Post date: May 10, 2013 8:22:10 PM
Time-lapse video shows construction of One World Trade Center between 2004 and 2012. The final piece of the spire for the building was hoisted into place on May 10, 2013, raising the building to its full height of 1,776 feet (541 meters) and helping fill a void in the skyline left by the September 11, 2001 attacks.
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (EARTHCAM) - Workers cheered and whistled as they completed the spire on New York's One World Trade Center on Friday (May 10), raising the building to its full height.
The spire makes the building the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, 47 feet (14 meters) taller than Chicago's Willis Tower, though it is substantially shorter than towers in the Middle East and Asia.The skies were crystal clear, reminiscent of the weather on the day that hijacked airliners crashed into the former Twin Towers, in a coordinated attack on New Yorkand Washington that killed about 3,000 people and left the United States on high alert for future incidents.
Formerly called the Freedom Tower, One World Trade Center is one of four skyscrapers being built around the site of the fallen Twin Towers in a partnership between developer Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site.
The tower's height is a reference to the year 1776, which marked the beginning of the American revolution against British rule and is considered the start of what became the modern United States.