World Trade Center opens for business

The World Trade Center (WTC) in New York opened for business on Monday, over 13 years after the original towers were destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US city. Employees at publishing giant Conde Nast are starting to move into the 104-storey One World Trade Center. The $3.8 billion (£2.4b) skyscraper took 8 years to build and is now the tallest building in the US. It is 60 per cent leased and the government’s General Services Administration has signed up for 275,000 square feet. ‘The New York City skyline is whole again,’ Patrick Foye, executive director of the Port Authority, which owns the restored site, said in a statement on Monday. The 1,776 feet (541-metre) tall skyscraper is at the centre of the site, which includes a memorial in the footprints of the old towers and a museum, opened this year. An observation deck at the top of the building will eventually be open to the public. Foye added the building was ‘the most secure office building in America’. TJ Gottesdiener of the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill firm that produced the final design said the high-rise went beyond the city’s existing building code, and was built with steel-inforced concrete. Space also been leased to the advertising firm Kids Creative, the GSA, and 191,000 sq ft for the China Center, a trade and cultural space, according to a news agency.