Once More, With Feeling: Freedom Tower Unveiled!
It's maybe, possibly, potentially, finally settled. Pataki, Bloomberg, developer Larry Silverstein, Silverstein architect David Childs, and poor, sad, forsaken, erstwhile WTC master planner Daniel Libeskind will announce today a new design for Freedom Tower, the dramatic, off-center, 1,776-foot tall tower that was the centerpiece of Libeskind's rebuilding plan but is now neither dramatic, off-center, nor resembling Libeskind's design. But it gives Silverstein all the office space he wants — not that he's been able to rent anything in 7 WTC, next door — it makes the NYPD happy, and it looks an awful lot the buildings that fell four years ago.
And, if all goes as planned, it should be completed in 2010 — because, hey, if it were to take a full decade to rebuild, well, then that would be letting the terrorists win.
