One World Trade Center: Antenna or Spire?

After a 1,700-mile voyage from Canada, half of the World Trade Center‘s antenna arrived in New York, and, Wednesday morning, workers lifted the first section of the 408-foot spire over 1,300 feet to the top of One World Trade Center—104-stories above the streets of Lower Manhattan—for installation. 

Like the scale of everything at the World Trade site, the structure is gigantic, higher than most skyscrapers in the rest of the country.

Once finished, the spire will bring One WTC to a staggering 1,776 feet tall, making it the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. Nevertheless, there remains contention on whether to describe the structure is an antenna, or a spire. The results could have tall repercussions.

The Port Authority opted to remove an architectural cladding around the antenna earlier this year, trimming millions from the building’s price tag.

However, without it, the Council on Tall Buildings - the Chicago-based organization charged with ranking building heights - could opt to exclude the antenna from the overall building height.

That would mean One World Trade wouldn’t clock in as the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere - or even the tallest in New York City.