What's it like constructing One World Trade Center
from the ground up? Tom Llamas and producer Keith Feldman take a ride to the
84th floor to show us what its like for these iron workers 1,000 feet up.
In the skies over Lower Manhattan, a symphony of
steel plays five days a week, and what you hear when you reach the top of 1
World Trade Center is the sound of ambition.
The iron workers building America's tallest tower, 1
World Trade Center, are putting their fingerprints all over the skyline of
Manhattan.
Iron worker Thomas Hickey's father worked on the
original twin towers, and his grandfather helped build the Empire State
Building.
"This business is built on speed," says
Hickey. "Get it done, and get it done
fast and safe."
1 World Trade Center is going up at a rate of about
one floor a week. The project began in 2006 and is expected to be finished in
early 2014. It will stand 1,776 feet tall.
One of the youngest iron workers on the project is
24-year-old Kevin Sabbagh.
"Every day something hurts when you go home --
every day," says Sabbagh. "It's fun. My friends think I'm crazy and I
guess this proves them right."
To handle steel beams that weigh more than seven
tons, iron workers first have to pass tests, then apprenticeships.
"What we do is very competitive. The best of
the best are up here," says Mike O'Reilly, an iron worker just like his
father.
Putting together the puzzle pieces takes dexterity
balance and whole of lot of guts.
"It doesn't matter to me if I'm a foot off the
ground or 10,000 feet," says Peter, a member of the Mohawk nation, a
Native-American tribe with a history of top-notch work on high steel. He did
not want his last name used.
Peter, like all of the iron workers NBC New York
spoke to, says 1 World Trade Center is more than just another job. It's a
landmark and a tribute to the victims of 9/11.
"I look at it like we're building this for
them, not just the city and the United States, this is going to be something
for them for the people who lost their lives," says Peter.