New York City skyscraper will be tallest ever

NEW YORK — The signature skyscraper at the World Trade Center site will be a 1,776-foot glass tower that twists into the sky, topped by energy-generating windmills and a spire that evokes the Statue of Liberty, new plans revealed Friday.

Saying it will "dramatically reclaim" the Manhattan skyline on the plot where the twin towers once stood, Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined the architects and Gov. George Pataki in unveiling the plans for the Freedom Tower. Pataki said the building "will show the world that freedom will always triumph over terror."

The drawings and models show what is to be the world’s tallest skyscraper, supported by crisscrossing cables meant to resemble another nearby icon, the Brooklyn Bridge. The spire at the top suggests the torch-bearing arm of Lady Liberty lifted high in New York harbor.

The plan was produced after months of contentious negotiations between Daniel Libeskind, who designed the overall five-building site plan, and David Childs, the lead architect for the Freedom Tower.

In an interview, Libeskind held the new building plan at arm’s length.

"We have very different approaches and ideas," he said, calling the revised Freedom Tower "Mr. Childs’ building." Still, he said the two were able to compromise on important aspects such as the building’s height and the 276-foot spire at its peak.

"At the end, we both came up with something that is strong," he said.

The new design eliminates some of the angular shapes in Libeskind’s original drawings, replaces Libeskind’s visions of gardens atop the office space with windmills, and gives the building more of a twisting shape.

Childs said the tower is "iconic, simple and pure in its form, a memorable form that will reclaim the resilience and the spirit of our democracy."

The plan would create an open area above 70 floors of office space, with observation decks and a reprise of the Windows on the World restaurant that once occupied upper floors of the trade center’s 110-story north tower. The windmills would provide 20 percent to 40 percent of the building’s energy.

Larry Silverstein, the developer who holds the lease on the trade center property, said he was moved by the design. "It’s spectacular; it is also very practical," Silverstein said.

He has promised to build one new skyscraper at the site each year after the expected completion of the Freedom Tower in 2009, finishing the five-building complex in 2013.

Taiwan’s Taipei 101 tower, at 1,676 feet, recently supplanted Malaysia’s 1,483-foot Petronas Towers as the tallest building in the world. The 110-story World Trade Center towers were 1,350 feet tall.

The cost of the Freedom Tower’s construction is estimated at $1.5 billion, said Charles Gargano, vice chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the public agency that owns the site. Insurance on the twin towers is expected to pay much of the cost.