Photo © Iwan Baan
You glance toward Lower Manhattan and expect to see a single tower where two once stood. You delight in the spectacle of sunlight glinting off its slivered facade.
Suddenly, you realize, the new 1 World Trade Center — the Freedom Tower — has become familiar…
You can now buy snow globes with the tower. Or paperweights. Spoon rests. Key chains. Flasks. Compacts. Shot glasses…
“I’ve got this big smile on my face as you talk about souvenir shops,” said T.J. Gottesdiener, managing partner of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which designed 1 World Trade Center. (David M. Childs was the lead architect.) “Icon’ is the right word, but some of the reproductions are so grotesquely misproportioned that it’s very funny.”