Jan. 18, 1964 - Twin 1,350-foot towers, the world’s tallest buildings, will be erected to house the World Trade Center planned for downtown Manhattan. The towers and a cluster of 70-foot-high satellite buildings will form a ring around a five-acre plaza containing reflecting pools. Plans for the $350 million complex on the Lower West Side were disclosed today at a preview in the New York Hilton Hotel. The center will gather governmental and private activities in the export-import field now widely scattered in the metropolitan area. It will have exhibition halls, shops, restaurants, and a 250-room hotel for travelers whose business brings them to the center. Each of the center’s twin towers will be 100 feet taller than the Empire State Building. Without its 222-foot television antenna mast, the Empire State is 1,250 feet high.
The center is the latest of a number of self-contained “communities” in New York City. It follows the trend of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the projected Civic Center near City Hall, and the Brooklyn Bridge Southwest development almost directly across Manhattan. The center will occupy a 16-acre site bounded by Church, Vesey, Liberty, and West Streets. It will have 10 million square feet of rentable space, direct access to major mass transportation systems, and off-street parking for 1,600 vehicles. Construction is to begin early next year and will be completed in stages by 1970. The architects are Minoru Yamasaki (pictured with Governor Rockefeller) and Emery Roth & Sons.
