Spire hoisted atop One World Trade Center

Construction crews at the World Trade Center hoisted a flag-bedecked spire to the top of the site's signature One World Trade Center building Thursday.

Workers raised the spire to a temporary work platform, where ironworkers can permanently attach it to the roof in coming weeks, said Steven Plate, head of construction at the site.

"It's a 22-ton structure that will house a state of the art lighting facility as well as a beacon that will be seen for miles around," Plate said. It will "give a tremendous indication to people around the entire region and the world that we are back and we are better than ever."

When the spire is fully installed, One World Trade Center will stand a symbolic 1,776 feet high, making it the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. The 408-foot spire will serve as a broadcast antenna.

The raising of the spire had been scheduled for Monday, but was postponed because of weather issues.

One World Trade Center is the primary building of the new complex at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It is being built at the northwest corner of the 16-acre World Trade Center site, which is deep into reconstruction with the 72-story Four World Trade Center and other buildings.

The 104-story One World Trade Center skyscraper replaces the eight-story Six World Trade Center, which was torn down for the construction.

The work comes just more than a week after a piece of landing gear believed to be from one of the planes destroyed in the 9/11 attacks was discovered wedged between a mosque site and another building. It was found by surveyors inspecting the Lower Manhattan site of a planned Islamic community center about three blocks from Ground Zero.

No human remains were found in a subsequent search of that area, the city medical examiner's office said.