Center. The neighborhood we will explore is to the west of Broadway and includes a blend of modern skyscrapers and classical wonders. The September 11th attacks in 2001 had a profound and a direct effect on many, if not all, of the buildings we will be covering. As an employee of NY Mercantile Exchange (the last building on our walk), I can tell you that even though the damage done to our building was not structural it was definitely emotional. The reason being is that, on any given day the Twin Towers held meetings in its offices that were attended by employees of all the buildings in the neighborhood and beyond. Many good co-workers lost their lives in the attacks and their names are forever engrained in the lobby of our building.
We will take the “R” or “W” trains from Broadway and Waverly to the “Cortlandt St” stop. We will than meet outside of the “Brooks Brothers” store beneath 1 Liberty Plaza.
As we stand with our backs to what remains of the World Trade Center, we are facing 1 Liberty Plaza. This is a modern building, built in the International style and completed in 1972. It was built in place of the Singer Building, which was the tallest in its day in 1908 (compare to the Little Singer built by the same architect, Ernest Flagg, 4 years prior). The building was commissioned by the U.S. Steel Company. The architects were of the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The firm is internationally renowned with perhaps its greatest accomplishment being the world famous Sears Tower in Chicago.
One of the most remarkable things about this building (which took years of preparation) is that each of its 54 floors has about an acre of column-free, rentable space. After U.S. Steel relocated, the building was sold first to Merrill Lynch and than to Olympia & York Developers – two names that will come up again later in our walk. Current tenants of the building, owned by Brookfield Properties Corp. are: Brooks Brothers – occupying the floor level, Goldman Sachs, and the administrative offices of the NASDAQ Stock Market.
As far as the architecture is concerned, the building is just another steel and glass box. U.S. Steel, in an obvious effort to promote “steel”, used as much of it as possible. This resulted in 6 foot wide girders running the complete height of the façade. The entrance to the building is from a narrow, sunken arcade, defined by the supporting massive steel columns and the glass walls of the lobbies.
We will about-face from the U.S. Steel building and for a second look at the 4 large structures of the World Financial Center. From this distance we get a feel for the scope of the project and the similarities and differences between the towers.
Let us now move a few yards to the north and stop in front of the skinny, black, box of the Millenium Hilton Hotel. The building was constructed in 1992 after the first World Trade Center bombing. The architect, Eli Attia, was recently in the news arguing against Daniel Libeskind’s “Wedge of Light” theory. Attia simply stated the light will not shine on the new WTC at the specific times that Libeskind wanted because the Millenium Hilton will be blocking the sunlight.
Architecturally, the building is pretty high tech. The entire structure is made of reinforced concrete. The facade is tinted glass held by silicon adhesive and supported by invisible aluminum mullions.
Let’s now cross Church Street and look at the Federal Building (90 Church Street) as it undergoes a facelift. This 1935 high-rise was constructed in the Art-Deco style by two firms: Cross & Cross and the other one being Penninton, Lewis & Mills. The building received substantial, non-structural damage after the 9-11 attacks. Many of its windows were shattered and the limestone on the west facade (facing WTC) needed to be treated after it was damaged by the smoke and the debris. The building was built of limestone in a typical Federalist Style with a granite base and decorative, symbolic eagles above the top floor cornices. The winged top structure is reminiscent of City Hall and the Municipal Building and the wings are spread in the exact same direction.
The Federal Office Building was closed off to the public after the 9-11 attacks. The main tenant, U.S. Postal Service was relocated to another location. For a while a post office truck stood outside the previous entrance, selling stamps, money orders, and such but at this point no signs remain of the Post Office.
We will now take the narrow Vesey Street walkway, admire the gaping hole of the WTC, and use the newly constructed (Nov 2003) bridge to cross the West Side Highway. As we turn around we see the Barclay-Vesey Building named for its two intersecting streets below.
The building was built in 1923 by McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin (Bank of NY Building from our Wall Street walk) for the New York Telephone Company - later known as Verizon (the building is sometimes called the Verizon Building). Considered to be the first Art Deco Skyscraper, this building is very unusual. Taking up an entire city block in a district that does not have a conventional city grid, allowed this building to have a weird trapezoidal shape.
The brick-clad building has a steel frame and is topped with a short, sturdy tower, with vertical piers and battlements on top. Ornaments on the dramatic setbacks are marked by buttresses and sculptures.
The entrances are decorated with bronze engravings of many bells and the ceiling of the lobby has frescoes with the theme of the history of communication, all symbolizing a telephone company.
The building sustained heavy damage, internal and external, following September 11th attacks. The restorations are still going on and will cost in excess of $200 million. The restorations include the lobby frescoes, entrance bas-reliefs and more serious internal structures.
We will now take a few steps north along the West Side Hwy and begin our examination of the World Financial Center. The WFC complex consists of 4 main buildings, addressed 1 – 4 WFC. The complex is owned by Brookfield Properties, a huge publicly traded company with many holdings in the downtown area. Interestingly Brookfield bought a major stake in the complex in 1996 from the than bankrupt of firm of Olympia & York (owners of 1 Liberty Plaza), which owned 3 of the 4 towers. Today Brookfield owns the four towers and 1 Liberty Plaza.
The tower we see to our left is 3 World Financial Center home to the American Express Global Headquarters. With its 51 floors, this is the tallest of the four structures rising more than 700 feet into the air. It is also the funkiest of its 3 cousins because it is rotated on its base to compliment the Barclay-Vesey Building diagonally across the street. 3 WFC sustained the heaviest damage after the attacks and remained closed for a number of months afterward. The construction of this building was completed in 1986 and the architecture will be discussed later in a summary of the WFC since all 4 buildings are very similar.
We will now walk down further west on Vesey St. and stop next Chevy’s restaurant. By the way the WFC area sports a good array of restaurants and shops and a movie a theater, which unlike its Wall Street counterpart ensure that the neighborhood sees a lot of pedestrians well after the 5 o’clock rush out.
The building across from us is 4 WFC, home to Merrill Lynch. 4 was completed the same year as 3. Merrill relocated here from its previous home at 1 Liberty Plaza. I think the sole reason it did that was so its envelopes would include the words “World Financial Center” written for the address. 4 is the shortest of the group and since it is tucked away neatly behind 3 and 2 it barely received any damage from Sept. 11. Workers were allowed to return to the building in less than 2 months.
We now will walk to North End Ave, turn left and hold on to our feet. As we are walking between the 4 WFC on our left and the NY Merc Building on our right, the wind created by the tunnel effect of these two high rises can literally knock us over. A certain gloomy sense that we experienced on Pine Street also comes to mind. Anyway as we get to the beautifully decorated docks with its huge private boats we look to the left and marvel at 2 WFC and the gorgeous Winter Garden, which connects it to 3 WFC.
The Winter Garden is a marvelous glass-house like structure made to resemble a spaceship in my opinion (we can see another spaceship-like structure if we look across the river). The indoors are clad with marble and the two most interesting features are the 15 full grown palm trees which are apparently from the Mojave Dessert and the arcing marble staircase. The two floors of the Garden are adorned with stores, eateries, and boutiques.
2 WFC is a lot like 3 except it sports a huge, ugly, green smoke stack on its southern side. It is shorter than 3 rising only 44 stories and it is the home of the mega-rich Oppenheimer Funds. 2 was completed a year after 3 in 1987.
To the south of 2 we see the shaft of 1 WFC rising in the background. It is almost identical to 2 with its complimentary smoke stack but it is a little shorter. It was completed first out of them all in 1985 and is home to Dow Jones.
Battery Park City on which the WFC stands was reclaimed from the Hudson River with the dirt and rocks excavated from the World Trade Center construction
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