Posted on 07/21/2002 3:41:51 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Officials charged with rebuilding Lower Manhattan in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center said yesterday that they would consider new options for the site, including scaling back the amount of commercial space and extending the timeline for completing a final plan.
About 5,000 people came to the
Javits Convention Center on Saturday
for a forum on rebuilding Lower Manhattan.
The changes, the officials said, were in response to a broad array of criticism of the six initial designs for rebuilding the trade center site, including unfavorable appraisals at a town hall meeting in Manhattan yesterday.
The president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Louis R. Tomson, said in an interview during the meeting at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center that the timeline to narrow the current six designs to three by the end of September would need to be extended by one to three months to allow officials to take into account the comments heard over the last week.
The executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Joseph J. Seymour, said that agency would re-examine its requirement that plans under development provide for the replacement of all the 11 million square feet of office space on the site before the attacks.
The comments by the two officials followed intense criticism of the six plans, which were released Tuesday, by architects, urban planners, politicians and, yesterday, a diverse group of citizens from the metropolitan region.
More than 4,000 people attended the "Listening to the City" town hall meeting, and their appraisals, combined with repeated vows by officials overseeing the rebuilding to take into account the views of the group, appeared to leave the people in charge of the effort with few options but to consider new alternatives.
For example, in each of the six site designs, the setting for a memorial to the attack victims was rated "poor" by a majority or a plurality of those who attended. The participants--who discussed the plans in groups of about 10 people and fed their comments to a central database, where they were compiled into overall themes--said they wanted bolder, more innovative designs and asked the planners to seek other ways to fulfill the lease requirements for commercial and retail space.
"I want to see something that doesn't fulfill the stereotypes of who the terrorists think we are and what they were destroying," said Diane Dolan-Soto, 37, a Brooklyn resident. Those stereotypes, she said, include the thought "that capitalism is the only thing that matters."
Not all the commentary was negative. The participants said that they appreciated the attempts by designers to provide for buildings with an interesting visual impact on the skyline, and that they thought at least a portion of West Street should be moved underground to reconnect neighborhoods and provide easier access to the waterfront, a feature included in several of the plans.
When the six designs were first shown to the public on Tuesday, the chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, John C. Whitehead, said the public could consider a seventh possibility, a new design without some of the requirements for office and retail space of the first six.
But participants at yesterday's meeting expressed some doubt that officials would take their desires into account. Asked how confident they were that their voices would be heard, only one-third said they were very confident or confident, with 45 percent saying they were somewhat confident and 22 percent saying they had little faith that would happen.
Moreover, those who registered their vote as "somewhat confident" made clear that doubt was a strong element of their response. When Robert D. Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association and an organizer of the event, tried to summarize the result as saying that more than 80 percent believed they would be listened to, he was shouted down.
"I think we got a resounding sense that the Port Authority program has to go," he said, referring to the agency's requirement that all of the site plans provide for 11 million square feet of office space, 600,000 feet of retail space and a 600,000-square-foot hotel. "I understand that they've got a lease, but we've got to work with them to renegotiate that lease."
Mr. Seymour, the Port Authority official, said the agency will re-examine its agreement with Larry A. Silverstein, the developer who holds the commercial lease to the trade center site.
"Larry Silverstein has a leasehold interest on the site that requires him to build what was there," Mr. Seymour said. "We all know that's impractical for many reasons. It means there has to be a negotiation, but now is not the time to do that."
That re-examination will take time, Mr. Tomson said. The six current plans were scheduled to be culled to three by the end of September, and to one by December.
"We have to see if that next phase of the timeline is realistic," Mr. Tomson said. "We have to make this work, and if it takes a month or two in a different direction, then it takes a month more, or two or three."
Asked which of the designs' features displeased them most, the participants said that the designs were not ambitious enough, that they should include more nonoffice uses and that the grouping of buildings on the site was too dense.
In voting on each design's setting for a memorial, the participants rated the Memorial Promenade most highly, with 41 percent calling it "excellent" or "good." The design features a grand promenade to Battery Park and representations of the twin towers' footprints slightly east of the actual sites.
Some responses were clearly contradictory. Participants asked planners to preserve the footprints of the towers as a symbol of the tragedy, but they gave negative reviews to the plans that preserved those spaces.
Other comments favored the larger scale of commercial development outlined in the plans, particularly for the impact it would have on the city's economy. "The commercial part of the rebuilding will create more job opportunities for the city," said Xinyu Li, 29, an Upper West Side resident and a software company executive who works in an office near the Javits Center.
The event, sponsored by the Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York, a coalition of community groups, had the curious feel of a meeting in a small town, but one held in a cavernous space on the western edge of Manhattan. Sitting in small groups, those attending appeared to relish the chance to talk with people whom they might rarely encounter in normal work and family life.
Most participants volunteered for the event, but many were recruited so that those in attendance would reflect the demographic and ethnic composition of the city and the region. About 46 percent of those attending were Manhattan residents and 32 percent lived in the city's four other boroughs.
Many also reported they were close to or directly affected by the events of Sept. 11. In surveys conducted on wireless electronic keypads, 41 percent said they now worked or had worked in Lower Manhattan, and a third said they were at or near ground zero on Sept. 11. One in five said they had lost their jobs or a significant source of income as a result of the attack.
And the effects of Sept. 11 clearly continue to resonate. During a video presentation on various memorials around the world, many participants wiped away tears.
The memorial was foremost in the minds of many. "Whatever they build is not a problem for me, as long as they leave space for a memorial," said Neta Smith, 60, a Brooklyn resident who was a maintenance worker at the trade center. She was on the 44th floor of the north tower when the first plane hit it.
Even those who were supposed to be impassive observers found themselves overcome at times. John Stansfield, 59, a resident of Southbury, Conn., volunteered to serve as one of the small-group leaders, sitting at a table and helping to guide the participants' discussion and summarize their thoughts.
"I'm supposed to be neutral and nonemotional," said Mr. Stansfield, who lost a friend when the twin towers collapsed. As tears welled in his eyes, he said, "I'm not off to a good start."
ELS and I were there, and were pleasantly surprised at the limited leftist viewpoints and feelgood nonsense that presented itself.
Of couse, they couldn't help themselves by putting in codewords such as "affordable housing" and "homelessness" when issues to be considered came up (right--in the most expensive real estate in the world we should erect public housing projects).
But all-in-all, if there were 4,000 freepers there the outcome of the meeting would not have been much different, except maybe for anti-aircraft guns on the roof.
One of the real tragedies of four decades of liberal trends in the United States is the attempt by liberals to repudiate dreams. I would like to ask this character who, exactly, gives a tinkers darn who the terrorists think we are? The only reason these terrorists should have to be on earth is to be used for target practice.
I have been watching news stories in recent weeks suggesting I must be in the vast minority in this country. IMHO, the rebuilding of that site should be an enterprise, perhaps as eclectic as the "lease" requires. The thing of it is, is, it should be bigger, in the end, and better than the world trade center was before 9-11. In fact, it should encompass the new tallest building in the world.
If a memorial is needed, let them incorporate sone sort of chapel easily accessable to the public. My guess is, though, those that want some kind of peoples park in that place would not sit still for a chapel of any kind.
I've decided to label this project as an experiment. I believe that rational thought will prevail when there is much money at stake- but we will see. There won't be just a memorial I think that's pretty clear, no revenue then. But just how much we capitulate to the terrorists will be seen in what is finally decided upon here.
A perfect example of what's wrong with Political Correctness. If some groups were too stupid, or lazy, or uninterested to voluteer then their views shouldn't count.
Your words are--in some cases exact--and in others near-exact approximations of what the majority of attendees expressed.
No one would disagree with you. The only issues that should be left--more or less--to the locals who live or work there everyday are ones pertaining to traffic flow, mass transportation, etc. The overriding issues of the form of memorial, what should be stated on it, designs of the buildings, etc., are open to all. Click here for the portal in order to get your opinion registered. I do believe they are listening to all: whether they take action based on what's said is another matter.
ELS let me know about it several weeks ago and we registered online about a day apart. At that time we freepmailed each other and made up to meet on the corner of 34th and 11th Avenue and didn't correspond after that about the logistics but managed to both be there on the button (Freepers are dependable!).
At my table there was a young male architect (who turned out to have a conservative real-world view of things), an American of Asian-Indian extraction who was a computer software guy and lived in Battery Park City (just south Ground Zero), a "facilitator" from Chicago (she was excellent, actually, although ELS and I were snickering as we walked in when we saw people with "Facilitator" nametags on), a 50-ish mother of a young woman who lived in NJ and worked for Aeon who was lost that day and a Chinese American area business owner who had enough trouble with the language to require a translator at the table. ELS had a woman who was a former city council member at her table and she will relate her story if she pleases later on this thread.
At any rate, the Chinese woman and I were pretty much together on everything (as I told ELS later, that woman could have been a Freeper), and the rest of the table was not far apart on any substantive issues.
I made two suggestions: 1) build a chapel so people could pray, meditate, whatever. I was amazed that this had not been thought of. And 2) have a space devoted to teaching people about American capitalism with lectures, interactive displays in many languages, etc. It is the financial district after all...
I NEED the new structures to be in-your-face tall and massive, full of capitalistic bustle 24 hours a day.
Hmmm. Does this mean that she thinks we shouldn't rebuild the Pentagon because it is a stereotype "that the military is the only thing that matters"? What a dingbat -- this is Manhatten, sweetie, not Oklahoma City.
If these touchy feely types want a place to go and cry, let them go to church. I want my skyline back and those that took it away wiped off the face of the earth.
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