A Look At World Trade Center Rebuilding

With much of the activity at Ground Zero below surface, it's only been in recent months that passers-by have seen buildings actually emerge from the World Trade Center site. On Tuesday, we went on a tour of the Port Authority's projects at the World Trade Center site, where about 1,400 constructions workers are on site daily and working on the array of projects.

Being on site, the scale of rebuilding is much bigger than one can imagine. The site is 16 acres and includes the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, skyscrapers, a transit hub for the PATH, the Vehicle Security Center, not to mention all of the projects' infrastructure, which occupy many floors underground. Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman said that all projects are on schedule—the 9/11 Memorial plaza will be open for September 11, 2011 (the Museum will be open by 2013), One World Trade Center will be open in 2013, and the Transit Hub will open in 2014. One WTC, which will ultimately have 105 floors, now stands at 240 feet at the 24th floor and will continue to add floors at the rate of one per week, weather permitting.

A few months ago, the Port Authority created a website, WTC Progress, to show how much has been rebuilt at Ground Zero, to battle perceptions that not much has happened since 2001.

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By Jen Chung in News on April 15, 2010 3:19 PM

Comments [rss]

fleshtone

This is great, thanks for the pics. I pass the site occasionally but can only see WTC1 creeping skyward. It's good to see the progress up close. It's going to mean a lot to have that space back.

Aveais Essex

Yeah!

Why didn't they erect two huge towers sooner, so they could enjoy 30% occupancy in the middle of a recession that much faster??? They totes should have built those fuckers 5 years ago...after all, it was certainly fashionable to hemorrhage money in the aughts...

longacre

The 10s are the new aughts.

I think they should have rebuilt the original towers, perhaps larger, and to modern safety standards. The towers themselves could be the memorial, saving a couple billion.

ElleCat

I think we should have rebuilt the towers exactly as they were, except updated and 1 floor taller. On the order of "Knock my shit down, I'll put it right back up bigger and better." Sounds a lot better than " Knock my shit down and I'll put something there eventually."

DanielJ

Great photos- so glad to see work coming along.

Question- are those memorial reflecting pools in the exact footprint of the towers?

Jen Chung

According to the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum "The Memorial will consist of two massive pools set within the footprints of the Twin Towers with the largest manmade waterfalls in the country cascading down their sides."

Homer2323

VERY complex.

1. PA obligated to make land buildable and then..

2. Silverstein builds

He built WTC 7 easily. Why? No Govt involvement bc its on the north side of Vesey St.

It is an absolute and total embarrassment. Pataki/Paterson/Corzine/Bloomberg/Port Authority/LMDC should be ashamed of themselves.

Jen Chung

You're forgetting Spitzer and McGreevey—good times!

JGNY

Very cool set. It's good they are letting the media in once in a while to document the progress. Yes, it's slow but it is massive and very complex.

whantmoore

They are doing a piss poor job from what I see not much progress has been made in 9 years

How Ya Doin

I suppose it's easy to stay on schedule when they constantly extended the schedule... Weren't there supposed to be several empty towers up by now?

demonyc

silverstein has made progress a bitch at every step. do you remember him having an architect create an alternate tower because he didn't like the winning one? and he tried to sue for double disaster insurance because two planes were involved rather than just one. and on and on. commenters below who blame government alone had better review their history.