The Freedom Tower

While there has been much ballyhooing over delays in the reconstruction of the World Trade Center, The Downtown Express says there has been progress.
“Far below street level, towering white arches form a tunnel that will one day shepherd commuters beneath the World Trade Center site,” the website says.

The arches mark a passage that will connect Santiago Calatrava’s W.T.C. PATH station to the World Financial Center. They are the first piece of his design to take shape inside the World Trade Center site, and they recall the white wings he designed to rise above the PATH station.

The steady progression of arches crossing the site from West St. toward Church St. is just one project of many on the 16-acres of construction. Nearly a month after the Port Authority announced that the new World Trade Center is millions over budget and years behind schedule, work pushes forward on many, but not all of the layered and interconnected projects that will eventually deliver five skyscrapers, a train station,a memorial, a museum and a performing arts center.

On Monday, the bathtub for Towers 3 and 4 was filled with Silverstein’s construction equipment, but while some work was going on at Tower 4, very little was happening at Tower 3. An official said he had seen almost no progress at Tower 3 over the past several months. Silverstein received a six-month extension on Tower 3 to redesign it for Merrill Lynch, but those talks reportedly fell through earlier this month. A Silverstein spokesperson declined to comment.

The biggest rush is in the northeast corner of the site, where Tower 2 will rise. The Port Authority is excavating that site and was supposed to turn it over to Silverstein Properties by July 1, but the Port missed the deadline. For 16 to 20 hours a day, giant jackhammers called “hoe rams” pound into the bedrock, breaking it into smaller chunks that bulldozers cart away, clearing space for the foundation of the tower.

The Port is paying Silverstein $300,000 for each day the site is late. By the end of July, the Port will owe Silverstein Properties $9.3 million. If the delay stretches to the end of August, that number will double to $18.6 million.”