World Trade Center becomes highest NY tower

US: New York's skyline got a new king Tuesday after the still unfinished World Trade Center tower, built to replace the destroyed Twin Towers, crept above the venerable Empire State Building.

Workers gently maneuvered a steel column into its base atop the skyscraper's skeletal current top, bringing the total height just beyond the 1,250 feet (381 meters) of the Empire State Building's observation deck.

Coming on the eve of the anniversary of the killing by US forces of Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the al-Qaeda attack that demolished the former World Trade Center, the moment was marked by a celebration of technical prowess and flag-waving patriotism.

Scott Rechler, vice chairman at the Port Authority, which owns the site, told a press conference that the “the most complex construction project in our history” had been “an act of passion and an act of patriotic duty.” One World Trade Center, already a gleaming, angular landmark on the city's skyline, will get still taller as construction winds up late next year, finally reaching 1,776 feet (541.3 meters) and 104 floors. Not only will that dwarf the 1930s masterpiece of the Empire State Building, but it will be higher than the old Twin Towers, which both collapsed during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, in which almost 3,000 people died.

Port Authority executive director Patrick Foye joked the building was so tall that “if you really crane your neck, you can see Alaska” and that, once completed, “Asia may come into view.” Although the mammoth construction work to resurrect the Ground Zero area is at last nearing fruition, the project has been plagued by billions of dollars in cost overruns, as well as delays, bickering over designs, and worries over whether the office space will be profitable.

AFP