A few years ago, former Gov. George Pataki of New York declared that the tallest skyscraper planned for the World Trade Center site should be seen as “a freedom tower.” So Freedom Tower became the structure’s name — and also its burden. As David Dunlap notes in The Times, any prospective tenants worried about another terrorist attack “might balk at a name with such potent ideological symbolism.
Now, quietly and sensibly, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is promoting the place as One World Trade Center, its legal address, as it seeks to market leases in the building. Mr. Pataki, aware perhaps that some people would be reluctant to rent space in such a high-profile building, promised that state offices would move into the tower when it is finished in 2013. But the authority would do better to find more profitable commercial tenants, like the Chinese real estate company that agreed this week to lease six high floors for at least 20 years.
The tower is finally showing its first signs of life after an agonizingly slow start. Steel structures stretch above ground level at the old World Trade Center site, and cranes can be seen maneuvering the underpinnings of the skyscraper that will eventually rise to 102 stories.
An antenna — or, perhaps even better, an elegant sculpture at the top by architect David Childs — should bring the building to its full 1,776 feet. That is the height as originally conceived by Daniel Libeskind, the master planner of the entire ground zero site. The building would then be the tallest one in New York City.
Ultimately, people will call this building whatever they like. The Sears Tower is about to be renamed The Willis Tower after a British insurance company. Try that on a Chicago cabbie and see where you end up. And who doesn’t recognize the Pan Am Building in Manhattan, even though it is now the MetLife Building and hasn’t housed the defunct airline for decades?
Christopher Ward, the executive director of the authority, stated the obvious this week when he said, that people are free, if they wish, to call it the Freedom Tower. But as real estate, “legally it is 1 World Trade Center.
The tower is finally showing its first signs of life after an agonizingly slow start. Steel structures stretch above ground level at the old World Trade Center site, and cranes can be seen maneuvering the underpinnings of the skyscraper that will eventually rise to 102 stories.
An antenna — or, perhaps even better, an elegant sculpture at the top by architect David Childs — should bring the building to its full 1,776 feet. That is the height as originally conceived by Daniel Libeskind, the master planner of the entire ground zero site. The building would then be the tallest one in New York City.
Ultimately, people will call this building whatever they like. The Sears Tower is about to be renamed The Willis Tower after a British insurance company. Try that on a Chicago cabbie and see where you end up. And who doesn’t recognize the Pan Am Building in Manhattan, even though it is now the MetLife Building and hasn’t housed the defunct airline for decades?
Christopher Ward, the executive director of the authority, stated the obvious this week when he said, that people are free, if they wish, to call it the Freedom Tower. But as real estate, “legally it is 1 World Trade Center.
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