On 7 World Trade's Top Floor: Parties, Swimsuit Models, Vassar!

“Wow, look at the mist,” murmured Sarah Craig, a Vassar College freshman, as she and 60 other students walked onto the 52nd floor of Seven World Trade Center, developer Larry Silverstein’s glamorous office skyscraper that, this rainy afternoon, pierced the clouds.

Thanks to the top 10 floors still being up for lease, the penthouse hosts a lot of visitors — Mr. Silverstein’s publicist and his staff lead four to five tours a week — and lots of glamorous parties.

On Feb. 12, the starkly gorgeous concrete-and-glass space hosted babealicious swimsuit models celebrating the release of the 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue (the models traded their bikinis for cocktail dresses for a party that Silverstein Properties spokesman Dara McQuillan said was fabulous).

Of course, the Vassar students weren’t there to chat about star-studded fetes. The three classes — Intro to Urban Studies, Urban Geography and Architecture of the Modern World — had bussed in from Poughkeepsie and spent the day touring Chase Plaza and the perimeter of Ground Zero.

Now, in their Chuck Taylors, rain boots and stylishly large handbags, the students visited what one professor called “one of the best new buildings around.”

And, as Mr. McQuillan repeatedly pointed out, one of the safest.

Jeffrey Holmes, an architect who helped build the skyscraper, pointed out that the building has a concrete core, unlike the World Trade Center towers, whose weight was supported by the buildings’ perimeter. And the tower’s stairwell — as the students found out first-hand — has extra-wide steps. In case of an emergency, there’s room for employees to climb down while firefighters climb up.

Other high security features (aside from the klatch of conversationally-inclined cops standing outside):

• The broad security desk is backed by a wall designed to absorb the impact of an explosion.
• And, when an employee swipes her ID, a microchip embedded within tells the building’s super-computer her identity and summons an elevator to take her to the floor where she works.

Also, like the new New York Times building at 620 Eighth Avenue, the elevators are equipped with keypads outside of the actual elevator.

Oh, the elevators. They were a little nerve-racking.

“Did we push the right button?” asked one nervous professor.

They had.

“Oh, our ears are popping,” murmured another student.

As were their eyes, when Mr. McQuillan told them how much it cost to rent the top floor.

“It’s 40,000 square feet, so that’s $3.2 million a year,” he said. “It’s not much.”