Mayor unveils first buildings of new World Trade Centre

The first germ of what will eventually grow in the wounded foot of Manhattan saw daylight yesterday as the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, and a city developer, Larry Silverstein, unveiled a model of a tower that will replace No. 7 World Trade Centre.

The ceremony was a symbolic moment for the city that is still recovering from the calamity of 11 September, when the destruction of the entire World Trade Centre site left about 3,000 people dead and carved a hole in the financial area of the city.

The mock-up showed a 52-storey steel and glass tower that will be sleeker and five floors taller than the building it replaces. That structure, known as No. 7 World Trade Centre, collapse in a cloud of rubble just hours after the better-known Twin Towers imploded from the impact of two airliners slamming into them.

Its unveiling represents the first substantive step being taken by the city to redevelop the ravaged neighbourhood. "The fact that this building is going up now and going up here, right on the site of the old No. 7, says that we will not be intimidated by the terrorists," Mayor Bloomberg said.

The new tower will be built by Mr Silverstein, who took over the lease of the entire World Trade Centre complex just weeks before the terrorists struck. He also hopes to oversee the building of whatever replaces the towers and the remainder of the complex, although he remains locked in a court battle with insurers over how much compensation he will receive.

Mr Silverstein stressed the new No. 7 will be much safer than its predecessor. It will have stairwells built wider than city codes require to ensure ease of evacuation and will have a higher grade of fireproofing. Also promised is a system of internal antennae for easier communication.

Problems experienced by firemen in talking to one another has been cited as a principle factor behind the problems in taking fleeing tenants out of the Twin Towers before they came down.

The old No 7 contained large volumes of stored fuel and burned for days after its collapse. It also housed a reinforced emergency response centre that had built for the city by the former mayor, Rudy Giuliani. Its lower floors contained a sub-station of a local power company, Con Edison, which will return as a tenant in the new building.