Freedom Tower Progress Taking Place
September 12, 2007 - Progress on the Freedom Tower and other new World Trade Center structures was, for a long time, virtually nonexistent; plans were introduced, modified, and scrapped at a surprising pace. But work towards an agreed-upon goal is now well under way.
To anyone who’s seen the area, the activity is readily apparent. “Whereas last year, when only a handful of workers were in the Ground Zero pit many days, 600 construction workers work there each day,” notes Allan Drury for The Journal News.
“The tourists who peer through holes in the green covering on the fence surrounding the site have to raise their voices to be heard above the cacophony of jackhammers and cranes at the 16-acre site,” he then continues.
Developers have maintained that the construction is on schedule, and this should result in a 2012 completion date for the Freedom Tower. Other parts of the complex could be done as soon as 2009.
Although some controversy remains over the overall design of the area, many onlookers are relieved to these structures finally coming into being.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:18 am
I was outside a few minutes before the whole thing started, directly in front of the world globe, now relocated at Battery Park. I was in the North Tower when Flight # 11 crashed into it. I went outside with the stampede of humanity to see it burning out of control. I quickly ran to my place of work, via Broadway and went up by elevator to call home to say I was okay. When the second place smashed into the South Tower, I was 44 stories up and our building shook from it. We here at work were ordered down the stairwells and as I got down to the lobby, we were ordered outside immediately. I saw the hellish sights and heard the horrible sounds, smelled the smoke and fire and saw human beings jumping out of the burning buildings with my own two eyes. As an unwitting eye-witness to the destruction and aftermath, one who works at One Liberty Plaza and was here when it transpired, I for one can hardly wait to see the finished new Freedom Tower, related skyscrapers and 9/11 Memorial. I have been here since 9/11 and have seen that horrible gaping hole reminder of just how horrible that day was and how very close I came to being one of the victims. When the South Tower fell, 640 windows were blown out of One Liberty upon impact. In fact, it was shut down for three months.
If I had not gone inside the North Tower, I would have been “cooked” by the scalding super-heated jet fuel which immediately splattered and showered down upon innocent, unsuspecting victims. This I found a year later.
Everyone has an opinion or a comment, something to say about 9/11 and Ground Zero, but few are qualified to state they were a part of it, as I can. The day when there is a new face to this old wound cannot come fast enough for me. Let there be life and light once again!!
J.M.McDonald
December 16th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Hello. I am from Brooklyn. I was studying the Freedom Tower
online which lead me to study towers that are ending up taller than it. It
truly upsets me as a New Yorker that New York, the city that had the
world’s tallest building for 65 years, the metropolis that has the finest
architecture around, is lagging in the skyscraper race. I understand
the importance of 1776 ft. and all, but why not make The Freedom Tower
taller. Maybe 2001 ft. without the antenna, for example, and WTC 2 can
be 1776 ft. tall without the antenna instead. The WTC site is one of the
few sites in The City that can have the tallest structure in New York,
so why not reach higher. Furthermore, the square footage is low in the
Freedom Tower, and I think making it higher would benefit the country
as a whole. Also, the fact that Burj Dubai in Dubai, UAEis going to be
taller than 2000 ft. is, to me, an insult.
There is a design for a truly amazing supertall skyscraper
called the “Ultima” Tower if you know who to consult about it:
http://www.tdrinc.com/ultima.html. I feel that building could be
constructed on the area of a few blocks of brownstones or as they suggest, in
the Hudson River. This tower would show how New York is and always
will be the most futuristic city around and never plans to surrender that
title.