Freedom Tower's 1st beams rise in NY

by edeepthroat | December 20, 2006 at 10:34 pm

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This is truly a great day for New York. The spirit of this city never dies and let this be a note to the world that our spirit won't be broken. Now, if the city can only get over it's political nightmare over the building of this tower...life can finally go on.

Two 25-ton steel columns one bearing the signatures of the American steelworkers who completed it rose at New York's ground zero on Tuesday, the first beams of the skyscraper that will replace the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

As construction workers, politicians and architects applauded, a massive crane lifted into place the first 31-foot-high column, which was painted with an American flag and the words "Freedom Tower."

A second column set a few feet away carried the signatures of steelworkers and politicians from Virginia, where it was worked on at a steel company before being shipped to New York.

A third column lay on its side, plastered with signatures of New Yorkers and September 11 victims' relatives as well as pictures of some firefighters killed in the 2001 attack. It will be installed in the next few days.

By next spring, 27 of the jumbo steel columns, which will one day anchor the skyscraper, are expected to rise to street level about 20 metres above the bottom of ground zero.