NEW YORK - The Freedom Tower is out. One World Trade Center is in. The agency that owns the site says that the signature 1,776-foot skyscraper replacing the towers destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, will be known as One World Trade Center. The building under construction at the site was named the Freedom Tower in the first master plan. Officials at the time said the tallest, most symbolic of five planned towers at the site would demonstrate the country's triumph over terrorism. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29913195/ It's a national embarrassment that there is nothing but a hole in the ground. Make it a park. Make it a memorial. Rebuild the Towers. Build the Freedom Tower. Just do something for God's sake! As a country, we have a reputation for being brash bordering on obnoxious. On the flip side of that, I think we have a reputation for doing things brashly as well. This whole episode is making us look wishy washy and weak. The best tribute to the people that died there would be a big FU to the people who knocked down the buildings by putting up a new building or buildings and getting on with things.
I'm looking out my window at the Burj Dubai which is the tallest man made structure on the planet and was conceived and designed at exactly the same time as the WTC tower. The Burj has capped off. The WTC has done diddly shit. It's one of the reasons why I am not in NYC right now. I needed to move to a place with the piss and vinegar ambition that New York has lost. I love my home town but I don't really recognize it as the same place that built the Empire State Building in a little over a year 70 years ago with an almost perfect safety record. Sack up, NY.
That is sick. Come on NY. I am not a fan of his buildings, but I almost wish they would have given Trump the keys to the project and just said, "Build it. Build it big. build it gawdy. Just build it."
This is one of the dumbest things I ever read. 40 story towers go up in 2 seconds all of the time. It's astounding how fast these things go up. NYC has got plenty of piss and vinegar ambition. The problem with this project is that a redevelopment authority was put in charge. NYC isn't even your hometown, right? You lived in JErsey before you left.
Screw Trump. The Burj is not only sick, it's sexy. Trump could never match it. Now the original Leibskund plan, that may not have been curvy and all but it was dynamic and it screamed a brass pair of balls for sure. But then design by committee comes into play and here we are. Where have you gone Robert Moses, a nation turns it's lonely eyes to you. woo woo woo.
What was the last truly iconic, game changing structure built in NY? NY puts up lots of nice glass boxes but no longer creates buildings that rattle the soul. For the free daycare. And I still lived closer to Manhattan than you.
I was at a meeting at 3 World Financial this AM and the foundation and initital structures are already rising about 50-75 feet above ground (I was on the overpass crossing over West street and looking up at the frame)
What this place needs is a glass box, not a soul rattling building. The problem with One World Trade Center is that it is a symbol, and no one can agree on symbols, so there is an infinite amount of arguing.
Boy I couldn't agree less. Nor could most of America, I bet. Then we need a little less democracy in the process. make that a lot less democracy. If Larry Silverstein wanted a giant dildo with 20 story balls it should have happened. It was his lease. One set of decision makers. One building. Done. Now I understand they are ********ing with the Calatrava designed train station down there. Doesn't anyone know anything involved with this project?
I hope you are talking about the first 6 stories because that shit that Norman Foster put on top of it is nonsense. You know what all of that external diagrid steel says to me? Fear. But it is LEED gold so it's got that going for it.
America would be better off if it were less sentimental. What New York needs is office space. So build some office space as cheaply as possible and get on with doing whatever it is they do in offices (I'm starting to forget already). Of course I agree with this. But everyone things they own the project. One of the first concepts for rebuilding the area by the owner was my very idea - a cluster of smaller office towers with no artistic statement.
Judging by the last Olympics, the commies have their shit together. Did you check out the bird's nest? Now that is some iconic crap right there. And what does NYC do? Replicates two antiquated stadia. Pathetic.
Chicagoans want NYC to finish the WTC replacement, just so we can take an elevator to the top, walk out onto the observation deck, and shit from great heights on Manhattan. This is how it's done, baby!
Whats the world coming to? Im standing up for Donald Trump. May as well go Brother Cavil right now. He nailed it on the site. Its tremendous from several directions.
Too true. The combination of great architecture, great food, and incredible cultural events has made us all insufferably arrogant pricks. We have only our sports teams to keep us humble.
1. You're changing the subject. You said NYC has lost its ambition. That's total nonsense. 2. As a non-new yorker, what you don't understand is that what New York needs is to be a livable place, not one with the biggest kick ass buildings. That's for the out of towners. And your reference to Robert Moses -- the man who chased the middle class out of the Bronx -- again, goes to show that livability in NYC is not of interest to you.
Third favorite place on Earth I like to go. The second is Hawaii. I don't think I need to tell you the first.