13 Years Later

13 years ago today I was sitting in my school's auditorium attending only my second week of Junior High School. It was band class (cue the American Pie jokes) and the instructor was discussing music theory. All of a sudden my Latin teacher walks into the auditorium and nonchalantly announces that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers.


For the next 5 hours that was the only information we were given. Classes continued as they normally would have. We all just assumed that it had been a tragic accident. Our first clue came when we watched the mobilization of the NYPD precinct across the street from our school. What seemed like the entire precinct emptied out into their cars, and with their sirens wailing took off at breakneck speed towards Manhattan. The remaining officers stood outside the precinct like sentinels on edge and jumpy.

Next came the announcements. Student names were announced over the school intercom, those named were asked to report to the main office. Those who went didn't come back to class. Every 20 minutes a new crop of names were announced and each time the list grew longer. Rumors proliferated through the remaining students of what had happened and what was going on. One classmate proclaimed that there was a fire on the top of the World Trade Center. I asked him which tower, to which I received a shrug and no response.

It wasn't until just after 2pm that day, when the administrative staff ushered all the remaining students back into the auditorium, were we told that there had been a coordinated attack. The administrative officials announced that the subways were not running and the buses had limited service. They suggested that we walk home if we could.

As we were leaving the school parents, who had been waiting outside, rushed up to their children and rushed them away to the safety of their homes. My friend's mother spotted me in the crowd approached me and said "the World Trade Center is gone."

Years after the attacks took place, for many of us, our grief turned to resolve. We had invaded Afghanistan and Iraq on the pretense of retribution, and eroded a portion of our civil liberties in an attempt to ascertain a sense of safety. In New York, we resolved to rebuild. A design for the new World Trade Center had been chosen with the centerpiece of the project being a tower that would reach 1,776 feet in to the air, an homage to the year the Declaration of Independence was signed. The height of the tower was supposed to be a clear message that New York, and the United States, could not be defeated by mere acts of terrorism. We would rebuild, a better and taller skyscraper in the face of tragedy.

But the rebuilding stalled. Long after the funerals and memorial services were held a noticeable reminder of the events of 9/11 remained. The vacancy of the two large towers, once the tallest in the world, in the skyline of our city served as a dark immovable cloud. A design had been chosen, but bureaucratic red tape, concerns over the safety of the future buildings, and the reverence with which the site was viewed by the relatives of those who died that day, delayed the construction.

In the mean time the rest of the city stalled. Companies and organizations fled the city for the safety of the suburbs. Many questioned the logic in building another supertall structure, exposed and vulnerable to another aerial attack. Would tenants fill the higher floors in lieu of 9/11?

After the destruction of the Twin Towers, the Empire State Building regained its crown as the tallest building in the city. Together with the Chrysler Building, it would be one of only two buildings in the city that exceeded the symbolic height of 1,000 feet, the height needed to be classified a "supertall skyscraper." With the construction of the World Trade Center stalled, New York failed to build a single supertall skyscraper until 2007.

New Yorkers watched as cities to the east developed plans and began construction on supertall skyscrapers. By the middle part of the decade, cities like Dubai, Shanghai and Hong Kong looked poised to overtake New York as the skyscraper capital of the world.

Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.

Shanghai had already completed construction of one of three planned supertall skyscrapers in its Pudong district and was poised to complete the second. The third tower, the Shanghai Tower, was planned to stand at 2,073 feet, dwarfing the planned height of the proposed tower in New York.  2 International Finance Center (1,352 ft) was already completed in Hong Kong, with the International Commerce Centre (1,588 ft) planned for completion by 2010. In the Persian Gulf, the emirate of Dubai had just begun construction of what would be the world's tallest building in addition to the tallest man made structure ever built. Standing at a whopping 2,717 feet, the Burj Khalifa (as it is now called), would exceed the height of the proposed World Trade Center Tower in New York by almost one thousand feet.

To make matters worse Donald Trump, the king of New York City real estate and the ever enthusiastic New Yorker announced plans to build a new 1,389 foot tower in Chicago and not New York.

Skyscrapers will always be a part of New York City culture. From 1890 until the completion of the now Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) in 1973, New York City was home to the tallest buildings in the world. For almost a century, developers and realtors raced to the sky in an effort to outdo the last and claim the crown of world's tallest. Prior to the Willis Tower, ten of New York's buildings were crowned the world's tallest. The race to the top of Manhattan's sky in the 1920's and 1930's defined the city, its skyline and its people.

New York's deficit in constructing supertalls was a growing blotch on the psyche of the city, which prided itself in its skyscraper heritage. An article in the New York Times attempted to rationalize the construction deficit by pointing out that skyscrapers served as a symbol of economic and financial emergence onto the world scene. Whereas New York had long ago established itself as the center of global commerce and trade, cities in developing nations were looking to do the same. By building physical structures that towered over those in the United States and the rest of the developed world, they were making a statement of ascension that New York did not have to make.

The article did little to assuage New Yorkers.

The New York Times Building.

Everything changed in 2007. With the completion of the New York Times Building, New York City added its first supertall skyscraper since the completion of 2 World Trade Center in 1973. In addition, the New York Times Building was built to a height of 1,406 feet, equaling the same height as the local favorite Chrysler Building, making it tied for the second tallest building in the city.

Shortly after the New York Times Building, the Bank of America building was completed in 2009. At a height of 1,200 feet, the Bank of America building surpassed both the Chrysler and New York Times buildings, and claimed the title of the second tallest building in the city 50 feet short of the Empire State Building.

The construction of these two buildings completely altered the New York City Skyline. Not only were they the first buildings to be built over 1,000 feet in New York City since the Twin Towers of the former World Trade Center, but they were the first supertall skyscrapers to be constructed in Midtown Manhattan since the completion of the Empire State Building in 1931.

Soon after the construction of the New York Times and Bank of America Buildings, they were joined in the skyline by the new World Trade Center Tower, formally named Freedom Tower. In 2006 the major issues precluding the commencement of construction of the project were finally resolved. On May 10th, 2013 the final piece of the World Trade Center's spire was lifted into place giving the building an official height of 1,776 feet.

One World Trade Center (Freedom Tower)

Since 2007 four buildings in New York City have been built to a height exceeding 1,000 feet. Four more buildings are currently being constructed, with proposals for an additional 14 supertall skyscrapers.

New York City is currently undergoing an building boom akin to what the city saw during the 1920's. Unlike their parents who were searching for the American dream in the suburbs, the younger generation of professionals are looking to begin their careers in urban areas. Driven to attract these young professionals, large corporations are pivoting back towards urban areas specifically New York City. The movement of corporations back into the city has fueled the demand for commercial real estate, which has pushed developers to propose taller buildings to accommodate the demand with limited acreage.

But it's not only the commercial real estate market that is driving this building boom. The housing market in New York has been booming, driven not only by the domestic demand for housing in the urban areas, but by foreign investments. Over the last decade foreign barons and baronesses from developing states like China, Russia and Brazil, have been buying high scale penthouses and apartments in the city. Foreign demand has driven the development of supertall residential skyscrapers.

An artist's rendition of 225 West 57th Street upon completion.

Of particular note is the construction of 432 Park Avenue and 225 West 57th Street (both will be residential), which will reach 1,398 feet and 1,775 feet respectively. Both buildings are currently under construction and are part of the slew of supertall projects concentrated on or near 57th Street. But more importantly they will surpass the height of the Empire State Building. While both the original World Trade Center towers and the current towers have and will exceed the height of the Empire State Building it was once, and still is by some, considered sacrosanct to erect a structure taller than the Empire State building in Midtown Manhattan, as opposed to Downtown. Approving the construction of these buildings shows not only that the concerns regarding the safety and practicality of these structures have been mitigated but the taboos and fop-as which had previously served as obstacles to constructing supertall skyscrapers have been removed.

13 years ago two buildings were destroyed, thousands of lives lost, and the psyche of an 22 million person strong community shaken. A building, or a group of buildings rather, can't bring back those we lost. Buildings can't defeat terrorists. But a building can serve as a symbol, an icon to a city with a culture that revolves around the skyscraper. One building can show a city's resiliency, a score of buildings will show that city's prosperity.

13 years later we haven't forgotten, but New York City is back and better than ever.

Buildings proposed and under construction in New York City.