Time offers 360-degree view from 1 World Trade Center

NEW YORK, March 6 (UPI) -- Google Street View isn't the only one that can offer awesome, zoomable and panoramic images of our urban surroundings.

Now, thanks to Time, online viewers can catch a glimpse of New York City from atop the tallest building in the Wester Hemisphere.

Photographers at Time magazine teamed up with engineers with Gigapan, a tech startup based in Portland, Ore., to attach a stabilized camera to the top of 1 World Trade Center -- the lofty memorial to the Twin Towers destroyed by the September 11th attacks.

The top of 1 World Trade Center regularly features high winds, and the building constantly sways and shakes, which makes securing a clear image incredibly difficult.

"It's not like we can just climb up there and go take a look at it and try something on. This was a one-and-done deal," Jonathan Woods, Time's senior photo and interactive editor, told NBC's TODAY. He called the feat "insanely difficult."

But Time's team of photographers managed a way to secure a camera to the tower's spire, and on Sept. 28, 2013, they snapped 567 pictures over the course of five hours. The team has since assembled the images into one giant shot -- a zoomable, panoramic view of the Big Apple -- and made it available to online viewers.

[Time] [NBC's TODAY]