To herald its website redesign, Time has a dazzling (and dizzying) photograph from the top of One World Trade Center, which is also the print edition's cover spread. Click the image below for a bigger version:
Time says it got exclusive access to the spire (its photo editor Jonathan Woods "is the only journalist to ascend to the top") to create the photograph and accompanying interactive graphic. According to a press release, the magazine worked with Gigapan "to build a rotating camera that could withstand the conditions atop the tower. An eight-month process of design and construction resulted in a 13- foot-long aluminum jib that would attach to the base of the spire, and serve as a rotating arm for the camera. Over five hours of shooting, the camera produced nearly 600 images that were then stitched together digitally into a single massive image of everything the eye can see in all directions. Users can zoom in and out of the panoramic photo to take in the entire city."
There's also a feature about the building of America's tallest skyscraper, with good details from the construction workers:
Skyscraper construction is part brute strength, part delicate dance. It starts with a raising gang, which lifts a piece of steel from street level using cranes weighing upwards of 250 tons each. Signalmen guide the pieces toward connectors, who bolt them together while balancing on nearby beams. Dangling in the breeze, the steel can wobble and shake as the crew guides it into position. The trickiest fits sometimes require workers to lie down on adjacent beams, balancing far above the street, often on a slab less than a foot wide.
“Everything we do, everything we deal with, is heavy,” says [ironworker Michael] O’Reilly. “The entire day is a struggle, and your body gets beat down. It’s like being in the NFL. Every muscle aches. When you get home, you’re shot.” It didn’t help that some ironworkers labored seven days a week, 10 hours a day, to maintain the pace of construction. Many worked 50 days straight.
The building is expected to open this year, possibly with haunting moans.
