NEW YORK | 150 Greenwich St. | 977 FT / 297 M | 72 FLOORS

[Lecom]

Just cleaned this increasingly nasty conversation of a bunch of inflammatory posts coming from both sides. Enough insulting messages and name calling from both sides. The "blandness vs austerity" conversation was interesting until people forgot how to keep things civil. Maybe we will resurrect this discussion later when tempers cool down, but for now this conversation is over.

[NYguy]

^ Good.

Originally Posted by DZH22

From Wednesday 12/22

As we prepare for the new year, we prepare to watch this one fully take off as well. Doesn't seem that long ago that we were wondering if and when construction would begin on these towers, and now we're looking into the sky wondering how soon they'll be topped out and completed. Despite everything, a very good year, and things will only get better in the next...

[NYguy]

Benjamin Rosamond

[Obey]

The site looks beautiful with all the snow.

[STR]

It actually looks like the WTC is part of the city's normal fabric. Cortlandt looks like it keeps going almost to Greenwich, and that you could walk of Liberty, passed some random junk, and onto the memorial.

[Lecom]

Yep, the snow covers all the construction, making the site look more or less complete in some parts. I also love how close 4WTC, along with 1WTC, come to the existing built fabric. If youy look closely, 4WTC respects the streetwall even more so than One Liberty Plaza, which is slightly set back. The new WTC is truly integrated into the city, as opposed to the old site layout, and the new memorial plaza reads as an urban park as opposed to the old WTC plaza. To be fair, I loved the old layout as well, I've never seen an urban sight that could compare to the grandeur of standing in front of the Sphere and staring up at the monumental towers. However, this sort of a layout respects the existing city much more. We'll have to wait and see how it plays out once the whole thing is complete.

[STR]

^Didn't you work at SOM NY for a while? I knew Silverstein had hired Childs before 9/11 to plan a renovation of the street level, plaza and concourse. Ever see any plans of that? Supposedly connecting the WTC to the neighborhood and making better use of the plaza was the primary focus. There was going to be direct access to the concourse from the plaza, and the parking lot along Church street was to be turned into a park, stretching from 4 & 5 WTC all the way to the curb.

Allegedly this is one of the illustrations from that project...but you can't tell from that angle and I don't have anything bigger.


I know, kinda off topic, but I'm very interested in any plan that attempts to marry the connectedness of the new WTC with the monumentality of the original.

[CoolCzech]

Originally Posted by Lecom

To be fair, I loved the old layout as well, I've never seen an urban sight that could compare to the grandeur of standing in front of the Sphere and staring up at the monumental towers. However, this sort of a layout respects the existing city much more. We'll have to wait and see how it plays out once the whole thing is complete.

You're right about that, but - because it was in fact so separated from the urban fabric around it - it was usually a desolate place, save for the occasional concert or whatever. In that sense, it was not unlike the vast modernist plaza in front of Government Center in Boston, another grand urban wasteland. One senses the new park will never want for visitors, and not merely because people will continue to want to visit "Ground Zero." I wonder how much longer the term "Ground Zero" will continue in usage, anyway?

[sterlippo1]

Originally Posted by CoolCzech

You're right about that, but - because it was in fact so separated from the urban fabric around it - it was usually a desolate place, save for the occasional concert or whatever. In that sense, it was not unlike the vast modernist plaza in front of Government Center in Boston, another grand urban wasteland. One senses the new park will never want for visitors, and not merely because people will continue to want to visit "Ground Zero." I wonder how much longer the term "Ground Zero" will continue in usage, anyway?

hopefully not too much longer but sadly that term will take a long, long time to fade out of some people's minds if it ever happens at all. all we can do is not use it here and when it is used elsewhere in conversation try to tactfully tell people about what we all know about the new WTC and that it is far from that aged term

[caltrane74]

Wow that's alot of snow, maybe more than they have in Winnipeg, Calgary or Edmonton. And that's coming from a Canadian.

[Lecom]

Originally Posted by sterlippo1

hopefully not too much longer but sadly that term will take a long, long time to fade out of some people's minds if it ever happens at all. all we can do is not use it here and when it is used elsewhere in conversation try to tactfully tell people about what we all know about the new WTC and that it is far from that aged term

I think "Ground Zero" will stick as a colloquial name for the memorial park itself, while the "World Trade Center" will be more used to refer to the general area and the office component. Just a guess.

Originally Posted by CoolCzech

You're right about that, but - because it was in fact so separated from the urban fabric around it - it was usually a desolate place, save for the occasional concert or whatever. In that sense, it was not unlike the vast modernist plaza in front of Government Center in Boston, another grand urban wasteland. One senses the new park will never want for visitors, and not merely because people will continue to want to visit "Ground Zero." I wonder how much longer the term "Ground Zero" will continue in usage, anyway?

Despite its isolation, the old WTC plaza was usually quite a lively place. Sure, the anti-urban design deterred some visitors, yet as the complex accomodated 50,000 office workers alone on a daily basis (not counting the tourists, PATH users, mall visitors, etc), there was always life on that plaza. The worst thing about the old WTC layout is the edge conditions it created everywhere but on its east side. The south edge was a desolate parking lot, the west edge presented a formidable wall along a highway, and the north edge presented an even more formidable wall enclosed by the main WTC complex to the south and 7WTC's giant blank wall to the north. Coupled with the life-draining elevated plaza above, Vesey Street almost felt like a tunnel, with the only access to the elevated plaza being the Survivor's Staircase (I remember playing around on its escalator as a kid).

STR, that's the first time I'm hearing about that old WTC redevelopment plan. That's pretty cool.

[NYguy]

chipomatic




coolz0r

[spwelan]

• Video Link

[NYCLuver]

January 2nd, 2011

[photoLith]

Is it just me, or is this tower seeming like its taking absolutely forever to get going? I dont remember WTC 1 rising this slow, oh well, at least its going up though.

[patriotizzy]

Originally Posted by photolitherland

Is it just me, or is this tower seeming like its taking absolutely forever to get going? I dont remember WTC 1 rising this slow, oh well, at least its going up though.

It's not just you sadly...
I agree though, at least this one is rising

[Dac150]

It seems to be in alignment with the construction schedule, which I believe was posted on the previous page. 2013 is a little ways off, so don’t expect this one to sprout up a few floors over night.

[STR]

Originally Posted by photolitherland

Is it just me, or is this tower seeming like its taking absolutely forever to get going? I dont remember WTC 1 rising this slow, oh well, at least its going up though.

Apparently you forgot the months and months 1WTC was stuck at the 3rd floor while they were building around the PATH tracks.

[NYguy]

http://www.observer.com/2011/real-es...e-center-lobby

Getting Stoned at 150 Greenwich Street



By Matt Chaban
January 3, 2011

The folks at Silverstein Properties returned from a Roman holiday last month.

The trip was for business, though the builders and architects who traveled to Carrara, Italy, no doubt derived some pleasure from seeing the lobby of 4 World Trade Center taking shape before their eyes. At a huge stonecutting facility in this Mediterranean town famous for its marble, the Silverstein team inspected the stones that will someday line the lobby of the Fumihiko Maki-designed tower, the first of three Silverstein projects at the site to be completed, with an expected opening of 2013.

As progress at Ground Zero became a palpable reality last year, these exclusive pictures of the lobby's construction and the trip serve as yet another reminder that construction really can happen at the World Trade Center site.

Stone panels were set up in Carrara, Italy, where the pieces of the lobby will be cut and prepared. The lobby will consist of black Swedish granite, white thassos marble from Greece and Oiros stone for the floors, a composite of black, white and gray granites.




The design and construction team inspect different pieces of the black granite.




The stone panels are actually far thinner than they appear, only a few centimeters thick. Unlike the huge marble blocks of the past, which were self-supporting, these panels will be affixed to modern concrete walls and are purely aesthetic.




The team inspects different pieces of thassos marble to determine the preferred hue.




The marble and stone can be seen here in a rendering of the lobby's retail galleria.




The galleria under construction today. Notice the escalator structure and the cantilevered viewing platform.




A rendering of the tower, where the invitingly translucent glass of the base transitions to a more reflective tower, masking the workers inside while mirroring the sky.

[STR]

^That was conveniently timed given that I'm going to be working on that part of the building in the next few weeks.