WTC Memorial - by Michael Arad (Architect) and Peter Walker (Landscape)

Three years ago, anyone who would dare to question the cost of anything would have been accused of hating our heros, betraying our country, and not understanding the importance of 9/11. Now, perhaps if someone had challenged the costs and introduced reality sooner, we wouldn't be in this position and he/she would, in retrospect, actually be a hero.

By the way, that billion is not the end of it. The real cost of this memorial is $1 B plus the additional cost of every other project from the Freedom Tower to the Bus parking caused because nothing that was actually useful could be located in America's largest retainer wall (literary license, it may not be the largest).

But don't worry about the outcome. All of the wealthy preservationists will rise to the occasion and toss in every cent needed to protect the historic cement slabs. And the money tourists spend on pizza around the site will drive the economy of New York to new heights.

That's a pretty grim article. Add another year or two to the schedule.

Danny Boy's original (somewhat) simple open space below grade is looking better all the time ...

Danny, let's see, is he the one behind the unbuildable Freedom Tower. And I don't remember precisely, but didn't he have a cantilevered exhibition space hanging out over the center of the pit? Then there is the issue of how to keep the retainer walls from collapsing. Danny boy was a different form of ignoring reality: stark looking at a premium price, designer grunge.

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Originally Posted by davestanke

Danny, let's see, is he the one behind the unbuildable Freedom Tower. And I don't remember precisely, but didn't he have a cantilevered exhibition space hanging out over the center of the pit? Then there is the issue of how to keep the retainer walls from collapsing. Danny boy was a different form of ignoring reality: stark looking at a premium price, designer grunge.

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Putting the FT near West St. was also a bad idea, and anyone who was following the Rebuilding Process way back in 2002 or 2003 could have told you that long before Silverstein and Pataki noticed in early 2005. The whole ****ing project is one big boondoggle because of all the interests involved. "The PATH tracks can't touch the footprints!"...."The FT is a white elephant!"...."Let's build a tower next to a highwa....wait...that's not a good move...fuggetaboutit!"

Part of me has been saying for at least a year now: why don't we just scrap Libeskind's site-plan and go and revisit some of the other masterplans. Peterson & Littenburg, while at the time it was released I hated it, if it could be tweaked with a building or two just as tall as the old towers, I would line up behind it in a second over the current crapola we have now. At least that plan was more well-thought out in the way of density and planned more rationally. Hell, we should go back to having hearings at Pace University like we had in 2002 and 2003. I'm sure that after three and half years since the last one (the most recent one was in January 2003) we could actually resolve this mess. Then again, I'm too optimistic, because as long as we have the powers that be, we're stuck with a lousy memorial and masterplan. As long as we have the Memorialists and naysayers of building quallity architecture, then we will inevitably wind up with the same plan.

Perhaps I'm naive or just a bit dense, but ...

All this talk about the huge problems / great expense of leaving the walls of the bathtub exposed ...

It's been almost 5 years and the slurry wall has held -- no on-rush of the Hudson iRiver waters nto the PIT.

Undoubtedly there are engineering problems that need to be solved -- but can they be any more complex / expensive than what is required to plan / build what is now on the table?

Lofter, temporary means just that, temporary.

Tehy were designed to hold until construction was completed, which was conservatively estimated. I will guess that 20 years is probably a safe bet as to teh expected viability of the system (hell, it could be 50 years).

But it was never designed as a PERMANENT system, and will need to be replaced, at great cost, when their "sell by" date has expired... ;)

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Monica Iken, a champion of the original design by Michael Arad and a member of the foundation board, expressed her dismay at what she called a “leadership failure.”

“Fund-raising would not have been a problem if the memorial and memorial museum was a priority in the first place, which it has never been,” she said. “If the original design hadn’t been treated like a Tinker Toy, we may have not have had these problems.”

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This woman has no concept of money, whatsoever. A BILLION DOLLARS - we could build 3000 new schools in poor countries - each named for one of the victims. That would be a real memorial.

A BILLION dollars is perverse to honor dead and I find it offensive and morally bankrupt.

NY Daily News

Memorial's back on hold

BY PAUL D. COLFORD
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

With costs soaring toward $1 billion, the design for the World Trade Center Memorial is headed back to the drawing board for a major overhaul.

Mayor Bloomberg revealed yesterday that he, Gov. Pataki and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine agreed to cap the cost of the memorial and memorial museum at $500 million - far below the current design's projected price.

The estimate the WTC Memorial Foundation got for designer Michael Arad's two sunken pools, a tree-filled plaza and exhibition halls came in at $672 million.

That doesn't include $300 million needed for infrastructure costs - pushing the project close to $1billion.

As it stands, only $100 million was going toward infrastructure work under the Port Authority's restructured Trade Center lease with developer Larry Silverstein.

Bloomberg said spending more than $500 million would be "inappropriate" and that the project had to be viewed "in the context of what we can afford."

"Nobody designs anything without the real-world financial constraints," he added.

Bloomberg's announcement came more than two years after Arad's memorial design was chosen and two months after site preparation began.

The design for a sunken memorial has raised security concerns among 9/11 family groups and government officials.

Former FBI man James Kallstrom, Pataki's counterterrorism aide and adviser on Trade Center security, recently flagged the need to shore up the design.

In addition, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said yesterday that the NYPD also raised "some issues, some questions" with the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which has led memorial planning.

Asked what changes are needed, Kelly said, "Sounds to me like there's going to be ... probably a significant change in design."

The $500 million budget presents a formidable challenge, with the memorial set to open on Sept. 11, 2009.

"We will continue to look at appropriate strategies to accomplish that goal," the LMDC said in a statement yesterday.

Charles Wolf, a member of LMDC's Families Advisory Council who lost his wife on 9/11, said yesterday's news "reflects a failure of leadership at the bureaucratic level of LMDC to implement this properly."

With Lisa L. Colangelo and Michael Saul

We've been skirting the reality of the situation for two years. Someone please pull the plug on this memorial design. It's too expensive and uninspiring - a very bad combination.

The leadership that was lacking was the ability to tell people that there were real limits to what could be supported. Leaders have the ability to introduce people to reality.

The solution is biting everyone in the face. GET RID OF THE ENTIRE UNDERGROUND COMPONENT OF THE MEMORIAL, which is what is creating these extraordinary costs, and was created solely to satisfy the families' preposterous demand for access to the so-called "footprints" at "bedrock." The underground should be returned to the productive infrastructure uses to which it was put until 9/11 -- e.g., the parking garage, cooling plant, transportation and retail concourse, etc., thereby saving the block to the South ("Liberty Park") from being destroyed by the hideous truck ramp and underground garage, and saving hundreds of millions of dollars otherwise needed to extend the bathtub wall southwards, money which can be reallocated to the culture center.

Is there any valid reason why this should not be done immediately?

Also, I was told today that the Mayor proposed putting the museum and visitor's center inside the Freedom Tower, which is another idea worthy of consideration.

The single biggest mistake in this entire ordeal was Pataki twisting the Listening to the City results to validate his personal promise to keep the foot prints down to bedrock unbuilt upon.

Virtually every other decision revolved around choosing the option that would keep that foolish promise.

So far it's been a form of porkbarrel politics-use a lot of cash building a bridge to nowhere, except there's no bridge, only schematics and digital images-worthless assets.

The feasibility requirement built into the guidelines was ignored by the jury and everyone else involved. We got to yammer about it on this thread though.

A few weeks ago in answer to a question, I said

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I can't take the opinion of any person or group that has any official connection to the memorial seroiusly, because none of them can or will say what obviously needs to be said about the memorial.

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Maybe now some officials will speak up. The memorial is too big, and therefore, too expensive.

The volume of the space equates to about 2 million square feet - as big as the Goldman Sachs building.