Standing Tall

edited by Craig Kellogg -- Interior Design, 9/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Five years on, the World Trade Center site in New York is still mainly inhabited by ghosts. Among the few architectural survivors, Verizon's 32-story masonry skyscraper, next door to ground zero, somehow survived the fires that brought down neighboring structures. Now, the 1926 building is back—gloriously.

William F. Collins, AIA Architects began restoration immediately after the 2001 attack to preserve the switching equipment on the lower floors. Decorative bronze was recast, 475,000 of the facade's bricks were replaced, and every window is new.

Some 2,200 employees pass by the lobby's newly brightened murals, which show chapters in the history of communications. And with the sale of the company's Midtown headquarters, top management has been reinstalled on an upper floor, the original executive suite for the New York Telephone Company.