Ground Zero tower ready by 2013

US: The centrepiece tower in the vast reconstruction project at the World Trade Centre in New York will be completed in 2013, officials said Tuesday in an upbeat assessment of the site’s future.

Days ahead of the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers, city officials say that the Manhattan neighbourhood is finally being reborn.

“Tower One has now taken its place amid the New York skyline and the memorial pools and plaza are on schedule to be opened,” New York state Governor David Paterson told a press conference.

That principal tower in the complex, a 1,776-foot building at 1 World Trade Center, has now reached the 36th floor out of 106, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

Work is also progressing quickly on a memorial site featuring two waterfalls marking the fallen Twin Towers of the old World Trade Center and a park of 400 oak trees, 16 of which have been planted.

New York, Wednesday, AFP