The WTC, Then and Now

The WTC, Then and Now
Formerly known as the Freedom Tower, this building will rise 104 floors (1,776 feet, including its antenna) to become the tallest in the United States.

The WTC, Then and Now
Plans call for a 1,000-seat hall for the Joyce Theater, but funding is still being secured.

The WTC, Then and Now
The underground structure for this office tower is under construction, but the rest will wait until demand revives.

The WTC, Then and Now
This complex will serve commuters traveling to New Jersey on PATH trains and connect to NYC subways. It will accommodate 250,000 pedestrians per day.

The WTC, Then and Now
Sn'hetta's entry pavilion will bring visitors down to the underground museum by Davis Brody Bond Aedas

The WTC, Then and Now
This competition-winning scheme features a street-level plaza embracing the empty footprints of the Twin Towers.

The WTC, Then and Now
Silverstein Properties, the developer, is currently building the first few floors to be used for retail. The rest of this 80-story office tower will wait until the market dictates.

The WTC, Then and Now
When done, this 72-story building will offer retail at its base and 2.3 million square feet of office space.

The WTC, Then and Now
Cross section through Memorial Fountain and Plaza East-west section showing below-grade levels of transportation infrastructure
Illustration © Michael Newhouse

Site Plan Illustration: Michael Newhouse

Click the image above to view components of the new World Trade center as well as a section drawing of the site.

To create the original World Trade Center, the Downtown Lower Manhattan Development Association and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey closed five streets and carved out a 16-acre superblock in the first half of the 1960s. The new WTC is reinserting some of those lost streets in an effort to better connect the complex with the rest of Lower Manhattan. While two towers are rising aboveground and the memorial is open, most of the work so far has been building underground infrastructure and transportation connections.

To make way for the World Trade Center, the public-private agencies developing the site razed 164 buildings from the area of electronics stores known as Radio Row.

The Twin Towers rose 1,368 and 1,362 feet and opened between 1970 and 1973. Contractors used the 1.2 million cubic feet of earth excavated for the complex to create 23.5 acres along the Hudson River that became Battery Park City.