As bickering ends, building begins at twin towers site
NEW YORK – Gone were the angry words between politicians and developers, who spent months trading accusations of greed and stalling while ground zero waited for its rebirth.
Replacing them were smiles, applause and construction workers wearing hard hats emblazoned with the American flag, driving huge trucks down the World Trade Center site’s ramp to start work on the Freedom Tower.
New York and New Jersey’s governors, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and developer Larry Silverstein, embroiled for months in a bitter battle over control of buildings and money at the site, clapped and shook hands Thursday at a ceremonial start on the 1,776-foot skyscraper being built to replace the destroyed trade center.
Drivers with hard hats reading “Freedom Tower, World Trade Center” rolled out three construction trucks with equipment to build the skyscraper. Terrorists flew jetliners into the twin towers, destroying them and killing 2,749 people on Sept. 11, 2001.
“It is going to be a symbol of our freedom and independence,” Gov. George Pataki said. Responding to critics who say the building will be too tall and a possible terrorist target, he declared: “We are not going to just build low in the face of a war against terror.”
Like the World Trade Center, the tower will reach 1,362 feet. But an illuminated spire will stretch the building to the symbolic 1,776 feet envisioned in the original Freedom Tower design. That’s taller than any building in existence, although even taller skyscrapers are planned in Chicago and the United Arab Emirates.
Development has languished at the 16-acre site for more than four years, marked by bickering between city and state agencies and objections, mostly by relatives of Sept. 11 victims, to the design of the trade center memorial.
But officials Thursday called the beginning of work on the $2.1 billion Freedom Tower a turning point that will speed up the return of millions of square feet of office space, shops and people to financial district.
“This is an opportunity for us to show our determination, our resiliency, our resolve,” said Silverstein, who leased the twin towers weeks before Sept. 11.
Plans to build five office towers at ground zero, including the Freedom Tower, had stalled while the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the site’s owner, tried to renegotiate Silverstein’s 99-year lease. The agency and Silverstein agreed Wednesday to have the Port Authority lease out the Freedom Tower instead of Silverstein. The Port Authority will also build a second skyscraper, while Silverstein will build and lease three other office towers on the site.