As the nature of terrorism have changed to so-called ‘New Terrorism’ indiscriminately attacking soft targets and crowded public places, noticeably the risk of ‘Vehicular Terrorism’(Vehicle Ramming Attacks) using a car or truck as a relatively easy method of attack has also increased. Definitely, South Korea is no exception. To prevent this type of terrorism, there exist diverse domestic and western Anti-Terrorism Design (ATD) guidelines. Nonetheless, the literature review clearly shows that counter terrorism design-related research in Korea has focused on theoretical analysis only. To fill the research gap, the study attempts to address the research question, “How are those guidelines applied to the practical cases in the Korean context?” in an empirical fashion, particularly by taking advantage of qualitative field observation. To this end, the authors selected Seoul's Gwanghwamun Square and Downtown Manhattan as target areas for the purpose of comparative analysis, especially considering iconic symbol, terrorism threat level, floating population and crowd density and equivalent comparison. Furthermore, the research tries to compare and contrast the physical security design of the Gwanghwamun Square before and after reopening on August 6, 2022.