The spire of the tower reaches a height of 1,776 feet (541 m), which is meant to represent the year 1776, when the United States Declaration of Independence was signed. The tallest statue in New York is located at Rockefeller Center: the statue called "Man Above Nature" stands 843 feet (262 m) high.
The building itself is slightly over twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty. It is believed that if it were able to walk around, it would be the largest human being on Earth.
Construction on World Trade Center began in 1973 and it was completed in 2002. The name "World Trade Center" means that it was intended to have two towers, but only one was built due to budget constraints. The other tower was planned to be 456 feet (137 m) high.
It is worth mentioning that the original idea for the monument was not related to science or technology. The creators just wanted to make something unique, interesting and memorable. They chose a number of elements from all over the world and put them together into one piece: bits of wood from every continent except Antarctica; pieces of glass; metal from several different countries. Even though it's a memorial to everyone who died in the attacks, it has become known as the "Tribute Building".
It's rather tall. The height of One World Trade Center is 1,776 feet, which is a direct allusion to the year the Declaration of Independence was signed. The original World Trade Center was also 1,776 feet high, but it was destroyed in 2001.
The 1,741-foot height to the top of Tower 1's antenna made it the highest in the world until its collapse on 9/11. The first World Trade Center twin towers were flat-topped and somewhat varied in height. They reached a maximum height of 1,362 feet before they were shortened by Congress in response to public outrage over the destruction of New York City's financial district. The original plan was to build 471-feet-tall Tower 2 as the replacement for the shorter Towers 1 and 2, but this proposal was also rejected by Congress.
On January 16, 2003, the United States Senate passed a resolution honoring the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on America that took place on September 11, 2001. One of the proposals put forward by the resolution was to change the name of the World Trade Center complex to the "National Monument at Ground Zero." The House of Representatives approved the resolution on March 8, 2003. On April 22, 2003, President George W. Bush signed the resolution into law, allowing for changes to be made to the site.
Tower 1's antenna was built using concrete tubes with aluminum fins standing for the letters "1" in WTC. The antenna was the largest single structure ever built with cross-sections of its tubes measuring one by one meter (3.28 feet by 3.54 feet). It was designed by Bertrand Goldberg and Michael Graves.
The Empire State Building, which dominates New York City's skyline, is yet another renowned monument. The skyscraper is 1,454 feet (443.2 meters) tall and has 102 storeys. It is located in Midtown Manhattan, and the best way to see it is from the open-air observatory on the 86th floor. Constructed of steel and glass, the Empire State Building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and completed in 1931. It was the world's tallest building for nearly 70 years until the Chrysler Building was completed in 1930.
In addition to being a major landmark, the Empire State Building is also important from a functional standpoint as it is one of only two buildings in America that are fully equipped with elevators for people with disabilities. These special elevators can take users to any floor of the building within minutes, allowing people with limited mobility to visit all those wonderful views.
It's been said that you can see from every corner of New York City from the top of the Empire State Building. And although some places are better to view from than others, there's no view that can't be improved by a cup of coffee.
Building height: 79 feet 10 inches from the foundation top; 99 feet above grade at the foot of the terrace walls. The total height, including the base, ranges from 169 to 192 feet, depending on the underlying surface. The building's entire breadth from north to south is 201 feet 10 inches at its widest point.
The engraver inadvertently carved the letter "E" instead of a "F," resulting in a monumental error on the Lincoln Memorial. It happened on the last line of the first paragraph, "WITH HIGH HOPE FOR THE FUTURE, NO PREDICTION IN REGARD TO IT IS VENTURED."
The Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas, at 1,149 feet, ranks high on the list of the world's highest skyscrapers. Only the World Trade Centers in New York (1,368 and 1,362 feet) and the Empire State Building (1,250 ft) are taller than the Stratosphere. The building's owner, Marnell Companies, announced in April 1998 that the tower would be renamed the Empire State Building after its recent $20 million renovation.
The current record holder for tallest free-standing structure is the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They are 2,349 feet tall, or as some put it, three times as tall as the Empire State Building. The second tallest free-standing structure is the Sears Tower in Chicago, which is 2,717 feet tall. The third tallest is the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet with a height of 2,762 feet.
The Empire State Building was originally known as the New York World's Fair 1939 Structure when it was built as a display piece for the World's Fair. It was later renamed after the state of New York purchased the building for $10.5 million in 1966. Today, it is owned by Marnell Companies and opened to the public in 1973. In 1999, it underwent another major redesign update with help from several famous architects including Louis Kahn, who designed an observation deck at his own expense.
On May 10, 2013, the last component of the skyscraper's spire was erected, bringing the building's overall height to 1,776 feet, including the spire (541 m)...
One World Trade Center | |
---|---|
Opened | November 3, 2014 May 29, 2015 (One World Observatory) |
Cost | US$3.9 billiona |
Height | |
Architectural | 1,776 ft (541.3 m) |
The columns at the base of the tower's foundation were around 35 feet (11 meters) long. The twenty-four perimeter columns of 1 WTC had all been completed by November 1, 2009, and work of the second story (the first floor above ground level) was virtually complete. The overall height of the building, including its roof, was 440 feet (137 m).
The exterior columns of 2 WTC were 42 feet (13 m) long, while the interior support columns were 30 feet (9 m) long. They were made of steel with a diameter of 6 inches (15 cm), but some of them were also filled with concrete.
The total weight of the outer walls and the floors above them was about 16,000 tons. This is about as much weight as can be supported by two stories of square pillars without using any kind of internal bracing or trusses.
It took more than 500 trucks to transport the rubble from the site after the towers were destroyed. In addition to the heavy equipment used for excavating sites, these trucks used up nearly 15 million pounds of fuel per year, enough to cover the distance between New York City and Dallas 10 times over.
The average depth of the holes drilled for the support columns was 20 feet (6 m), and sometimes they went down as far as 30 feet (9 m).