No "Freedom" At Ground Zero, Just 1 WTC

Earlier today, Port Authority chairman Anthony Coscia explained that the agency will be referring to the tallest building at Ground Zero not as Freedom Tower but as its legal address, 1 World Trade Center. The Daily News reports Coscia as saying, "As we market the building, we will insure that it is presented in the best possible way - and 1 World Trade Center is the address that we're using. It's the one that is easiest for people to identify with - and frankly, we've gotten a very interested and warm reception to it."

Is this the Port Authority's way of detaching itself from the protracted design process for the skyscraper and more than a little bit of jingoism? The tower's 1,776-foot (with antenna) design was revealed in 2003 and dubbed the Freedom Tower by Governor Pataki then also, only to be re-designed a few times and have its architects change. According to the Observer, "the name has never been popular with the Spitzer and Paterson administrations and it seems to have been slowly (or delicately) drifting off official references."

Coscia also said, "There are a lot of buildings that have popular names. If the Freedom Tower is the popular name as people think about this, that will be the choice of the people and how they think of downtown. On the other hand, this is a piece of real estate. It has an address. Legally, it is 1 World Trade Center." A tourist from North Carolina disagreed, telling the Daily News, "New Yorkers, you live here! This is part of your everyday lives. For us out-of-towners, it's not like that. Those buildings must be remembered differently. They need to stand out."

Should the skyscraper be known as 1 World Trade Center or Freedom Tower? ( polls)

Coscia also announced that Chinese firm Vantone will be leasing 190,000 square feet of 1 World Trade Center, the first non-government tenant in the building that is expected to be complete in 2013.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on March 26, 2009 6:36 PM

Comments [rss]

Potty Boy

"The Tower" still needs a "commonly known as" name, though. Simply saying "World Trade" can refer to the whole complex.

KING

1 wtc soundz too plan jane . they want something More. No one cried about the name World Trade Center HUH?

Build the shit already anyway.

ides_of_march

How about naming it the Socialist Tyranny Tower in honor of Obama?

mellow_fellow

I think the addresses 1 WTC and 2 WTC should be retired.

bxlex

I'm so tired of these tourists who expect NYC to be like Disney World and also claim the tragedy as if it happened in their back yard. These are the same people who, before 9/11, would say, "New Yorkers are so rude." "New York City is so dirty." "This never happens here, only in dangerous places like New York." Ponce off! It was WTC Tower 1 before and it will STAY that way. I can't tell you how sick I felt when I saw, just a few weeks after the disaster, a throng of tourists posing for pictures and smiling as the wreckage was the backdrop. So piss off Mr./Ms. North Carolina!

JMH

Put my vote down for "I don't care what they call it, just build the damn thing already".

JMH

Put my vote down for "I don't care what they call it, just build the damn thing already".

malebranche

rasputinsghost - "I like how people from all these far-flung states get to lay claim on a place that they're usually condemning for being a godless liberal Babylon but when some evil fucks fly a plane into its buildings it's flag-waving time."

Couldn't agree more.

Besides that our need to keep reassuring ourselves that we're so free is unsettling. I'm in Spain now and there's a lot more actual, usable freedom here. I'm free to have a joint in my pocket, to avail myself of a hooker. I'm free to drink wine in public. My female friends are free to sunbathe topless.

Thank god they've done away with that stupid, Bush-era moniker.

Da Native

where are you from fucking little clown. and what the fuck name do you have on this?? couldn't get a more retard name??

you little girls from Seattle make me laugh

mellow_fellow

Thanks to a judicial ruling some years ago, women in New York State are free to bare their breasts.

Alex

Operation Enduring Freedom - Freedom Tower - Patriot Act - Operation Iraqi Freedom

I can see why the Port Authority didn't want to be on that list.

valeriob

1 World Trade fine, just FRIGGIN FINISH IT by 2016!!!

ianmac47

Freedom Tower would be a misrepresentation. If there is one thing the Port Authority is against, its Freedom. The Port Authority routinely violates the basic rights set out in the constitution, including illegal searches for customers entering their PATH train and violating first amendment free speech rights with a vigorous ban on photography. What's worse, is the people making these decisions are not even elected officials. If anything, 1 World Trade Center should be referred to as No Rights Tower or Suspended Constitution Tower.

TK

Your Tax Dollars At Work Tower?

Felix Hoenikker

How about 'A.I.G. Tower'? You could save a few bucks and reuse the lettering they just removed.

Think2wice

Best line in the DN paper they cut out from the online version:

"It was initially derided by critics, who found it gimmicky and too self-consciously patriotic..."

Which is exactly what politicians, movie producers, and music execs do. They sell out words like "liberty", "freedom", and "independence" to get votes or ticket sales.

But this smart decision does not at all excuse the PA, the LMDC, the LMCCC, and all the other byzantine Lower-Manhattan agencies for being such lousy public-benefit corporations.

thefacts

Freedom Tower was a sop to that obnoxious "Victims' Families" lobby, few of whom live in NYC, fewer in Manhattan, instead mostly out-of-staters, not unlike tourists.

Their morbidity and obsession (not to mention greed at getting a nice fat settlement) caused the delays in constructing and this silly name for a tower.

Move on. It's been 8 years. Drop your morbid obsession.