Teen bypasses security to reach spire of 1 World Trade Center

16-year-old Justin Casquejo from Weehawken, New Jersey has a fascination with the 1 World Trade Center building. This interest is reflected on his Facebook page which features several photos of the thin-framed kid posing with the tallest building in the U.S. in the background.

Justin took this interest to unprecedented heights early Sunday morning as he navigated past security and construction workers to make it all the way to the buildings’ spire.

According to the New York Post, here is how Justin got to the top:

He snuck out of his home and made his way to the site of the building. When there, he crawled through a hole in a Ground Zero fence at around 4 am. He then caught a lift upwards from a union elevator operator even though he had no ID.

Casquejo was dropped off on the 88th floor where he then took the stairs up to the 104th floor. A guard on duty at the top was taking a nap while on the clock which allowed Justin to access the building’s spire, where he then spent two hours perched on top of the tower until a construction worker noticed him as he made his way back down.

When asked about his adventure he sounded like any teen would:

“Ha ha, oh yeah, that. Right. I would really love to talk to you guys because I have a lot that I want to say about it. I was told that I just can’t talk without permission.”

According to the report, the elevator operator was reassigned but the guard who was asleep lost his job.

The teen faces a charge of misdemeanor trespassing but his escapade highlights an embarrassingly brutal failure of security on the site. The NYP wrote, “The Port Authority Police Department, the NYPD and a private security company patrol the building perimeter. Another private company secures the interior. None of them would comment.”