America's Tallest Building Is ... in NYC

Breathe easy, New Yorkers: Your new World Trade Center was officially declared the tallest building in the US today, when the Height Committee of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat concluded that the 408-foot needle atop it counted as a spire rather than an antenna, and hence could be counted toward the building's height.

That brings the skyscraper's height up to its intended 1,776 feet, which is symbolically resonant as the year the US declared independence, and, more importantly, enough to supplant the artist formerly known as the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower) as America's tallest building. Without the spire, 1 World Trade Center would have been only 1,368 feet tall, well below Chicago's 1,451-foot skyscraper. The committee that made the ruling is, ironically, based in Chicago. (More One World Trade Center stories.)