Free Republic

In a bid to jump-start the snail's-pace reconstruction at the site, the mayor called on Gov. Paterson to dismantle the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. Bloomberg branded the state agency "just another level of bureaucracy you don't need" - and in a power grab, he said its redevelopment mission should be "handed over" to City Hall. Noting that one of LMDC's signature jobs is to demolish the toxic Deutsche Bank tower at 130 Liberty St., he said another agency, the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, is better suited to finishing the task by the July 2009 deadline. "The multilayers of authority...

To All 9/11 Families, Friends and Supporters, On January 24, 2006 the LMDC Family Advisory Council (FAC) met with LMDC President Stephan Pryor and WTC Memorial Foundation President Gretchen Dykstra as well as several members of their staff. At this meeting numerous issues were discussed including: the proper listing of the Names; putting Artifacts like the sphere and tower facades at the street level of the WTC site; preserving the Footprint remnants at bedrock; moving the Memorial Museum above ground; and the security and safety of visitors to the site. LMDC President Pryor and his representatives were noncommittal in their...

As seen New York Daily News, 1/2/2006 by 9/11 family members Anthony Gardner & Particia Reilly: New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com Memory lapse By ANTHONY GARDNER and PATRICIA REILLY Monday, January 2nd, 2006 Congress and U.S. taxpayers gave the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. $2.78 billion to redevelop the World Trade Center site, entrusting them with the duty of building a magnificent memorial to the victims of Sept. 11, 2001. Just months before construction of the memorial is slated to begin, the LMDC is offering the American public a bargain basement version of Michael Arad's "Reflecting Absence." The LMDC's latest...

British architect Lord Norman Foster has been chosen to build an office tower at the World Trade Center site. Foster's previous projects include the new Hearst tower in Manhattan, the Beijing airport and the Swiss Re headquarters in London. Rebuilding officials in New York say Foster's tower will be the second of developer Larry Silverstein's five planned office towers at ground zero. Foster joins a half-dozen architects, including Frank Gehry and Santiago Calatrava, hired since the 2001 attack to design different projects at the 16-acre trade center site. A transit hub designed by Calatrava is under construction now. Construction is...

Manhattan rebuilding officials opened the bidding for a construction contract for the World Trade Center memorial on Monday, three months before a planned groundbreaking. The trade center site's owner repeated an offer to build the memorial but said it wouldn't formally apply for the job. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation and the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. put out a request for proposals for a construction manager to oversee building of the memorial to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and a memorial museum. Late last month, the LMDC said it would cost $490 million to build both facilities. The...

This is a crucial time. It now appears that the desires of New York's cultural elite may be competing head-to-head with the 9/11 Memorial & Memorial Museum for a very limited amount of funds. While the LMDC has repeatedly said that the Memorial will take fund raising precedence, it is hard to believe that is what will happen when they are handing out $35 million federal dollars (your money) in the form of grants "to existing and new cultural institutions downtown." We invite you to vote in our on-line poll which asks the question: "If given a choice between...

Michael Bloomberg blasted World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein in comments to the New York Daily News editorial board, saying "it would be in the city's interest to get Silverstein out," and suggested that schools and residential buildings would make better use of the space at ground zero than office towers. Bloomberg said it would be a good idea to remove Silverstein, who holds a 99-year lease on the twin towers site, but "nobody can figure out how to do it," the Daily News reported Sunday. "And can you imagine the stink if you gave him half a billion dollars...

Gov. George Pataki defended his leadership in the redevelopment of lower Manhattan on Thursday as a new poll showed that New York City voters overwhelmingly believe Mayor Michael Bloomberg, not Pataki, should call the shots at ground zero. A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday found that 65 percent of city voters believe Bloomberg should have the major role in decisions about the redevelopment of the trade center site. Only 18 percent said they believe Pataki should make the decisions _ despite the fact that the site is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, not the...

15 Major 9/11 Family Groups Reject LMDC Mediation Plan New York, N.Y.—September 15, 3005—The alliance of 15 major 9/11 family organizations was stunned to learn through the media last week and not from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation of their plans to engage in mediated talks with 9/11 family members about the presence of the International Freedom Center on the World Trade Center memorial site. According to the media, the LMDC’s stated purpose in hiring an outside mediator was to facilitate ‘conversations that might otherwise not happen.” We hasten to point out that individual and collective members of the 9/11...

November 30, 2003 Behind Beauty of 9/11 Designs, Devil May Be in Nuts and BoltsBy ERIC LIPTON ne of the eight finalists in the design competition for the World Trade Center memorial wants to incorporate three dozen or so "beautifully tall" Eastern white pines that would recall the intensely vertical spirit of the twin towers. Elegant trees, to be sure, but they are particularly vulnerable to air pollution and tend to break apart in heavy winds or ice, creating a potentially serious hazard. Lower Manhattan Development CorporationThe Eastern white pines included in Michael Arad's Reflecting Absence design would be vulnerable...

16 May 2002 21:32 GMT Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and Port Authority of New York & New Jersey Announce Public Input Process and Timeline Regarding Future of World Trade Center Site and Adjacent Areas Comprehensive Public Outreach Campaign Launched Today First Public Hearing Set for May 23rd at Pace University NEW YORK, May 16 /PRNewswire/ -- The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey today announced they will hold at least five joint public hearings between now and December regarding the future of the World Trade Center site as part of a...