Sandwich shop opens at the tower rising at ground zero

The new World Trade Center got its first restaurant Wednesday — a sandwich shop at the top of the Freedom Tower under construction.

As the sun rose over the site of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack, a crane hoisted the Subway sandwich restaurant up the signature skyscraper that marks the rebirth of the trade center's 16 acres (6.5 hectares). The shipping containers-turned-eatery will open in January and keep moving up as the tower is built to 105 floors.

That was about the height of Windows on the World, a dining institution atop one of the original twin towers with a panoramic view of New York and its harbor.

The Freedom Tower, which has five floors so far, is scheduled to be finished by 2013.

Meals will be offered high in the sky for efficiency; to get food from street level, hundreds of ironworkers now use an elevator and must climb.

A full Subway menu will be served, including the trademark $5 foot-long hero.

Richard Schragger, who owns the Freedom Tower franchise, said he'll also offer extras no other Subway has: hot dogs, hamburgers and New York's famed pretzels.

On Wednesday, nine bright yellow containers, each bearing an American flag, were hoisted to the tower's fifth floor. There, they'll be stacked on a hydraulically powered platform near two cranes at the building's core. The resulting three-level structure will house a kitchen with refrigeration, an eating area and storage and trash, with a compost unit to recycle waste.

Like all franchises of the Connecticut-based company, this one will bake its own bread daily ─higher and higher above ground zero. As the tower grows, the cranes will jump to the next new floor along with the restaurant, at a rate of one story about every week or two, engineers estimate.

Joseph Allegretti, a Subway field manager, acknowledges this restaurant gives the company spectacular advertising.

The fast-food chain was subcontracted by DCM Erectors, which fabricates and installs all of the tower's structural steel. Among nine bidders, Subway was the only one that did not demand a guarantee of profit, said Bill Grutta, DCM's vice president of operations.

Subway is not quite Windows on the World. But workers will have a view that keeps improving when they sit to dine atop One World Trade Center, the tower's future address.

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