Small changes to 1 WTC design add up

While the 1 World Trade Center tower will undoubtedly be considered a New York City landmark upon its completion in a year and a half, it will be a very different building than the one first unveiled by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey in 2006, the New York Times reported. The design of the tower has changed in many small ways, the Times noted, especially since the Durst Organization came on board as co-developer of the tower in 2010.

A planned cascade of steps slated to run from the tower’s western plaza to Vesey and West Streets is now to become a terrace and a skylight intended to bring daylight to the observation deck underground lobby has been scrapped. The base of the tower will also now be covered in 13-foot vertical glass fins as opposed to prismatic glass and the rooftop mast will now be exposed rather than sheathed by fiberglass panels.

Douglas Durst said the changes had not been made to save money.

“The changes were made in order to construct the building,” he said, noting that some of the original features of the design would have been nearly impossible to construct and maintain. [NYT]