A skyscraping 2,000-foot-tall TV and radio transmission tower is being planned to replace the one lost in the World Trade Center attacks, The Post has learned.
Plans for a $200 million free-standing tower and a guy-wired “airship” design that would be about half as expensive, will both be unveiled at a convention of broadcasters this weekend in Las Vegas.
Metropolitan Television Alliance chairman William Baker says, in text prepared for delivery at the convention, that the new tower would be 250 feet taller than the one that stood atop the trade center’s north tower.
He goes on to mention several waterfront locations within 3.2 miles of the trade center site, including downtown Manhattan, Brooklyn, Jersey City and Governors Island.
Each site is at least six acres, the real-estate magazine Grid reports on its Web site.
The final design could include a skytop restaurant observation deck and retail stores. Grid goes on to report that the working title for the project is NYTTower/NYC 2012, and that it could boost the city’s bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics.
A task force of New York and New Jersey television and radio station owners says the towers are necessary because 20 percent of the area’s TV market doesn’t get cable.
Since the World Trade Center transmitters went off the air, some stations have been using a tower in Alpine, N.J.
But it’s a mere 400 feet tall and is less than 1,000 feet above sea level – 800 feet shorter than the old WTC antenna, and 300 feet shorter than the one atop the Empire State Building.
Baker, who is also chairman of WNET/Channel 13, says a new tower is necessary to restore the stations’ transmission capabilities.
“Our goal is to get back to full power as quickly as possible, to get back to the business of broadcasting in New York,” he says in his speech.
