Originally known as the Freedom Tower, the building that now has the name and address of One World Trade Center is the highest skyscraper in North and South America and the fourth highest in the world, after the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the Shanghai Tower in Shanghai and the Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel in Mecca. It stands on the northwest corner of the new, 16-acre World Trade Center site and is the main building of the complex. It is a phoenix structure, built on the ashes of the old World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Construction began in April 2006 and the opening was on November 3, 2014. It was built on the site of the former Six World Trade Center skyscraper, which had perished in the attacks. The new skyscraper's approximate cost was $3.9 billion and the firm that developed the project was Skidmore, Owings and Merril, headed by architect David Childs. There are 104 floors from ground to roof and another five in the basement. The top floor rises 387 meters high and another 30 meters separate it from the roof. On the roof there is a spire, which soars yet another 124 meters, for a total of 541.3 meters, which in feet is 1,776. This is a very symbolic number because the year 1776 was the year in which the United States of America declared its independence from Britain.
The architects tried to create a very practical floor layout, one that would provide space not only for offices but also for visitors coming to enjoy the views of New York or commemorate the 9/11 incident. The windowless concrete base of the skyscraper, devised to protect it from car bombs and ground-level terrorist acts, takes up the first 19 floors and boasts a 20-meter high public lobby. The offices are placed between floors 20 and 63. On the 64th floor there is a sky lobby, then the offices continue between floors 65 and 90.
The building has very intricate, state-of-the-art sustainable architectural features. For example, most of the structure, about 80 percent - interior and exterior - is made from recycled materials such as gypsum boards and ceiling tiles. The skyscraper will also put into effect a rainwater collection system to use natural water for its air conditioning systems. Hydroelectric and wind power will also be used for the skyscraper's energy systems, and, like all the new towers in the World Trade Center, it will be heated by steam, thus reducing its oil and gas bills.
From the outside, if you are standing on the ground and are looking up trying to find the spire in the sky, the building will appear as a glass triangle placed on the concrete base. At night a bright beam of light is projected over the spire, rising another 300 meters into the air. The best point in the city to admire One World Trade Center is from the Nelson Rockefeller Park, located between West Street and the Hudson River, about 500 meters northwest from the skyscraper. There you can appreciate the cool and graceful might of the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. However, to see how the building interacts with its neighbors, during the day and during the night when the beam of light thrusts into the black sky, you need to be a couple kilometers away - in midtown Manhattan or in Jersey City, right on the other side of the Hudson River.