Lightning Renewal Of Dazzling Atrium Lifts Lagging Spirits
On a continuous adrenaline rush, a hyperdedicated team working in the wings of Ground Zero has been bounding toward a goal once considered unachievable-completion of the $50-million renewal of the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center by the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The effort to repolish the architectural gem of lower Manhattan, a cavernous steel-and-glass skylight smashed close to smithereens by the collapse of the 110-story One World Trade Center, owes it success in large part to a brilliantly conceived exterior hoist-and-trolley system. The contraption not only sped the roof steel rehabilitation, it compressed the reglazing of nearly 60,000 sq ft of glass from the two years the job originally took into just 4.5 months.
Over the year, the cacophony of reconstruction noise at the grand atrium building has served as a welcome counterpoint to the somber strains issuing from the 16-acre crater across the street". This project provided a certain optimism everybody was so hungry for," says Craig Copeland, an associate in the New York City office of the Winter Garden's original and current architect, Cesar Pelli & Associates. "It inspired everything," he adds.