Post date: May 10, 2013 4:54:3 PM
Workers complete the spire atop One World Trade Center bringing it to its full height of 1,776 feet (541 meters), making it the tallest building in the Western hemisphere.
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (MAY 10, 2013) (NBC) - 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 of 1,776 feet (541 meters) and helping fill a void in the skyline left by the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The completed spire makes the building the tallest 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.Early in the morning iron workers hoisted the final piece to attach it to the previously installed 16 sections of spire. They secured it with 60 bolts that they put in place at an altitude of 1,701 feet (518 meters).
The spire is topped with 288 50-watt LED lights that produce 288,000 lumens of light, visible up to 50 miles on a clear day.
Formerly called the Freedom Tower, One World Trade Center is one of four skyscrapers being built at the location 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.
Scott Rechler, Vice Chairman of Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said the completed tower will serve as a beacon of hope.
"On top of the spire is a beacon that will actually serve as a beacon that you can see for tens of miles away. Which I think will be a beacon of hope when people look at the New York skyline from what happened in the past," he said.
Workers who had helped build the tower watched the event with mixed emotions.
"Happy obviously that it's done, proud to be part of it, sad thinking about why we had to rebuild this. It's a lot of -- we worked very hard and long hours, seven days a week for years and years and years. No fatalities thank god, few injuries, nothing that major. We got lucky," said Philip English who has worked on the tower for the past six years.
Iron worker Tyler Brown said that he was proud to have worked on the tower as it is a legacy that he can show to his children.
"My kids are going to watch that when they are bigger and say 'my dad worked on that one when he was that age,'" he told Reuters.
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.
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.
While it has now reached its full height, its 104 floors will be only ready for occupancy in 2014.
The Port Authority said in a statement that the building is already more than 55% leased.
Among the future tenants are magazine publisher Condé Nast, which will lease nearly 1.2 million square feet (111,484 meters) to house its global headquarters.