The crowning spire of the World Trade Center'stallest building arrived in New York on Tuesday — in giant steel pieces on abarge that floated in past the Statue of Liberty.
"It signifies that we're back, we're better than ever,and it shows the resilience of not just New York, but also people ingeneral," said Steven Plate, the director of post 9/11 construction at thelower Manhattan trade center. "The spire is a candle on the cake."
He spoke aboard a boat that followed the barge tugged intoNew York Harbor from New Jersey's Port Newark.
For these nine parts of the spire too heavy to be driven in,Tuesday marked the end of a 1,500-nautical-mile (2,760-kilometer) journey thatstarted in Canada on Nov. 16.
A plant outside Montreal helped produce a total of 18 piecesto be erected atop One World Trade Center, rising into the Manhattan sky byspring to complete the 1,776-foot (541-meter) high-rise. The heaviest piece ofspire weighs nearly 70 tons.
Symbolizing America's freedom, it will be the tallestbuilding in the Western Hemisphere, Plate said.
"I feel very emotional about this, very proud," hesaid as he watched the barge move toward the gleaming skyscraper expected toopen in 2014. "When I look at this site, I see ordinary people doingextraordinary things."
The remaining nine pieces of the 408-foot (124-meter), $20million spire are being trucked in from Canada and South Plainfield, New Jersey,the location of another plant in the co-production.
The spire is a joint venture between the ADF Group Inc.engineering firm in Terrebonne, Quebec, and New York-based DCM Erectors Inc.,the prime steel contractor for the tower.
As the barge docked at a pier on the Hudson River, workerson the roof of the 104-story skyscraper were pouring the concrete base thatwill encircle the spire — to be erected in what is now an empty round socket.
With liquid concrete belching from tubes linked to powerfulstreet-level pumps, the roof — open to the sky — resembled the deck of a busy,mammoth schooner. Iron girders crisscrossed the air under three giant cranesrising like metal masts in the wind.
For now, the top of the building is reachable using noisyindustrial elevators, then climbing a series of narrow, vertical stairs.
Workers are shielded from the deadly sheer drop only by acocoon of netting that cloaks the peak.
From there, the 360-degree stratospheric view of the cityreaches deep into surrounding states and the ocean; some say you can seeEarth's curvature.
On Tuesday, as one section of concrete was smoothed out, acheer rose up among the men.
Suddenly, a commercial plane flew nearby, passing the tradecenter whose twin towers were decimated on Sept. 11, 2001, byterrorist-commandeered airliners.
With a beacon at its peak to ward off aircraft and LEDlights in various colors, the spire will provide public transmission servicesfor television and radio broadcast channels that were destroyed on 9/11 along withthe towers.
The 16-acre (6.4-hectare) site is well on its way toreconstruction, with the 72-story Four World Trade Center also going up withinsight of the highest building.
Tenants for One World Trade Center's 3 million square feet(280,000 square meters) of office space so far include magazine publisher CondeNast and the federal General Services Administration.
On Tuesday, a visitor noticed graffiti on a rooftop girder,scrawled by a worker in the building that replaces the fallen towers as the dominantemblem of the New York skyline.
The words read: "Change is from within."