Louis Nelson Goes ‘Beyond the View’ at the New One World Trade Center
He designed the Korean War Veterans Memorial Mural on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the restaurant at the Statue of Liberty, and, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its peacekeeping missions, the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal for the United Nations.
Now, that designer, Louis Nelson is part of another historic and emotion-stirring project: One World Trade Center, the new 1,776-foot tower that climbed to the clouds in lower Manhattan following the destruction of the Twin Towers.
When the world’s newest skyscraper — the tallest in the Western Hemisphere — opened its One World Observatory to the public on May 29, Mr. Nelson’s contribution will be in the form of a hand-held tablet called One World Explorer. Each is an iPad Air 2 encased in a trapezoid-shaped, polycarbonate case custom-designed by Mr. Nelson and his associates. The One World Explorer, weighing only 1.6 pounds, allows visitors to see on the screen in GPS synchronization the New York visable thru the Observatory windows, touch a fingertip to any of the more than 40 world-famous New York sites depicted on the tablets and be taken on a virtual helicopter ride for stunning close-up views and an audio narration. After touring one site, the visitor can “travel” to each of the others, from nearby Brooklyn Bridge to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and even to such destinations as the Apollo Theater in Harlem and Katz’s Delicatessen on the Lower East Side.
As visitors will discover when they reach the 102nd floor, where the One World Explorer experience awaits, they won’t simply be limited to the spectacular panoramic views through the observatory windows. They will find, to their immense delight, that Louis Nelson’s tablet will provide new perspectives, visions that go “beyond the view.”