The cranes have come down at One World Trade Center, and its 2014 opening day is drawing closer. Work on the antenna and communication rings is complete, while minor facade work remains; besides a stripe of missing windows where the exterior elevators are located, the cladding is now complete. There is a rogue off-colored window on the building’s western-facing facade that throws the entire side off-balance, but hopefully that will be addressed prior to the building’s official completion.
Beyond the upper floors, cladding has also wrapped around the tower’s base; while the moniker ‘Freedom Tower’ is officially dead, re-naming the building ‘Freedom Fortress’ is completely apt, given the excessive, expensive, and extraneous security precautions now in place. All told, Freedom Fortress has cost over $3 Billion to construct.
The seafoam-green ‘fins’ that cover the base are discordant with the glass of upper floors, not that anyone on the inside of the podium could tell, as the 187-by-187-foot base is completely devoid of any actual windows. In all fairness, this does make it the safest place in New York City – without the decorative fins, One World Trade Center would simply exist as an enormously vertical concrete bunker.
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