The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 74

As the 9/11 memorial and museum wont be open until 2011 at the earliest, the 9/11 Memorial Foundation has taken over the former World Trade Camera site on Vesey Street to operate a viewing area and where visitors can leave video messages.

It will be at least two years before the memorial to the 2001 terrorist attacks opens to the public. But in an old camera shop northeast of the World Trade Center site, visitors will be able to watch live video of the construction, record their 9/11 memories and even leave with a souvenir.

The foundation that will run the finished memorial and museum built the 9/11 Memorial Preview Site, hoping to attract the hundreds of thousands of tourists a year who come to ground zero looking for a 9/11 story and finding a giant construction site. The Tribute WTC Visitor Center, a small gallery on the south side of the site, charges $10 admission and says it brings in 300,000 tourists a year.

It won't cost anything to get into the preview site, although the foundation will sell memorabilia, including 9/11 memorial pins, books and DVDs, to raise money for the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum.

The foundation also wants to present an alternative to stories tourists hear on the street about the plans for the site, president Joseph Daniels said.

"Every single day, I'm walking by these guys who are selling the flip books to tourists," Daniels said. "These tourists are asking questions about what's getting built. ... We see a tremendous interest in what's happening here."

Meanwhile, a New Jersey firm is working on the details that will go into what is expected to be 4WTC. They're testing the materials that will go into the outer shell, including exposed steel beams that will be fashioned so they don't look like steel, and also how well they perform against bomb blasts. 4WTC (150 Greenwich) is expected to peek above ground level later this year, and is expected to be completed some time in 2011, when it will become home to the Port Authority.

1 WTC (the Freedom Tower) has had nearly 33,000 tons of concrete poured so far, and the outer steel beams are finally starting to be put into place.

The 2.6-million-square-feet, 102-story 1 World Trade Center complex is owned by The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Tishman Construction is managing construction and Collavino Construction Corp. is responsible for concrete and steel. iCrete-designed mixes are being used for the central tower at the site, as well as the safety core supporting the superstructure.

McGraw-Hill's New York Construction magazine reported last week: "The (construction) team is using 14,000-psi iCrete, a precisely blended mix of aggregates and cement, for the up-to 6-ft, 6-in thick core shear walls. Thirteen shear walls had been poured as of last month, with the psi reaching 17,000 psi on several occasions."

However, one of the key testing firms to guarantee the strength of concrete on construction sites around the city was indicted for fudging results.

UPDATE:
The Port Authority has announced that after incurring tens of millions of dollars ($300,000 per day) in delays, the Port Authority is finally handing over the site to Larry Silverstein so that he can construct 2WTC and 3WTC between Church and Greenwich Street.

Silverstein and the Port Authority are still fighting over financing for those buildings, which has become all the more difficult because the economic climate and credit markets have dried up. The delays have further hampered Silverstein's ability to obtain credit and tenants for those buildings.