HISTORY PANEL 26

Title: Lower Manhattan 1976

Subtitle: July 26, 1976

Text: An extraordinary physical transformation of Lower Manhattan took place in the 1960s and 1970s when an entirely new scale of construction overlaid the district. In addition to the Twin Towers, which were both the tallest and largest office buildings in the world, there was a second concentration of skyscraper giants at South Ferry. Others sprang up in the historic core.

The scale and volume of the new buildings was matched in boldness by the big blank slate of landfill in the Hudson River destined to become Battery Park City and the World Financial Center. The old finger piers were demolished, and the technology and identity of the turn-of-the-century port city was reinvented as a waterfront for residence, recreation, and commercial expansion. North of the Trade Center more than twenty blocks of old warehouses and lofts were razed for a massive urban renewal project.

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