Title: Lower Manhattan 1969
Subtitle: August 12, 1969
Text: In 1969, as the North Tower of the World Trade Center was just beginning to assert its great scale, a construction boom on the East River was also taking shape. At South Ferry, the enormous 1 New York Plaza was complete, 2 New York Plaza was underway, and a cleared site was ready for the construction of 55 Water Street, which at 3.6 million square feet would become the world's largest privately developed office building.
This new range of giants along Water Street had floors as large or larger than the Trade Center, but rose only around fifty stories. The bulky proportions were profitable to their developers and also provided the type of modern back-office space required for the operations of the financial services industry. Erected on sites that the city had consolidated into superblocks under an urban renewal program, these jumbos obliterated the vestiges of the old waterfront of warehouses and low commercial structures.
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