Here is a pic from today......
the tallest beam is JUST at street level?!
Unless I don't see it.....if you do, can you please point it out? Thank you.
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb276/scumonkey/site.jpg

[philvia]

thats the one added yesterday

[NoyokA]

That addition means very little. I'll start getting excited when I see horizontal beams.

[EugeneNYC]

True. Just goes to show you that we get excited over the most insignificant signs of progress amid the snail-like pace of contruction on the WTC.

[Ebola]

Please, it's no slower than any other project of its scale and it IS quite symbolic as the first beam to rise above zero, though you can't see much and I think that we won't see a bigger sign of pogress for a few months, then a lot.

And I am sure that it just breakes the grade line and is slightly above grade.

Keep in mind that the shortest beams were said to be over 30 feet long and the longest ones over 40 or 50 feet long.

30 times three is roughly how deep it is in that area (anyone know exactly?)... and of course it also depends on how far the beam went down into the foundation but still I think we're at least touching grade.

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/8527/ft2008ik9.jpg

[scumonkey]

...still I think we're at least touching grade.

...Just :rolleyes:

[Ebola]

...Just :rolleyes:


Are you sure? A lot of people think it already passed grade and just because you don't see it above doesn't mean it's lower than street level. It's a big beam, from from certain angles and from a certain distance away you'll never see it. It also depends on where it is on the site because street level isn't the same at every location at the site. In your older post, you said there was little height change to any of the beams, but that seems wrong and I think you were looking at the wrong times. The new beam that you can see seems to be tapered at the top ( has a smaller top section). Will we see horizontal beams on top of it?

[scumonkey]

"Just" means Just at street level (maybe even a teensy bit above)
- NOT below- but not anything above to hoot about either!.
I ride my bike all around the site, (not just down one side).
Take another look at the cam, set the date back a few months.....
I went back to Dec. 07 and the beams on the south side were already there- at the same height!
You can clearly see that most of those beams have been there for a while, and at the same height they are at now.
The only one that's just hitting ground level (or barely above), only added yesterday- late in the day.

[RealThang]

The new beams are well above street level. Each beam is over 30 ft in length and the pit at the FT is around 70 feet deep. There are three beams on each of the new columns. Pictures taken from street level show the beams probably over 15-20 feet above the street level. The beams are tapered at the top where it appears they will be cross-braced. These columns are the first columns that have been tapered at the top.

By the way, there appears to be another beam sitting on the ground near the other two (east side of the south core where no flooring has been built yet).

[philvia]

"Just" means Just at street level (maybe even a teensy bit above)
- NOT below- but not anything above to hoot about either!.
I ride my bike all around the site, (not just down one side).
Take another look at the cam, set the date back a few months.....
I went back to Dec. 07 and the beams on the south side were already there- at the same height!
You can clearly see that most of those beams have been there for a while, and at the same height they are at now.
The only one that's just hitting ground level (or barely above), only added yesterday- late in the day.

not sure what you're looking at
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z70/Scruffy66/Byram/DSC00400.jpg
(thanks scruffy :) )

[scumonkey]

I'm sorry, but to me that small amount of steel jutting barely above ground = just!
Still nothing to hoot about....
I'm with Stern
That addition means very little. I'll start getting excited when I see horizontal beams.(but that's just me) Yawn

[ZenSteelDude]

The section added to the F/9 column brings it's height to 10 feet above the ground floor slab. Most of the columns are at 64 feet above the foundation, or 8 feet below the ground floor slab. Above or below "grade" is a relative term on a site with a slope .

[Ebola]

I'm sorry, but to me that small amount of steel jutting barely above ground = just!
Still nothing to hoot about....
I'm with Stern (but that's just me) Yawn

It is a big deal, a huge deal, as the first peice of steel to go "up," since all other pieces before that one were underground. We are no longer reaching for zero; we are now reaching for the sky. It may or may not be a big deal in terms of progress, but it is still very stmbolic. Each day we see small things like that and they all add up to what we call prgress, but at least this brings the building is now out of the pit, even though if it seems like an insignifiant part. I am sure that we'll be seeing a lot more before we know it; we should be excited because this is the year we'll see the supertall start to go up. I am pretty sure that we'll see a layer of horizontal beams after the other above grade ones are erected.

[scumonkey]

Yawn;)

[ZippyTheChimp]

It is a big deal, a huge deal, as the first peice of steel to go "up," since all other pieces before that one were underground. We are no longer reaching for zero; we are now reaching for the sky.To me, a building is "out of the ground" when all of the foundation/basement work is complete, and the building starts to rise floor by floor.

It's obvious if you look down a the site from the Vesey bridge, there's still a lot of work to be done before a slab is poured at ground level.

[Alonzo-ny]

Im in the same boat pretty much, i do regard it above ground now but Im not getting excited until i see more substantial steel put in horizontally.

[NYatKNIGHT]

Current projection of structure to grade is end of September.

[Daquan13]

You mean that we won't see any more steel rise until then?

[ZenSteelDude]

OK, now that work wont interfere I can go into a more detailed explanation of the columns. If you look at the pic Philvia posted you can see the tops of two columns on the east side of the tower. They consist of two 32 foot sections and an 18 foot section that was added on the 17th. What RealThang calls a taper is actually a staggered splice, there well be no horizontal beam at that location.
Now a few words about the elevation system the PA uses. Zero elevation is 300 feet below mean high water at Battery Park Point. My guess is the PA doesn’t like negative elevation numbers. The top of the ground floor slab is 310’ 10”, the side plates on those columns stop at 320’ 10” and the beam is 5 feet higher so RealThang’s guess of 15 to 20 feet above grade was very close.
For reference the corner of Vesey and West Streets is 304’ 6” and the corner of Fulton and Greenwich is 310’ 0”.

If you really want to see horizontal beams just look at the area north of the core. Those beams are going to support the slab above the PATH tracks. You well have to wait for the 2nd & 3rd floor to see any above grade floor and spandrel beams.
As I said in the past, 98% of the structure, from the ground floor slab down is Fero-crete. Because of that progress is going to be slow. Add to that the fact that the tower is being built on top of, and between the tracks of, a busy railroad (PATH) that must remain in service and you get apparently slow progress.

<Zen locks up the prints and heads home>

[brianac]

May 19, 2008, 5:50 pm

Not Yet on the Skyline, but Above Street Level

By David W. Dunlap (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/author/ddunlap/)

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/05/19/nyregion/wtc-190.jpg

Two perimeter columns of the 1 World Trade Center tower rose above street level for the first time over the weekend. The 1,776-foot structure will now be climbing upward within public view. (Photo: David W. Dunlap/The New York Times)

Only 1,761 feet to go.

Another tangible and fanfare-free milestone occurred over the weekend at ground zero, where two steel columns of 1 World Trade Center (http://www.panynj.gov/wtc/wtc_1wtc.html) rose above street level for the first time. That means the 1,776-foot skyscraper, until now an entirely subterranean structure, will be doing the rest of its climbing in the public eye.

In contrast to the heavily orchestrated ceremonies of past years — white doves taking flight (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/nyregion/07path.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=doves+and+calatrava&st=nyt&oref=slogin) (they turned out to be homing pigeons) and a 20-ton cornerstone being set into place (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0DE7DE163BF936A35754C0A9629C8B 63&scp=1&sq=cornerstone+pataki+opera&st=nyt) (it had to be picked up again and moved (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/24/nyregion/24freedom.html?scp=1&sq=cornerstone+pataki&st=nyt) off site) — the latest milestone was noted quite modestly by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Rather than staging speeches, the agency simply handed out prepared, two-sentence statements from Anthony R. Coscia, the chairman, and Christopher O. Ward, the new executive director.

One World Trade Center, also called the Freedom Tower, broke through the street-level barrier on Saturday when workers for DCM Erectors attached new sections atop two of the 24 jumbo columns that form the building’s perimeter. The additional steel brought the columns to a height of about 15 feet above grade. The authority said the 22 other columns were expected to sprout through May, June and July. Tishman Construction Corporation is the construction manager for the project, which is to be completed in 2012.

For now, the best vantages of the rising columns are either from the corner of Washington and Vesey Streets (through a chain-link fence) or from within the second-floor gallery of the Winter Garden at Battery Park City. If you wait long enough, however, you won’t have any trouble seeing the structure from almost any nearby vantage. And if you wait longer than that, you won’t be able to avoid seeing it from almost anywhere, since it will be the tallest in New York City.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/19/not-yet-on-the-skyline-but-above-street-level/

Copyright 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[Daquan13]

It's nice to see some of the steel poking above street level!

Yeah, this summer will see things really begin to take off there!!

[antinimby]

Double yawn.

Wake me up when they've reached at least the neighboring building's height.

I think I'll get my watching-a-tower-rise kicks from watching 11 Times Square (which with its concrete core, is really like a mini-FT) instead, thank you. ;)

[BrooklynLove]

Zen - how long do you think until tower construction reaches a stage at which it moves forward at a rate closer to what's usually seen for steel tower construction on this scale?

[Daquan13]

The tower was just on the news. The report says that the steel has begun to surpass street level with the addition of those two columns.

That a total of 24 are needed to finish the height of the infrastructure. The entire base is slated to be completed by August or September with the cross beams and girders.;)

[NYatKNIGHT]

Zen - how long do you think until tower construction reaches a stage at which it moves forward at a rate closer to what's usually seen for steel tower construction on this scale?
I know you asked Zen, but my guess would be the last week of September.

[ZenSteelDude]

Zen - how long do you think until tower construction reaches a stage at which it moves forward at a rate closer to what's usually seen for steel tower construction on this scale?


Becouse of the cast in place core it wont go up as fast as an all steel building but once it gets above the 3rd floor the pace of construction should speed up considerably. I expect that to happen in the 4th quarter of '08.

I would like to repeat, for those expecting to see steel beams, besides the columns, not tell the 2nd & 3rd floor.

[Ebola]

For those who missed it, 22 more of those jumbo columns will be erected by the end of July, so we'll be seeing more going up this month and I'm sure by then the core will be growing more too.

[BrooklynLove]

Becouse of the cast in place core it wont go up as fast as an all steel building but once it gets above the 3rd floor the pace of construction should speed up considerably. I expect that to happen in the 4th quarter of '08.

I would like to repeat, for those expecting to see steel beams, besides the columns, not tell the 2nd & 3rd floor.

got it, thanks homie

[scumonkey]

I just saw this for the first time (Trump on Hardball w/Chris M.)
...even though it's dated, it's worth the watch- Trump's disgust
for Libeskind's version of the Freedom Tower had me rolling on the
floor laughing my a$$ off!
(there's a crappy commercial before the interview)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/7834977#7834977

[NYC4Life]

Although slow, we can finally see real progress at this site. It's only a matter of time before this tower rises high into the sky. :)

[ZippyTheChimp]

I can only take so much of a Donald Trump-Chris Mathews split screen. I gave up when Trump contradicted himself - which didn't take long.

[Daquan13]

I can only take so much of a Donald Trump-Chris Mathews split screen. I gave up when Trump contradicted himself - which didn't take long.



He's been known to put his foot in his mouth.

That so-called campain he went on a few years back to supposedly get the Twins rebuilt was just a farce, a front.

[GreenwichBoy]

http://www.panynj.gov/info/images/May08_WTC_1.jpg

[GreenwichBoy]

http://www.panynj.gov/info/images/May08_WTC_3.jpg

[Daquan13]

Looks like the 2nd basement level is being put in.

Still don't see any stubs on the concrete core walls for the steel girders to be connected to. The area that hides the outbound PATH track is slowly disappearing with constr. of the tower covering it.

[EugeneNYC]

GreenwichBoy, can you please tell me where you got those images?

I usually go to wtcrising.com for updated images and didn't see those on that site. Pathrestoration.com used to have monthly updates, but looks like they stopped doing that about 6 months ago.

[scumonkey]

He clearly states they are from the PA website:
right at the top of the first pic.;)
here's a link direct to their pics:

http://www.panynj.gov/info/wtc_progress.html

[ZenSteelDude]

Still don't see any stubs on the concrete core walls for the steel girders to be connected to.


You never well. With the exception of the beams being put in to support the slab above the PATH the basement levels are rebar and cement. Once it gets to the 3rd floor you well see what well apear to be a steel core structure, with the floor beams bolted into it. Then the core walls go in, rebar and cement.

If ya look at the pic a few posts up, that orange boom lift is sitting on the B3 slab, 2 more levels to go before ground level.

<Zen locks up the prints and heads home>

[ZenSteelDude]

I just noticed something, if you go to the PA website pics, 4th one from the top and look under the Vesey St. overhang you well see several north wall columns. They must have been put in on Saturday, when inturupting PATH service would be minimal. You cna see the holes they were lowered through on the High Res web cam.

[Daquan13]

Yeah, I went there and saw that. Looks like some of them are placed in close proximity to the old columns left there from the old WTC underground garage.

[Tectonic]

Seems like snail's pace here...

[Ebola]

Seems like BAN there... ^

[Tectonic]

Broadband Area Network? :confused: lol. Let me elaborate like I'm running for office.

OK, as much as I am not excited by the tower's design, I am excited to see the steel, core and cranes towering over lower Manhattan. A much needed change from the 'plateauism' that has existed over the last couple years.

[Alonzo-ny]

There wont be a person on this board who isnt excited when the cranes tower way above manhattan.

[BrooklynLove]

bring. it. on.

[Daquan13]

It'll be 7 years this coming September. But at least we know it's being built in antisipation for better things to come.;)

[195Broadway]

There wont be a person on this board who isnt excited when the cranes tower way above manhattan.

What a great forum. As with so many people, this topic has great personal meaning for me. I hope you all don't mind me chiming in here.

195 Broadway. My father worked there for the phone company. We lived in the NJ burbs. Dad was involved in procuring the materials needed to re-route the underground phone lines that ran through the future WTC site. Being born in 1964, I don't recall many of the details, but I sure can remember how excited and proud he was to be part of that effort. It was around Christmas time. We all went into the city to meet up with our relatives and see "The Nut cracker". Having arrived in the city well ahead of the show, dad took the opportunity to show us where he worked. Our station wagon finally parked, we took off on a short walking tour of the area. The one thing I will always remember is standing on the sidewalk next to the construction site. We peered through the fence. The steel had already risen above grade. I was confused because they were still moving dirt down there in that pit. "These will be the tallest buildings in the world" he proudly told us. The air was cold, we were dressed in our Sunday best. It was time to go. Reluctant to leave, I was pulled away...
Afterwards, as time progressed, there were many trips out to Long Island to visit my grandmother. Each journey through Manhattan had us craning out the car windows to see the progress on the towers.... one came into to view, then a few trips later, the other popped up, as if trying to catch the first. Time passed, the towers got completed, my sister graduated college and got married. My brothers and I left the nest to find our own way in this world...
Pops passed on in 1997. That awful September day came and went. I'm glad that he was spared the pain of seeing it happen.
Here we are. The steel just popped up above grade. This summer, I plan on flying up from Houston with my kids to visit the site. The circle will have been completed.

You're damn right I'm excited.
Steven

[antinimby]

^ Very heartwarming story. Welcome to the forum.

[brianac]

195Broadway, thank you for sharing your memories.

[BrooklynLove]

that was beautiful

[Alonzo-ny]

Theres nothing more I love to here than a story like that about the Trade Center.

[195Broadway]

Thank you all, for those kind words.
I hope you had great a weekend. Our family sure did.
Steve

[lluvny]

l was born in the 70s and as a New yorker the twins were a fixture in my life. l marvelled at them and i spent may days down there when l was younger with my friends. i cant recall the many times that i would sit on the chairs and stare straight up.l also hung out at the piers till all hours of the night with friends just hangin and partying down there with the skyline always a reminder of the sheer beauty and imposing presence that they always projected.Although nothing compares to the loss of life of that tragic day l miss those buildings and that era of my life that they represented. having said that im very excited that we will have a future skyline to fill that void that l see whenever i am down there.And l look forward to phtographing the towers rise like the twins that preceded them, something i could never do beacause i was 4 years old lol

[kz1000ps]

Very touching stories guys..

http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/1146/img8227un3.jpg

http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/5170/img8228ud3.jpg

Finally, this one is ready to go airborne

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/1083/img8225jo4.jpg