Steve Cuozzo

Steve Cuozzo

Food & Drink

WTF 1 WTC! It’s $32 just to walk into your restaurant?

Some “Freedom Tower”!

Getting into the “fine dining restaurant” at the top of One World Trade Center will be anything but free — and we’re not talking about what you’ll pay for food or drinks.

Just to walk in the door will cost most visitors $32 a head — a fact buried in last week’s cheery announcement about the May 29 opening.

That’s the price of admission to One World Observatory, the three-level (floors 101 through 103) viewing complex that swallowed One, the inventively named fancy eatery, and two other “curated” (whatever that means) food venues on the 101st floor — a “Bar and Grill” and a grab-and-go-style “Marketplace.”

New Yorkers speak: Would you pay a $32 cover charge to eat in the restaurant at the top of 1 WTC?
“If you live here in New York, you know very well you don’t pay to get in a place and then to eat.” — Lauriel Smith, 32, beauty blogger, lower Manhattan
Stefano Giovannini
“The food will probably be mediocre at best, and it’s a tourist trap.” — Thomas Gaskin, 34, consultant, Financial DistrictStefano Giovannini
“That’s ridiculous. I would never do that. They’re taking advantage of you.” — Nick Ali, 59, FiDi deli managerStefano Giovannini

There’s no way to reach any of them without buying a $32 ticket to the observatory (seniors, $30; 6- to 12-year-olds, $26; under 5, free).

That’s a helluva way to win the hearts and minds of the city’s noshing classes.

As eater.com co-founder Lockhart Steele, who lives nearby, howls: “It’s crazy! As a downtown resident, we’ve had enough to deal with. I’m in favor of great new restaurants, but if you’re going to charge me $32 just to walk in the door, I’m not going to walk in that door.”

Ordinary New Yorkers whose tax dollars helped pay to rebuild the World Trade Center should scream bloody murder.

Astoria resident Ron Vega, 57, the 9/11 Memorial’s director of design and construction, fumes, “I don’t think it’s fair at all. I think it should be free, but nothing’s free at the Port Authority.” (Admission is free only to 9/11 family members and rescue and recovery workers.)

Vega adds, “I just love that people complain about the $24 entrance fee to the memorial museum, but no one’s complaining about the $32 fee to the observatory.”

Of course, they will, as word of the ripoff spreads. It might be even more expensive: The operators helpfully offer other options like a $54 “priority access and express admission,” which lets you jump the line.

We don’t know anything yet about menus or the chef. But most people won’t care. It might surprise Legends Hospitality, which controls the place, that some people will want to try the restaurants but not the observatory (which, unlike those at 30 Rock, the Empire State Building and the old World Trade Center, does not even have an open-air deck).

Maybe Legends never heard of Windows on the World, the beloved 240-seat celebration venue created by the great Joe Baum that reigned on the 107th floor of the old World Trade Center’s north tower from 1976 until 9/11.

What a pity.

Even though 1WTC’s new eateries are much smaller than Windows on the World and its satellite bars, New Yorkers yearn to reclaim the emotional kick of dining atop the World Trade Center, against the backdrop of heart-stopping west, north and northeast views. (The only way to recapture Windows’ grand scale is to get yourself invited to a bash in the 300-seat private dining room on the 102nd floor, set aside for hedge-funder-style blowouts.)

We’d rather skip observatory stunts such as “time-lapse shots with abstract textures and patterns to present the unique rhythm and pulse of New York City.” (Never mind the clunky diction — can’t we just look out the window?)

But the cover charge by any name means you can forget about casually popping in for a meal or a snack. Asked to comment on the price policy, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito tells us, “I hope they come to an agreement that makes it more affordable for families to experience.”

That “experience” will entail a $128 cover charge for a party of four.

Former Windows chef Michael Lomonaco, who today runs Porter House New York, notes, “At Windows, we ran several different restaurants. You could come up to the bar, have a soft drink and a burger, enjoy the views, and leave. There was never a cover charge.”

Lomonaco was too polite to mention that there’s no cover charge at either the reopened Rainbow Room or its SixtyFive bar. Nobody going to them has to pay the $30 general admission to 30 Rockefeller Plaza’s Top of the Rock observation deck.

One World Observatory’s restaurant ripoff is one of a kind.

Legends Hospitality blames its $875 million contract with its landlords, the Port Authority and the Durst Organization. It requires Legends to operate the top three floors “first and foremost as an observatory,” a source says — but the exact lease language is a secret.

So we’ll blame three poobahs quoted in the 2013 announcement of Legends’ contract: Legends CEO Dave Checketts, former PA chairman David Samson and Durst Organization president Jody Durst.

Gang greed: The $32 fee was part of a deal agreed to by the following players: Dave Checketts, Legends chairman and CEO; Jody Durst, Durst Organization president; and David Samson, former Port Authority chairman.Paul Martinka; PatrickMcMullan/PatrickMcMullan.com; Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Former PA executive director Chris Ward put the kibosh on a Windows on the World second coming back in 2011, when he told The Post, “These things are always money losers.”

One World Observatory’s eating venues will have fewer than 200 seats combined. They were designed to suck even more dough from observatory-goers, not to provide the spectacular venue that we deserve in order to celebrate the city’s triumph over terrorism.

If Legends says otherwise, it can prove its good faith by deducting $32 from every customer’s food bill.

New York City’s once-plentiful top-floor dining options have dwindled to just two. Long-gone Top of the Sixes, Top of the Park, Nirvana, 14 Wall Street and the Terrace weren’t about great food, but rather the singular pleasure of eating and drinking with the world’s most romantic skyline for a backdrop.

“I think it’s wrong — $32 plus what you eat? It’s expensive over here anyways, so for me, I wouldn’t eat there,” says David Franco, a 39-year-old construction worker in the FiDi.Stefano Giovannini

Today, the Rainbow Room — open to the public just one night a week and for Sunday brunch — and the Marriott Marquis’ tourist haven the View are our only full-service, sky-high restaurants.

Places in Time Warner Center and the Museum of Arts & Design afford nice Central Park views, but not breathtaking skyline vistas.

To those who miss the Windows magic, Legends has a simple message:

Eat your hearts out, suckers.