The AIA Guide, describes Cesar Pelli's Wintergarden at the World Financial Center as "a welcome, sunny, barrel-vaulted, palm-filled interior public space measuring 130 x 230 feet, roughly the size of Grand Central's concourse." It has been the public gathering place in Lower Manhattan for concerts, squash tournaments, solar house mock-ups and the exhibitions documenting the rebuilding process for the adjacent World Trade Center site. The Wintergarden itself was severely damaged on 9/11/01 and was rebuilt quickly thereafter. Adjacent to this grand greenhouse are the commercial structures of the World Financial Center, a collaboration between Cesar Pelli and HLW architects; the tallest of these, 2 World Financial Center, the Merrill Lynch World Headquarters, is dome-topped and 51 stories tall. In total there are 8 million square feet of space. It is also the largest year-round free arts presenter in the East Coast.
