The New World Trade Center...

...is finally starting to take some form in the way of buildings. They have been going up, probably, for less than a year now. I visit the area fairly often to eat and really do not remember when it went from a huge vacant lot (excavation / foundation pit) to the building actually going up.

I often eat, just across the street from the south side of the complex, at Ho Yips Chinese Restaurant. (I am not certain about the name but that is what we call anyhow, it is across from the far side of the pictured building). It is not the same as it was before 9/11 but the food is decent, they give you a lot and it is inexpensive. Not as good as the food in Chinatown but then Chinatown is not right across the street from the Trade Center.

I guess that when I am there, I sort of take the work going on for granted or at least am used to it by now. For several years though there was little going on, if anything, construction wise. I was not too happy that it was being held up as long as it was being delayed by one thing or another but lived with it like the rest of us. Now, I am happy to see it finally reaching for the sky as it should be doing.

There are two buildings currently going up that you can see from ground level over the fence around the construction site. One is pretty tall already, maybe 40 stories and is being built over the site of the old Custom House that was at 6WTC. I believe that will be the Freedom Tower or whatever they are now calling it to be politically correct. The other is immediately across the street from the Chinese restaurant I mentioned and even from the 2nd floor of the restaurant the view is now blocked by it. There used to be an excellent view into the foundation pit, now there is an excellent view of the side of the new building.

I figured that while some New Yorkers like me see it often, there are many of you across the nation who have no to little idea of the progress finally being made with the construction and who have not seen pics of it. With that in mind, I snapped 3 really fast pics of it while on lunch about 2 or 3 weeks ago. Forgot all about them til I downloaded other pics from my camera today. So if you are among my few loyal readers, you will get to see what it looked like a couple or so weeks ago. Feel free to pass the pics onto others or to copy them for use in blogs. The only conditions of use are that you please credit them to me and that you post a link, with the pics, back to this post.

All the best,

Glenn B