Extra, Extra

I was on that Open House Tour of 7WTC and I have to say I was very impressed. One of the architects from SOM took us around and he pointed out some extremely interesting things about the building. For example, the entire facade at the entrance has been blast tested and has several built-in redundancies. Even though they had to basically make a concrete bunker for the Con Ed substation, they still managed to make the first couple of floors of the exterior attractive. The metal skin is embedded with LEDs attached to sensors so when you walk past the building you will be shadowed by an 80' shaft of colored light. How cool is that?!?! Talk about an innovative way to liven up what could be a brutal facade. After seeing what they did, I think they should have let Larry Silverstein have his way with Ground Zero. He's certainly going above and beyond what he has to do investment-wise in the architecture with a building that is sensitive to the environment and the city landscape and he has the organizational skills to get it done in a timely manner (he was apparently on the phone with SOM only a few weeks after Sept 11th getting the ball rolling and 7WTC is due to open next month already). If more people saw what is happening at 7WTC maybe the families would stop their whining and the politicians would quit their petty bickering and be inspired to let this project go forward. Whew! I hope I didn't just blow out Gothamist's posting rules!