The silver spire topping One World Trade Center has been fully installed on the building’s roof, bringing the iconic structure to its full, symbolic height of 1,776 feet.
As the sun rises over New York City on Friday morning, residents will awake to a new skyline after the addition of the spire
The spire’s installation was completed Friday morning, after pieces of it had been transported to the roof of the building last week. Construction workers below applauded the milestone.
The building is rising at the northwest corner of the site where the twin towers were destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The area is well on its way to reconstruction with the 72-story Four World Trade Center and other buildings.
The 408-foot spire, weighing 758 tons, will serve as a world-class broadcast antenna. An LED-powered light emanating from it will be seen from miles away and a beacon will be at the top to ward off aircraft.
The addition of the spire, and its raising of the building’s height to 1,776 feet, would make One World Trade Center the tallest structure in the U.S. and third-tallest in the world, although building experts dispute whether the spire is actually an antenna – a crucial distinction in measuring the building’s height.
If it didn’t have the spire, One World Trade Center would actually be shorter than the Willis Tower in Chicago, which stands at 1,451 feet and currently has the title of tallest building in the U.S., not including its own antennas.
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a Chicago-based organization considered an authority on such records, says an antenna is something simply added to the top of a tower that can be removed. By contrast, a spire is something that is part of the building’s architectural design.
The tower is slated to open for business in 2014.
Installation of the 800-ton, 408-foot spire began in December, after 18 pieces were shipped from Canada and New Jersey.
With the beacon at its peak to ward off aircraft, the spire will provide public transmission services for television and radio broadcast channels that were destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, along with the trade center towers.
Overlooking the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the high-rise is scheduled to open for business in 2014.
The tower is at the northwest corner of the site, which is well on its way to reconstruction with the 72-story 4 World Trade Center and other buildings.
The celebration comes just a week after a grisly reminder of the terror attack that took nearly 3,000 lives: the discovery of a rusted piece of airplane landing gear wedged between a nearby mosque and an apartment building – believed to be from one of the hijacked planes that ravaged lower Manhattan.
As officials prepared to erect the spire, the office of the city’s chief medical examiner was working in the hidden alley where they feared debris could still contain human remains.
On Wednesday last week, medical examiners concluded their hunt while reporting having found no human remains.
The new tower’s crowning spire is a joint venture between the ADF Group Inc. engineering firm in Terrebonne, Quebec, and New York-based DCM Erectors Inc., a steel contractor.
The tallest building in the Western Hemisphere is the Willis Tower in Chicago. The world’s tallest building, topping 2,700 feet, is in Dubai.
