One World Trade Center Tallest in Western Hemisphere

Construction workers cheered and whistled as they completed the spire on New York's One World Trade Center on Friday, raising the building to its full height of 1,776 feet and helping fill a void in the skyline left by the September 11, 2001 attacks. The spire makes the building the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, 47 feet taller than Chicago's Willis Tower, and the third tallest in the world. The skies were crystal clear, reminiscent of the weather on the day that hijacked airliners crashed into the former Twin Towers, in a coordinated attack on New York and Washington that killed about 3,000 people and left the United States on high alert for future incidents.

Loud applause and cries of joy erupted from construction workers assembled on a temporary work platform on the roof of the building as the huge, silver spire was gently lowered and secured into place.

The 408 foot spire weighs 758 tons and was installed over several months. It houses an antenna for a broadcast facility planned for the building.

"It's a pretty awesome feeling," Juan Estevez said from a temporary platform on the roof of the tower where he and other workers watched the milestone.

"It's a culmination of a tremendous amount of team work ... rebuilding the New York City skyline once again," said Estevez, a project manager for Tishman Construction. He said the workers around him were "utterly overjoyed."

Formerly called the Freedom Tower, One World Trade Center is one of four skyscrapers being built around the site of the fallen Twin Towers in a partnership between developer Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site. The new World Trade Center is set to open for business next year.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, said the LED-powered light would be activated in the next few months."It's going to have a light that you can see from tens of miles away," said Port Authority Vice Chairman Scott Rechler. "And that light will change colors and in the next few months we are going to be activating that light, and it will be a beacon of hope just like the Statue of Liberty."

Friday's final installation, raising the building's height to 1,776 feet, makes One World Trade Center the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere, 47 feet taller than Chicago's Willis Tower, and the third tallest in the world - shorter than two towers located in the Middle East and Asia.

Building experts dispute whether one considers the spire part of the building's architectural design and counted as part of its height, or whether the spire's primary purpose is to house the antenna – a crucial distinction in measuring the building's height.

If it didn't have the spire, One World Trade Center would be shorter than the Willis Tower in Chicago, which stands at 1,451 feet and currently has the title of tallest building in the U.S., not including its own antennas.

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a Chicago-based organization considered an authority on such records, says an antenna is something simply added to the top of a tower that can be removed. By contrast, a spire is something that is part of the building's architectural design.
 
The tower's height is a symbolic reference to the year 1776, which marked the beginning of the American Revolution against British rule and is considered the beginning of the United States of America.

One World Trade Center is slated to open for business in 2014.