NYC's new One World Trade Center dominates the skyline with its sleek exterior — but I took a tour of the inside and it didn't look like the bland, traditional office building I was expecting at all

Katie Warren/Business Insider

• New York City's new One World Trade Center cost $4 billion and took eight years to build. 
• I took a tour to see what the inside looks like four years after the first tenants moved in.
• In addition to 78 floors of office spaces with jaw-dropping views, the building has an employee amenities floor with a café, game room with video game consoles and shuffleboard and billiards tables.
• About 8,000 people work in the building, mainly for media and tech companies.

 

New York City's new One World Trade Center, nicknamed the "Freedom Tower," cost $4 billion and took eight years to build between the start of construction in 2006 and the first tenants moving in 2014.

Four years after opening its doors to the first tenants, about 8,000 people now work in the building for companies that include Condé Nast, streaming service DAZN, and workout app Aaptiv.

The building is 1,776 feet and 104 stories tall, with office space on floors 20 through 98. It includes 3 million square feet of rentable office space, according to the World Trade Center's official website.

I found the inside to be much more casual than I expected — and my tour guide, Jordan Barowitz, Vice President of Public Affairs for the Durst Organization, which oversees leasing in the building, backed up this observation.

He told me when they first started marketing the building's office spaces in 2010, they thought it would be a "formal office building" with lots of "guys in suits." Instead, they got mainly smaller companies in media, technology, and other creative industries. While I certainly noticed some guys in suits, the majority of employees I saw were dressed casually, many with beards and sneakers.

Here's what the inside of One World Trade Center looks like, four years after the first tenants moved in.

I arrived for my tour of One World Trade Center on a sunny but chilly morning toward the end of October, ready to meet Jordan Barowitz, Vice President of Public Affairs for the Durst Organization, which oversees leasing in the building.

Katie Warren/Business Insider

The building is only a few minutes from my office so I walked there, but One World Trade Center is connected underground to the Oculus, a shopping center and transport hub.

Katie Warren/Business Insider

Source: Business Insider

Through the Oculus, you can access 12 subway lines and get to Jersey City, New Jersey, on the PATH train in about 13 minutes.

Katie Warren/Business Insider

Source: Google Maps, WTC

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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SEE ALSO: NYC's new World Trade Center expected its offices to be full of 'guys in suits' — but I took a tour of the building and quickly saw that many of the actual tenants are very different

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