Building new towers

last updated 8 January 2015

New York

Six competing plans for the World Trade Center site were unveiled this week. All include a memorial park. They also all replace the 11 million square feet of office space lost when the twin towers collapsed on Sept. 11, but not the towers themselves. Instead, the designers suggest filling the 16-acre pit at ground zero with two to six structures, ranging from 32 to 85 stories; some buildings feature soaring glass tops intended to conjure memories of the fallen skyscrapers. Thousands of people are expected to attend public hearings on the project, said Matthew Higgins, a spokesman for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. “This is the starting point for dialogue.”