Succumbing to a run of bad press due to spectacular security breaches of the new 1 World Trade Center tower in Lower Manhattan, the complex's head of security, David Velazquez, has resigned.

Three daredevils who jumped from Lower Manhattan's Freedom Tower last September have finally released the footage from their death-defying jump, and it's simultaneously thrilling to watch and painful to endure.

Here's some mesmerizing and creepy time-lapse footage of the World Trade Center complex being rebuilt.

The last piece of the spire at One World Trade Center was hoisted into place over a temperate Manhattan today. The building now stands at a symbolic 1,776 feet—or does it?

Yesterday, with the raising of its mast, One World Trade Center—the "Freedom Tower"—symbolically kicked bin Laden's dead ass by reaching a soaring, magnificent 1,776 feet into the sky. Sort of. Probably.

It'll be another two years or so before the general public will be invited to gaze upon the unparalleled panoramas of New York City from the observation deck at One World Trade Center, but today, a lucky few got to be the first to visit the quarter-mile-high "room with a view" known as One World Observatory.

Though construction officially began in early 2006, it wasn't until a few years later that One World Trade Center — formerly the Freedom Tower — began to take its rightful place in New York City's iconic skyline.

EarthCam has been monitoring the construction of One World Trade Center (BKA the Freedom Tower) since day one: October 18th, 2004. (Technically, the cornerstone ceremony took place July 4, 2004, and construction didn't begin in earnest until 2006.)

The Freedom Tower at Ground Zero has been in the works for years and years now—and it still won't be finished until 2018—but just so it isn't delayed by any errant workers who might slip off for ten minutes to go fetch a sandwich, the geniuses at the Port Authority have decided to install a Subway on-site.

Please be advised that the Freedom Tower at Ground Zero should be referred to from now on as "One World Trade Center." On a related note, please remember there is never any good reason to use the term "Freedom Fries" in conversation. Thank you. [NYP]

After clashing with developer Larry Silverstein for control of the Freedom Tower and finally winning it in 2006, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has now decided it doesn't want the thing. Exasperated with the task of leasing space in the 1,368-foot skyscraper, the PA is looking to unload a full or partial stake in the building, the Post's Steve Cuozzo relays today. One potential buyer? Steve Ross's Related Companies. Sweet! Now Ross can install a 50,000 square foot Whole Foods and sprawling Equinox, and the whole complex will be patrolled by second-rate Port Authority police officers.

• Lehman Brothers is reportedly looking to raise capital (yet again) to shore up its balance sheet. The grim news sent the stock down 8% this morning, and likely ruined Dickie Fuld and Erin Callan's day. [WSJ, AP]

• God bless Jack Shafer, who writes what most journalists know but don't say: That readers are two-faced nincompoops. [Slate]
• BusinessWeek gets hammered by new circ rules; other pubs likely to follow. [NYP]
• Natalee Holloway's Aruba disappearance is, while bad for Natalee, very, very good for Greta Van Susteren. [AP]
• Explaining the baby-mag boom. [Mediaweek]
• Esquire announces five-year-plus series on building the Freedom Tower. [NYT]
• More proof of Simon Dumenco's very strange fantasy life: An imagined Thanksgiving at the Murdochs'. [Ad Age]
• Mediabistro's Elizabeth Spiers doesn't like women's magazines. Also, she is friends with people who are friends with Christopher Hitchens. [mb]
• On the recently wrapped MTV reality show Miss Seventeen, 17 girls compete to win an internship from Atoosa. [WWD, second item]