Author: Not Me

Check this cool website: Earthcam.net. If you’ve ever wondered how the construction is progressing at the World Trade Center site and didn’t want to stand on Liberty and Church trying to ignore the souvenir vendors and tragedy tourists to get a glimpse of a few guys in hardhats, here is your chance (before Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh starts a campaign to shut the site down).

I don’t know who is financing this project, but every 15 minutes the camera takes a shot from the top of a high rise on Church Street directly across from the WTC. You can check out the archives going back to 2004 and play the images forward to see the progression.

A lot of the progress has happened in the last year.

Here is a brief summary/explanation of what you are looking at:

The structure running from left to right about two thirds down the screen is the NYCT subway 1 and 9 line.

Below that is the East *Bathtub and above the West Bathtub with the ramp down into the site.

To the right (North) is the Freedom Tower.

Just to the South (left) of the tower is a portion of the Calatravos Mezzanine arches (the white riblike structure with a concrete wall to it’s left).

The first Memorial structure steel is in the North East corner of the West Bathtub. The erection of the steel started just over a week ago, just in time for the seventh anniversary.

The PATH trains loop around the perimeter of the West Bathtub. I hear rumors that more steel erection will be starting this week over the PATH.

At the bottom of the screen is the East Bathtub where the site preparation is being done for Larry Silverstein.

Check out all the features. Zoom in, zoom out, track in all directions, the archive is amazing! Check out the weather on any day: rain, snow, foggy, sunny.

You even get periods when the camera was knocked over and you can see the roof of the building or the electricians tools while it is being fixed.

* Bathtub= The excavated area with walls that keeps water out rather than in so it is a reverse bath tub. The site did have two – East and West – but soon it will be one big tub.