USA TODAY International Edition
THE USA’S TALLEST
The ruling is in: New York City can now claim it has the tallest building in the nation, taking the top spot from Chicago’s Willis Tower, which held that title for 40 years.
It’s official: New York City’s One World Trade Center is the nation’s tallest building, wresting the title from Chicago’s Willis Tower, which claimed the top spot for 40 years.
It also leapfrogged the 1,667- foot Taipei 101 in Taiwan to become the third- largest building in the world.
Burj Khalifa, the 163- floor office, hotel and residential building in Dubai, continues to tower over all the rest in the world at 2,717 feet.
Willis Tower, formerly known as Sears Tower, had threatened to hold onto its top U. S. spot after a design change for the needle on top of the World Trade Center raised the question of whether it was part of the structure or an add- on, like an antenna or lightning rod.
The ruling Tuesday by the Height Committee of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, which is the final arbiter of global building heights, means the WTC building can claim its full 1,776- foot height.
The 1,776 figure is symbolically important for the tower that was built on one site of the 9/ 11 terror attacks.
The designers of the tower, set to open in January, had intended to enclose the needle’s communications gear in decorative cladding made of fiberglass and steel. But the developer removed that exterior shell from the design, saying it would be impossible to properly maintain or repair.
Without the needle’s extension, the building would have officially stood only 1,368 feet tall, well below the 1,450- foot Willis Tower.
The committee of industry experts, which met behind closed doors in Chicago last week, quickly put any concern to rest, saying that the structure atop the main building was deemed to be permanent.
“Even though the cladding was taken off the spire, you can still see that it is an architectural element,” said Antony Wood, executive director of the Chicago- based council. “We agreed.”
That’s not exactly how Chicago’s famously combative mayor, Rahm Emanuel, viewed it.
“I just saw the decision,” the mayor told reporters. “And I would just say to all the experts gathered in one room, if it looks like an antenna, acts like an antenna, then guess what? It is an antenna. That’s No. 1. No. 2: I think ( with) the Willis Tower you will have a view that’s unprecedented in its beauty, its landscape and its capacity to capture something. Something you can’t do from an antenna.”