One World Trade Center Set to Reach Pinnacle Today

The final piece of One World Trade Center’s antenna is being hoisted into place today, a major milestone in the tower’s construction. Including the antenna, One World Trade Center will rise a total of 1,787 feetthough whether the CTBUH counts the ‘mast’ towards the building’s official height remains to be seen.

The value-engineered ‘spire’ clearly resembles the antennae atop 4 Times Square and the Empire State Building, neither of which count towards either building’s ‘official’ height. Stripping the radome has left the building without a spire, and the antennaforeign to the tower’s intended designlooks raw, ungainly, and completely out-of-place, all in the name of reducing maintenance costs.

The last section is expected to ascend at noon, capping off seven years of construction—though interior work will continue through 2014. Neither Ground Zero’s hallowed status nor One World Trade’s international prominence could save the tower from value-engineering, which is perhaps the true lesson in the site’s re-construction; do not spend four billion dollars on a public-private boondoggle thateven after four billion dollarsgets cheapened into a structure vastly different than what was promised to New Yorkers.

Besides the antenna, there has been significant progress on the tower’s glass, which has reached the roof on the building’s south side. The facade should be wrapping up shortly as well, leaving the tower’s exterior complete by the summer.

UPDATE: Per Fox, topping-out has been postponed due to inclement weather.

Freedom Tower NYC
One World Trade Center

One World Trade Center NYC
One World Trade Center

One World Trade Center
One World Trade Center

One World Trade Center NYC
One World Trade Center Base Cladding

One World Trade Center
One World Trade Center Base Cladding

One World Trade Center
One World Trade Center

New World Trade Center NYC
One World Trade Center and 150 Greenwich Street

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