225 Liberty Street

225 Liberty Street
General information
Location West Street between Liberty Street and Vesey Streets
New York, NY 10007, United States
Coordinates 40°42′45″N 74°00′55″W / 40.71250°N 74.01528°WCoordinates: 40°42′45″N 74°00′55″W / 40.71250°N 74.01528°W
Construction started 1984
Completed 1987
Cost $800 million (USD)
Owner Brookfield Office Properties
Height
Roof 645 ft (197 m)
Technical details
Floor count 44
Design and construction
Architect Haines Lundberg Waehler, Cesar Pelli & Associates
Structural engineer Thornton-Tomasetti Engineers

225 Liberty Street, formerly Two World Financial Center, is one of the largest skyscrapers in New York City, located at 225 Liberty Street in the Financial District of the New York City borough of Manhattan. Rising 645 feet (197 m), the building is the second tallest of the four buildings in the World Financial Center complex that stands in southwest Manhattan. It is similar in design to Three World Financial Center, except that its roof is dome-shaped rather than 3 WFC's solid pyramid design. It is notably similar in design to One Canada Square in London's Canary Wharf development. Canary Wharf was, like the World Financial Center, a project by Canadian developers Olympia and York, and One Canada Square was designed by the same architects.

The building is home to Commerzbank, Deloitte & Touche, Merrill Lynch, Nomura Group, OppenheimerFunds, State Street Corporation, Thacher Proffitt & Wood, LLP, and several divisions of France Telecom, among other companies. It is an example of postmodern architecture, as designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates, and contains over 2,491,000 square feet (231,400 m2) of rentable office area. It connects to the rest of the World Financial Center complex through a courtyard leading to the Winter Garden, a dramatic glass-and-steel public space with a 120-foot vaulted ceiling under which there is an assortment of trees and plants, including sixteen 12-meter palm trees from the Mojave Desert.[1]

Though the building has a nominal address on Liberty Street, its most prominent facade is on West Street between Liberty and Vesey Streets. The building, formerly the Two World Financial Center, was renamed when the rest of the complex was renamed Brookfield Place in 2014.[2]

225 Liberty Street had been severely damaged by the falling debris when the World Trade Center towers collapsed due to the September 11 attacks. The building had to be closed for repairs from September 11, 2001 until May 2002 as a result of damage sustained in the terrorist attacks.[3]

On April 12, 2012, a "suspicious package" was delivered to the 2 World Financial Center, prompting the evacuation of the building after the "potential, deadly threat". The New York City Police Department (NYPD)'s Emergency Services Unit was called in to investigate the package, which was spotted during a routine screening. The NYPD determined the packages to be harmless, and employees returned to work.[4]

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