That looks massive. Awesome structure piece.Originally Posted by DMAG
Otie (O'Daniel here) already stated that nothing about the antenna has changed. It is the outer covering that has been removed.
Regardless, nice picture! Kudos to that guy. I still dislike reddit for some of their questionable forums, though. Maybe you can steer that guy to WNY?
Since they were officially opened in 1973, wouldn't that make the photo prior to that, then? Independence Plaza was completed in 1975 (AIA Guide to New York City).
Now that's a great shot!
Took the same shot yesterday SM
The most interesting architectural moment in BPC.
From 7th Avenue South:
http://instagr.am/p/Kf2b-BTXpx/
My World Trade Center 1 Photos from the past week...
From Manhattan...
Battery Park City - WTC 1 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr
Lower Manhattan - WTC 1 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr
Lower Manhattan - WTC 1&4 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr
From Jersey City
DSCN4511 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr
DSCN4514 by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr
World Trade Center from Jersey City by Nexis4Jersey09, on Flickr
From the SI ferry,
full update: http://newyorkyimby.blogspot.com/201...ing-lower.html
Love this picture, of the new "King of New York"
http://www.youtube.com/user/NYBOY75
Viewed from Barclay Center in Brooklyn
©tectonic
New steel went up today making 1 wtc 1,297 feet tall .
Battles at One World Trade
By ROBBIE WHELAN
Andrew Burton/Reuters One World Trade Center is seen from Battery Park.
After years of delays and fighting over the rebuilding of the World Trade Center, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the site is the battleground for yet another dispute, as the tallest structure on the site nears completion.
But the fight is stunning nonetheless, because of the participants involved and the serious concerns it's raising about the architectural integrity of one of the most important skyscrapers to rise on the New York skyline in a generation.
Here we have no one less than David Childs, the principal designer of One World Trade Center, publicly criticizing its developer for a last minute change to the building's top.
Associated Press A rendering of the proposed
design for the building by the Durst Organization.
To make repairs and maintenance feasible, developer Douglas Durst and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are scrapping the plan to crown the building with a 408-foot, narwhal's tooth-shaped sculptural spire, which was to be encased in a protective, fiberglass-like material known as radome. Instead, plans now call for the building to be topped by a needle-like mast hung with communications equipment, an emaciated, underfed version of the original design.
The public so far has focused on whether or not the antenna will count to the tower's height as the spire did. If it doesn't, One World Trade can't claim to be the tallest building in North America.
But this brouhaha misses the much more important—and long-lasting—aesthetic issues.
Tensions between architects and developers about design changes aren't unusual. But it's almost unheard of for fights to be played out in public at this late stage over projects that are freighted with so much political and symbolic weight. Imagine James Cameron publicly criticizing 20th Century Fox for rewriting the ending of "Avatar" two months before the production wrapped.
The upshot for the city's residents is that they will be getting an inferior, less coherent building, whose design has been hurt by a developer who has failed to recognize the importance of delivering on an architect's vision.
Associated Press A rendering of the proposed design
for One World Trade Center by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
Mr. Childs, perhaps best known in New York as the designer of Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, has been reluctant to go into much detail publicly with his outrage over the change, saying little more than that he was "disappointed."
But I interviewed him a few weeks before the dispute bubbled to the surface. He didn't voice his criticism about the change at the time, but from his description of the project, it's very clear why he's so unhappy about the major surgery that's being performed.
The spire is integral to the sculptural integrity of the building, which was designed, unlike many of the International-style office towers designed by Mr. Childs's firm, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, in its early days, as a single, shimmering object.
The firm took a chance on the new building by giving it a glass skin unbroken by exterior spandrels, the spaces that separate the top of one floor from the bottom of the next. Instead, the building is sheathed in an unbroken surface of custom-built glass panels, giving the building the sense of being one large object, rather than a collection of stacked floors.
"We wanted it to read as an iconic, single building, instead of a wedding cake," Mr. Childs said. He said he wanted to focus the discussion surrounding the whole World Trade Center site away from the petty architectural design debates that would threaten to overwhelm the project. The inspiration for the building's sloped-back edges comes from another familiar icon—the Washington Monument.
Mr. Childs says, the building's simpler design—which looks like Minoru Yamasaki's original Twin Towers designs in height and profile from some angles—reflects a "conviction of resilience" that fits in well with both the character of lower Manhattan and the needs of modern office space.
"It's tied to the past, but it's a modern interpretation," Mr. Childs said. "The idea is, we're going to heal this wound, then rebuild and provide the same amount of space that was lost to the people who died."
But for this uplifting vision of singularity to work, it has to be presented in its entirety and not altered at the very place that draws the gaze of uplifted eyes. The Washington Monument would look pretty bad with a squashed top.
Mr. Durst's camp has argued that repairing the radome spire if it got damaged would be incredibly expensive and risky. The no-frills antenna also is costing less.
But cost shouldn't be a big issue at this point, given how unlikely a profit is for the public agency. The Port Authority pegged the tower's value at $2 billion in 2010 when it sold a minority stake to Mr. Durst. It has cost more than $3.9 billion to build.
In the end, New York City will get a skyscraper making a statement, but not the strong, confident statement that the architect intended.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...NewsCollection
I don't care about the numbers, but I think that for those that do, the numbers are tied into the aesthetics - how one regards the building beyond its functionality.The public so far has focused on whether or not the antenna will count to the tower's height as the spire did. If it doesn't, One World Trade can't claim to be the tallest building in North America.
But this brouhaha misses the much more important—and long-lasting—aesthetic issues.
It appears that Durst has missed this public attitude, which makes it ironic that they are building a media-antenna.
So now it's if. Those of us that live near the building might argue that it's risky to put up another target. Life is full of risks.Mr. Durst's camp has argued that repairing the radome spire if it got damaged would be incredibly expensive and risky.
The bottom line here is $20 million.
As for the PA, another example of their becoming less transparent, thinking they could make a decision with a tenant and it wouldn't become a public issue. The same thing happened when they quietly decided to save some money by not using fireproof paint at sections of the Transit Hub. And when the issue became public, they denied that it was considered.
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