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New WTC Tower Plans Unveiled

After concerns were raised about security at the soaring skyscraper proposed as the centerpiece of the former World Trade Center site, architects went back to the drawing board.

On Wednesday, officials were to unveil a more bomb-resistant design for the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, which is to offer 2.6 million square feet of office space and is expected to become the world's tallest building.

In an effort to make it more resistant to truck bombs, the building has been moved farther from West Street, a major North-South highway along the West side of Manhattan. The distance from the street was increased from 25 to an average of 90 feet.

The updated plans also call for reinforcing the middle of the tower: Elevators, sprinkler systems and electrical conduits in the new structure will all be protected in a central core of concrete two feet thick. An extra stairway also will be provided for rescue workers to enter the building even while tenants are leaving.

Eight isosceles triangles rise out of a cubic base to a perfect octagon in the new reinforced middle of the tower, which supports a glass parapet. It will be capped with a mast incorporating an antenna, meant to suggest the torch of the Statue of Liberty.

The redesign is meant to signal a newly aggressive effort to rebuild the 16 acres devastated by the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.
"The redesign of the Freedom Tower shows how our city is able to respond to the opportunities and challenges of our time," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a statement.

It was also intended to preserve as much as possible of the foundation design that had already consumed months of work. This includes threading the tower's underground columns among the looping outbound tracks of the World Trade Center PATH train station.

Gov. George Pataki laid the tower's cornerstone on July 4, 2004, but the last year has seen more fighting than progress by the agencies and individuals responsible for rebuilding. The security concerns likely delayed the tower's original 2009 ribbon-cutting by at least a year.

Last month, Pataki appointed James Kallstrom, a former New York City FBI chief, to handle any security concerns in the design.

The New York Police Department insisted that the building be more resistant to attack, particularly from car and truck bombs.

The design changes were revealed in an unusual 4 a.m. EDT Internet release. Pataki and other officials are expected to discuss the alternations at a press conference later Wednesday morning.

"It is a rare moment when new is better," David M. Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the building's chief architect, told The New York Times. "I feel better about this than the original. The building is simpler, architecturally. It is unique, yet it subtly recalls, in the sky, the tragedy that has happened here."

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