The problem may well be that few care to contribute to a ridiculous project.
The problem may well be that few care to contribute to a ridiculous project.
500-700 million dollars is crazy for a memorial. It's vulgar but I guess one could argue that makes is characteristically American, huh?
The Foundation's decision to suspend fundraising while it crunches numbers is the equivalent of stopping in the middle of a footrace at the one mile marker because you are unsure whether you are running a traditional 26-mile marathon or one of those new-fangled 100-mile marathons. Either way, there is still a long way to go, so what is the point of stopping?
What I am unable to figure out from all these numbers being thrown around is how much is to just fill in the pit with the necessary infrastructure and how much is for the memorial itself.
For example, forget the memorial all together. How much would it be to build the infrastructure and put a park on top as compare to the memorial design?
^
It's at the bottom of this article. $370 million. I always thought the park at grade was part of the memorial cost.
I have little confidence that this cost issue is going to result in a more rational memorial. I'm afraid they're going to just cheapen down the present design, and we'll wind up with something even worse.
Wait and see.
Obviously, the numbers are outrageous, but is anyone really surprised that it has come to this? It really did become a pork-barrel project once people were allowed to believe they could have input beyond the initial memorial design. They need to get to the essentials of the project. Save the items and symbols that have the most meaning to the widest audience and build the memorial with an eyed toward future generations.
So, is the memorial cost 1 billion beyond the 370 million or is it "only" 630 million? hmmmmm....Quote:
Originally Posted by ZippyTheChimp
She makes $350,000 a year for this? A billion dollars for a memorial? What a sick, twisted society we have created.
No, no, no. The costs for this more sensible alternative is actually much, much less. If you agree that there needs to be an underground tour bus garage, and everyone on all sides does seem to agree on the point, and if you put that underground bus garage back on the WTC site (as you and others have proposed and only certain family members have opposed), then the lion's share of the infrastructrue work will be covered by that project, which already has federal transit dollars (some of the leftover West Street tunnel money) allocated for it, and thus the Foundation's $130M could pretty much cover the rest. Leave the garage where it is planned for now, however, and then the Foundation or the PA has to raise new funds for all the underground infrastructure work.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZippyTheChimp
^
I wasn't trying to do a cost analysis of an alternative plan, just answering the question by JMGarcia - what would be the cost of superstructure to support the bathtub without anything else included - and that is $370 million.
I understand the point that including infrastructure in the bathtub that is now off-site would defray that expense.
I just remembered a comment that was made when the PA presented the bus garage plan -something like, "Bus garages become bus terminals," alluding to the "probability" that the garage would turn into a business. With the talk now of escalating costs, fund raising, admission fees to the memorial (although later denied); that comment is bitter irony.
I thought the same thing. Isn't the memorial foundation a non-profit? That's a very high salary for an administrator. It is ultimately the board that is going to do most of the work of soliciting and bringing in donations. At the same time, Gretchen Dykstra has some solid experience heading "the New 42nd Street" and, I believe, the Times Square BID. Considering her salary, I am surprised she got a vote of confidence with the stagnancy of results.Quote:
Originally Posted by MidtownGuy
And $350K is still less than $30K per month. What on earth is the Foundation spending the remaining $420K per month on????
Remarks
Governor George E. Pataki
Association for a Better New York
Lower Manhattan Development Corporation Speech
Monday, November 22, 2004 Good afternoon. Thank you for that kind introduction.
...
After September 11th, you and I came together with Mayor Bloomberg, and made a bold and fateful choice: We chose to create and implement a comprehensive plan for the World Trade Center site, for Lower Manhattan, and ultimately for this entire city and region. From the beginning, some said our vision was too big and our task too tall. They insisted that unacceptable, impossible choices would have to be made - pitting residential needs against those of business, transportation against parks, or new housing against great cultural institutions.
They said that politics and parochial concerns would pit people against each other and doom our plan. Clearly, the naysayers were wrong.
Yes, there have been choices to make, but in the end, you and I have always known that we had only one choice - and that was to move heaven and earth, not only to restore Lower Manhattan, but to transform it into a community that stood taller and stronger than ever before.And that meant working through the tradeoffs and the challenges, and choosing to fulfill every part of our ambitious plan. And choose we did. We chose job creation -- and quality-of-life measures. Site construction -- and mass transit revamping. Cultural planning -- and memorial design.
Most of all, we chose public interest over self-interest - and together, we are making our nation proud.
As we continue to rebuild and revitalize, we'll still face difficult choices from diverging interests, but today I will lay out a plan that shows we don't have to compete with each other in Lower Manhattan - or with any other part of Manhattan. Indeed, we can revitalize our downtown economy, manage and complete our construction activity, build a 21st century transportation system, support world-renowned cultural institutions, and create a dignified and lasting Memorial.
...
We need to reaffirm our collective choice of making the memorial the centerpiece and our first priority in our rebuilding effort. And so, step by step, we are implementing the plans for our memorial. At the start of 2004, two of our memorial architects, Michael Arad and Peter Walker, unveiled their schematic design concept for the entire memorial complex. Since that time, they've partnered with a third architect, Max Bond of Davis Brody Bond. I'm pleased to report that by the end of this year, this December, Michael, Peter, and Max will have fleshed out their concept and created a model for a full and final design for the world to see. Let me give you a brief preview of the underground portion of the memorial complex - the most sacred area of the memorial site. Picture the old foundations of the Louvre in France or the catacombs at the Vatican.
...
As all of us know, building the memorial will be a costly endeavor.
To that end, I have and will continue to encourage the LMDC to support the memorial in any way possible and to invest in this worthy cause.
...
http://www.ny.gov/governor/keydocs/rebuild_lm_04.html
The LMDC's violations of the law, and complete failure to follow the rules of the competition, rules they themselves promulgated, including cost and feasibility, is but the tip of the iceberg.
The LMDC has done whatever it wanted from the start, only when faced by thousands of angry family members, have they change their plans.
The governor did drop in from time to time to make all the wrong choices on all the important decisions, and all those who opposed the memorial have been ignored, or since been made a part of the process.
One issue that has gone largely ignored, is the endowment of close to 1 billion dollars to fund the $57 million needed for annual maintenance and upkeep of the memorial.
Add that billion to the existing numbers, and you will be a lot closer to the truth of what is truly needed.
The only voice of reason the LMDC will listen to, is the voice of law.
The rebuilding process has been a travesty from the start, and as long as the LMDC can continue to reign with impunity, with politicians hiding behind curtains of responsibility, nothing will go smoothly.
This is not, and has not been, a transparent process by which the citizens will have a central role in shaping downtown Manhattan.
Pataki has been quoted as saying "You can't build a memorial by politicians," gee, I guess he was right after all.
The LMDC and Port Authority have changed plans over and over with the criticism of far smaller groups of family members. The latest rallies have included only 50 family members or so, from what I could see. There is nothing that anyone could have done in this situation that wouldn't have left 50 family members disaffected.
Normally when people have become part of the process it is because they've been appeased and they now feel that reasonable compromises have been made. They've gotten what they want.
The role for everyone in the world to reshape downtown Manhattan in their own vision has been far oversold. There are exceptions, but I wish everyone north of 34th Street (and in city hall) would just stay away.
This should have been a simple exercise of experts in transportation rebuilding transportation facilities, building owners rebuilding buildings, a public process driven by family members to design a memorial on a fixed area with a fixed budget, and a little bit of creative site planning. There was room for a city wide component to add some cultural facilities, but I think that opportunity is lost.
The legal actions against the LMDC appear to me to be simply a statement that certain parties didn't get everything they wanted. Guess what. No one has gotten what they wanted. Welcome to the real world.
You can't build a city based on who's willing to go to hearings and wait 3 hours to make a 3 minute statement or based on a selection of people willing to sit around for 3 hours filling out forms.
You rebuild a city with leaders (or better, a leader) directing and protecting experts doing their jobs. Unfortunately we had a public process and politicians trying to do the job.