Construction begins of NY’s Freedom Tower

NEW YORK Governor George Pataki declared the start of construction of the Freedom Tower on Thursday, even though work began weeks ago.

But the arrival yesterday of a small convoy of equipment from the foundation subcontractor proved to be reason enough for the developer Larry Silverstein and a bevy of US government officials to declare construction was truly under way, 21 months after the building’s cornerstone was laid.

“Hoy, vamos a construir la Torre de Libertad,” Mr Pataki declared, in response to a question from Roberto Lacayo of Univision 41 television (“Today, we are going to build the Freedom Tower”).

It was Mr Silverstein who revealed that the preparatory work of relocating utility lines serving the Port Authority Trans-Hudson terminal had been going on for several weeks, even as he was bargaining with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, state officials and City Hall over who would control what at ground zero.

Under a deal reached on Tuesday, Mr Silverstein will give up the $2 billion (€1.5 billion) Freedom Tower and another office tower site, but keep three buildings along Church Street. He will also develop the Freedom Tower for the Port Authority.

Though unchanged in overall form, the tower that emerges between now and 2011 may differ notably in two key respects from the models and renderings the public saw last summer, when the design was substantially revised to account for security concerns.

David M Childs of the architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill said that its 185 foot-high concrete base, which isolates the glass-skinned tower from the effects of a vehicle-borne bomb, may be clad in glass panels rather than metal ones.

While the panels would not be transparent, since there will be concrete behind them, they still might impart a shimmering quality to an almost windowless structure that will rise nearly 20 stories. Stone cladding is another possibility.

Mr Childs said the details of the mast at the top of the building, which will give it a height of 1,776 feet, may change. The architects are working on that with the sculptor Kenneth Snelson.