Condé Nast Is Moving Way Downtown—To 1 World Trade Center

Photograph from the Port Authority

As rumored/speculated, the NY Times reports that Condé Nast signed a tentative deal to moves its magazines to ~~Freedom Tower~~ One World Trade Center: "The 1,776-foot-tall skyscraper will be the tallest building in New York when it is completed in 2013. If the deal goes through, employees of Condé Nast — publisher of Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Vogue and 15 other magazines — would move in 2014 from their current home in Times Square."

Currently, 1WTC is at 32 floors—there will be 69 floors of office space total—and it's just one piece of the massive development. Apparently Condé Nast told its employees in a memo that it was working on the deal "but a final decision was several months away." A few months ago, the Observer spoke to some insiders at Condé Nast magazines who were not excited about moving to Ground Zero: "The place is a cemetery. It's creepy," and "There's not one person from editors on down who wants to move down there. Even people who could walk there don't want to move there."

However, Carl Weisbrod, who was the founding president of the Alliance for Downtown New York and is currently the President of Trinity (Church) Real Estate, tells the Times, "It would provide sorely needed diversity to Lower Manhattan’s economy and would be the vanguard of a broader shift of creative companies from Midtown to the south." Hey, remember when Vanity Fair (a Condé Nast magazine) editor Graydon Carter declared that "Irony is dead" (video) after the September 11, 2001 attacks?

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By Jen Chung in News on August 3, 2010 1:17 PM

Comments [rss]

Eugene

the vanguard of a broader shift of creative companies from Midtown to the south

Kinda silly to classify companies that continuously pump out the same recycled crap as "creative," no?

cucarachita

Hey, 20 years ago when I first visited the WTC, I thought it was creepy and didn't want to go up in the tower. I turned around and walked back to the subway, visited the Empire State Building instead. And it's even creepier now. You won't catch me in any of those buildings. I think the place is cursed.

Potty Boy

Any bets on what WTC1's gonna be known as in the common vernacular?

FergsKU

BooHoo. What would they do if they had to move to Jersey City? Or worse Stamford? Babies.

RottenApple

Whiners indeed. I would choose WTC1 over the crush of a Times Sq location any day. Better views, less crowded, three proximal titty bars. Plus a brand spanking new mosque/falafel shack a block over.

Gotham Extremist

I would be scared as shit to come to work each morning, no work will get done as I will be scanning the sky all the time.

RottenApple

And where was the latest attempted terrorist attack?

Gotham Extremist

its the one they are planning right now in a remote paki cave that i am talking about.

beardofbees

There will be no magazine industry in 2014.

longacre

It will but in smaller form. This is a good way to get people to quit.

Stevennnn

Not many people who are in walking distance from the Port Authority Bus Terminal, Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station are probably not happy about this.

Kojak

Its just a 15 minute E Train ride away. They'll get over it. Better than walking through Times Square Hell.

jt10000

I used to work at 1WTC. The views were very good :-(

goyogago

I bet you that the people who pushed this decision (leaving the Times Square location, not necessarily moving to 1WTC) had offices on the east side of the building. They couldn't have been too happy when their great views were blocked by the BOA building.

JayNYC

""The place is a cemetery. It's creepy," and "There's not one person from editors on down who wants to move down there. Even people who could walk there don't want to move there.""

God, what a pack of whiners. If these people are indicative of most New Yorkers, than most New Yorks no longer have a backbone.