7 World Trade Center
also 250 Greenwich Street | Tribeca | built 2003
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1986
Drexel Burnham Lambert signs, then cancels, a $3 billion lease for the original tower
In June 1986, before the original 7 World Trade Center was finished, developer Larry Silverstein signed Drexel Burnham Lambert to lease the whole building for $3 billion over 30 years. Six months later, after the Boesky insider-trading scandal, Drexel canceled. Spicer & Oppenheim committed to 14 percent of the space, but with Black Monday and a weak Lower Manhattan market, Silverstein could not find tenants for the rest for more than a year and had cut rents and added concessions by April 1988.
“…signed Drexel Burnham Lambert as a tenant to lease the entire 7 World Trade Center building for $3 billion over a term of 30 years…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1987
An earlier 7 World Trade Center opens on this block as a 47-story red granite tower above a Con Edison substation
The first 7 World Trade Center opened in May 1987 as part of the original complex. Developer Larry Silverstein built the 47-story tower, designed by Emery Roth & Sons, over a Con Edison substation that had stood on the site since 1967. Because the substation's foundations were meant for a much smaller building, the structure included transfer trusses and girders between the fifth and seventh floors to carry its loads down to them.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1988
Salomon Brothers agrees to lease the top 19 floors of the earlier 7 World Trade Center
Drexel Burnham Lambert canceled its lease on the whole building in December 1986, and Silverstein struggled to fill the space for more than a year. In November 1988 Salomon Brothers dropped plans for a complex at Columbus Circle and committed to occupy the top 19 floors for 20 years. A 1989 renovation added three double-height trading floors, and the tower became known as the Salomon Brothers building.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1989
Salomon Brothers rebuilds part of the original tower from the inside with three double-height trading floors
To fit Salomon Brothers, the original 7 World Trade Center was extensively renovated in 1989 and came to be called the Salomon Brothers building. Most of three existing floors were taken out while other tenants stayed, and more than 350 tons of steel went in to build three double-height trading floors. Nine diesel generators on the fifth floor formed a backup power station. A Silverstein Properties district manager called the job constructing a building within an occupied building.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2001
The BBC reports the tower's collapse about 27 minutes before it happens
On September 11, 2001, BBC journalist Jane Standley announced on air that the original 7 World Trade Center had collapsed at 4:54 p.m., while the building was still standing; FEMA put its collapse at about 5:21 p.m. The BBC later explained that the tower was on fire and that it had misunderstood firefighters' warnings that a collapse was imminent. The mistaken report fed later conspiracy theories.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2001
Secret Service evidence and thousands of federal case files are lost with the tower
Federal investigators' records stored in the original 7 World Trade Center were destroyed with it on September 11, 2001. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission estimated that over 10,000 of its cases were affected, and the Secret Service lost investigative files in its largest field office; one agent said all the evidence stored there went down with the building. Copies of emails that the SEC later requested from Salomon Brothers in the WorldCom scandal were destroyed as well.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2001
The earlier 7 World Trade Center collapses at about 5:20 p.m. after fires burn for hours
When the North Tower fell on September 11, 2001, debris tore a gash in the south face of 7 World Trade Center and started fires on lower floors. The building's sprinklers lacked water pressure, and the fires burned through the afternoon. Just after 5:20 p.m., according to FEMA and NIST, a critical interior column buckled and the whole structure collapsed, making it the first known steel skyscraper to fall mainly from uncontrolled fire.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2002
Silverstein's insurer will not contest his $861 million claim as a fence goes up at the site
Workers began erecting a construction fence on the north side of Vesey Street on May 7, 2002, a step toward a new 7 World Trade Center. In recent days developer Larry Silverstein had learned that his insurer, Industrial Risk Insurers, would not contest his $861 million claim. The company had been probing whether a 6,000-gallon oil tank, put in during the late 1990s for the Giuliani administration's emergency crisis center, helped bring the old tower down. Silverstein expected excavation to begin within days and a groundbreaking ceremony in June.
Source: The New York Times
- 2004
Power flows through the new Con Edison substation for the first time since September 11
Early on Sunday, May 16, 2004, with no fanfare, electricity began flowing through the rebuilt Con Edison substation at the base of the new 7 World Trade Center, the first since 4:33 p.m. on September 11, 2001. Con Edison's chairman called it the hardest substation project of his 41 years with the company, and such a substation was expected to cost about $100 million. It has three 80-megawatt transformers, with room to add as many as seven more, below about 20 floors of steel already risen.
Source: The New York Times
- 2004
A construction worker dies falling down an elevator shaft at the tower under construction
A construction worker fell down an elevator shaft at the new 7 World Trade Center shortly before an emergency call at 11:45 a.m. on September 29, 2004, the first death reported since September 11, 2001 in the rebuilding of the trade center site. Port Authority officials said he fell from the 21st floor. He worked for a subcontractor, Prince Carpentry, on a job managed by Tishman Construction. The 52-story tower was then 60 percent complete, with the Con Edison substation in its first ten stories already operating.
Source: The New York Times
- 2005
American Express Financial Advisers is set to become the new tower's first real tenant
In July 2005 the New York Daily News reported that American Express Financial Advisers would take a 15-year lease on 20,000 square feet, half a floor, in the still-empty tower. Until then Silverstein Properties, on the 33rd floor, was the only confirmed tenant. Silverstein was asking $50 a square foot, far above other Lower Manhattan rents, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said tax breaks and rent subsidies were drawing interest from other firms.
Source: nydailynews.com
- 2006
The mostly empty new tower hosts a film shoot, fashion shows and galas to draw visitors
Before the new 7 World Trade Center opened, it served in March 2006 as a filming location for the movie Perfect Stranger. After the opening, with the building only about 10 percent leased by August 2006, Silverstein Properties let several vacant upper floors be used for charity lunches, fashion shows and black-tie galas, hoping events would bring people in to see the tower.
“Several of the unoccupied upper floors were used for events such as charity lunches, fashion shows, and black-tie galas.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2006
At its opening, less than a fifth of the new tower is rented
When the new 7 World Trade Center opened on May 23, 2006, CBS News reported that Larry Silverstein had leased less than a fifth of its 1.7 million square feet. His own development company moved in that week, and architects designing other towers planned for the site were to set up offices soon. Ameriprise Financial and the New York Academy of Sciences were to move in by fall, and a Chinese developer had tentatively agreed to take the top five floors.
Source: cbsnews.com
- 2006
A photo exhibit of 9/11 memorials opens on the tower's 45th floor
On September 8, 2006, the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation opened a show of 63 photographs by Jonathan Hyman on the 45th floor of the new 7 World Trade Center, across from the site. Titled 9/11 and the American Landscape, it shows personal tributes and memorials that Hyman photographed on trips across the country in 2002 and 2005. Some of the photographs were expected to join the planned memorial museum, and the show marked the fifth anniversary of the attacks.
Source: denverpost.com
- 2006
The new 7 World Trade Center officially opens with a free concert featuring Lou Reed
The 52-story replacement tower, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, officially opened on May 23, 2006. A free concert marked the day, with performers including Suzanne Vega, Citizen Cope, Ronan Tynan and special guest Lou Reed. The building was only 10 percent leased by August, so Silverstein Properties let charity lunches, fashion shows and galas use empty upper floors to draw visitors.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2006
Moody's signs a 20-year lease for 15 floors, and the tower fills over the next five years
Before Moody's lease in September 2006, only eight floors of the new building were occupied. Early tenants also included ABN AMRO, Ameriprise Financial and the New York Academy of Sciences. The tower became fully leased in September 2011, when MSCI agreed to take 125,000 square feet on the top floor.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2006
David Childs and James Carpenter wrap the tower in prismatic glass and reopen Greenwich Street
The new tower sits on a narrower footprint than its predecessor, which allowed Greenwich Street to be restored between TriBeCa and the Financial District. David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill worked with glass artist James Carpenter on an ultra-clear facade with 130,000 tilted stainless-steel prisms on the lower stories. A cable-net glass wall above the Greenwich Street entrance is lit at night by 220,000 LEDs.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2006
A triangular park with a Jeff Koons sculpture and a Jenny Holzer lobby wall come with the new building
A 15,000-square-foot triangular park across Greenwich Street, designed by David Childs with Ken Smith's landscape firm, has a fountain with groves of sweetgum trees. At the fountain's center stands Jeff Koons's 9-foot stainless steel sculpture Balloon Flower (Red). In the lobby, Jenny Holzer made a 65-foot wall of moving LED text, with poetry chosen alongside Klara Silverstein.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2008
NIST's final report blames uncontrolled fires and thermal expansion for the 2001 collapse
After an August 2008 draft and a public comment period, NIST issued its final report on the original 7 World Trade Center in November 2008. It found that office-content fires burned unchecked for about seven hours with no water for the sprinklers. Heated floor beams expanded and pushed a key girder off its seat near column 79, floors failed around it, the column buckled, and the failure spread across the core. NIST found no evidence of explosives and said buildings should be designed to survive fire without collapsing even when sprinklers cannot work.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2011
WilmerHale signs the city's first "green lease" for more than 200,000 square feet at the tower
On April 5, 2011, the law firm WilmerHale announced it would take more than 200,000 square feet in the tower under what was called the city's first green lease. At a press conference on the 48th floor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg explained that the firm would pay toward energy-saving costs every month like rent and keep the full savings once the investment was paid off. The city planned to put the same language in all its own new leases, and Silverstein said the building was 90 percent leased.
Source: dnainfo.com
- 2011
MSCI signs for the last 125,000 square feet and the tower is fully leased
On September 19, 2011, Silverstein Properties said 7 World Trade Center was fully leased after MSCI signed a 20-year lease for the last 125,000 square feet, on floors 47 through 49. MSCI, a provider of investment decision-support tools, planned to move its world headquarters from One Chase Plaza and consolidate its New York operations there by the middle of 2012. Larry Silverstein said the deal showed that first-class office buildings in New York always fill up.
Source: therealdeal.com
- 2019
Moët Hennessy takes 82,000 square feet for its U.S. headquarters
On July 2, 2019, Moët Hennessy signed a 15-year lease for the 35th and 36th floors of 7 World Trade Center, 82,000 square feet in all, and planned to leave its Chelsea offices at 85 Tenth Avenue in 2021. Silverstein was asking rents in the $80s per square foot. The tower's architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, had taken 80,000 square feet in the same building around the same time, Crain's New York Business reported.
Source: commercialobserver.com
- 2022
Silverstein refinances the tower with $457.5 million in green bonds
In April 2022 Silverstein Properties closed on a $457.5 million refinancing of 7 World Trade Center led by Goldman Sachs. Tax-exempt bonds made up $449 million, or 98 percent, of the loan, issued as green bonds. The tower's construction in the early 2000s had been financed with Liberty Bonds. The refinancing came with four new lease signings, including a 40,000-square-foot lease by Capstone, and the building was 97 percent leased.
Source: therealdeal.com
Further reading
- 7 World Trade CenterWikipedia
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