As I recall, in 2002, the towers of light were close enough together, that when viewed from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade nearly appeared to be a single tower of light (they unfortunately aligned).Quote:
Originally Posted by lofter1
As I recall, in 2002, the towers of light were close enough together, that when viewed from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade nearly appeared to be a single tower of light (they unfortunately aligned).Quote:
Originally Posted by lofter1
I saw these last night. We took part in Paces candle light vigal. It was a moving sight. I must say these lights are more impressive in person. I forgot they were there, then looked up. I just stood in awe. Its nothing short of amazing, atleast for me.
The Memorial must get going, its been 4 years and i can live without a Freedom tower for a bit but these victime, including three friends of mine, deserve a grand tribute NOW
They should put these lights in the middle of the bathtub pit, on top of a gift shop.
I have read a book called the New New Left, from the City Journal website, it (for me) seems to explain much of what is at the root of the problem with NYC pols and the general lack of progress in our built invironment. When I think of - The waterfront greenways (hudson river park) and others, the subways, governers island, the world trade rebuilding, the UN building renovation....i feel exasperated with a city government.
Anyone else notice the huge swarms of moths and small birds around the lights? When I was there last year, you could see thousands of white specks hovering around the "towers." With the exception of an unpleasant plume of smoke when a tired-out winged creature took a swandive onto the spotlights themselves, it was quite a dramatic and ethereal motif.
From the New York Times, as seen from Brooklyn:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...ersary_xlg.jpg
^ This shot clearly shows that the southern placement of the lights this year just doesn't make any sense (they should be just to the left of the Woolworth tower).
I think everyone agrees, put them in the memorial in the middle of each footprint and fire them up every year. Anyone knows any addresses? Maybe we could send some petitions to the Tribute in Light and the Memorial people and start something.
We could have outspoken family members make two human pyramids on the Tower footprints and balance these lights on their backs.
TRADE CENTER TALKS REJECTED
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/16/nyregion/16mbrfs.html
Fifteen groups of relatives of 9/11 victims, allied as the Take Back the Memorial movement, said yesterday that they would not meet with Peter H. Woodin, a professional mediator who was named last week to help break the political impasse at ground zero. The groups have charged that the International Freedom Center planned for the cultural building on the memorial quadrant would detract from the memorial. In a statement, they said that the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and Gov. George E. Pataki had created "yet another deaf and redundant 'process' from which they are removed" and were "wasting time and resources that could be better spent addressing other compelling problems." The corporation said it was disappointed that Take Back the Memorial representatives were not "willing to engage in meaningful discussions."
David W. Dunlap (NYT)
Well, that's one less building to hide vent stacks in.
Is this article accurate?
http://www.villagevoice.com
9-11 Conspiracists Invade Ground Zero
The alt.truth crowd takes its message to the memorial service, ‘The New York Times’, and a great big punk concert
by Sarah Ferguson
September 12th, 2005 11:05 AM
http://images.villagevoice.com/issues/0537/ferg1.jpg
Preaching to the uncoverted at Ground Zero.
photo: Sarah Ferguson
The anguish was palpable at Ground Zero yesterday, as family members made their way down a long ramp into the vast emptiness of the World Trade Center site, then took turns reading out the names of their lost loved ones.
"We love you, Georgie. We'll see you soon," pledged the parents of a fallen firefighter, their sad voices broadcast to the crowds of grieving onlookers milling quietly around the perimeter.
Into this somber setting marched about a dozen 9-11 conspiracists, who claimed a patch of sidewalk to preach what they called the truth. "These people weren't killed by Arab terrorists. You've been lied to!" shouted a woman who looked vaguely like Joey Ramone, holding up one end of a banner that read, "9-11 World Trade Center: Controlled Demolition."
Her name was Lisa Giuliani and she broadcasts her theories though a Pennsylvania grassroots video collective called Wing TV.
She lectured about how only a series of controlled explosions could have so rapidly pancaked the twin towers. "There's no way jet fuel could have melted all that steel. It was a freefall. The concrete was so thoroughly pulverized, Manhattan was blanketed in dust. Think about it," she urged. "Do your homework, please!"
Her message played about as badly as could be expected. "I was there, so shut the **** up. You don't know what you're talking about," snapped an enraged firefighter in fatigues, stalking off into the crowd.
"You shouldn't be here. Have some respect," another firefighter shouted.
"It's a crime scene," Lisa Giuliani shot back. "We honor them with the truth. Al Qaeda is a concept. This is state-sponsored terrorism."
The clamor was all too much for a passing tourist. "God bless America, you bitch!" he screamed in a thick accent.
"Go back to where you came from, you foreigner," groused a fellow conspiracist.
"But I am French," the tourist responded indignantly.
And so it went, a sad comedy of slurs that went on for most of the morning, drawing crowds of puzzled onlookers before the police would shoo them away to clear the sidewalk.
At one point, an auxiliary fireman stepped forward and tried to reason with the protesters to "respect the memorial sentiment."
"Believe me, I have questions too," he told the protesters. "But you've got to respect the dead. These people are not ready for this. You're just creating resentment."
The demolition lady was adamant. "There is no good time. I lost a lot of firefighter friends too," she maintained, adding, "This is the only way we can reach the 9-11 families."
http://images.villagevoice.com/issues/0537/ferg3.jpg
Victor Ortiz mourns the loss of his mom with wife Amanda
photo: Sarah Ferguson
It seemed most family members did their best to ignore the speakout. "That's what this country is about, that people can say what they want even if I don't agree with it," said Rudy Dimmling of Westbury, Long Island, whose brother William died in the North Tower, leaving behind a wife and two kids. "To have more fingerpointing and Congressional hearings, where does that get us? I can't live with myself to think that that was a conspiracy," he said, clearly pained at the thought of even having to address such a question.
One might have thought the Bush administration's bungled response to the Katrina catastrophe could put a crimp in conspiracists' efforts to prove that the 9-11 was much more than just a colossal "failure of the imagination," as the 9-11 commission claimed. After seeing firsthand how President Bush and FEMA ignored years of warnings about the threat of a hurricane on the Gulf Coast, then dawdled while people drowned, maybe it's not so hard to fathom how our vacationing president could have blown off repeated intelligence warnings about the growing threat of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden in the summer of 2001.
Yet it seems Katrina is now just more fuel for the conspiracy pyre, with the Internet buzzing with theories of how the feds blew up the levees to flood poor areas of New Orleans and preserve the ritzy French Quarter.
Down at Ground Zero, the 9-11 "truth" warriors were clearly emboldened by the hurricane fiasco. "The public saw people dying while Condi was shopping for shoes, Dick Cheney was playing fake cowboy, and Bush was backstage playing guitar," relished Ben Maurier of Brooklyn, who predicted a wash of new converts to the cause. "If they knowingly allowed that many people to die in New Orleans, why should it be a stretch that the government did 9-11?"
Had they gotten off their soap boxes, the conspiracists might have found more empathy among survivors like Kevin Lester, who worked on the 102nd floor of the North Tower, and who lost his brother and numerous coworkers there. "I sometimes wonder if there could have been a conspiracy," confessed Lester, who said he survived on 9-11 only because he popped downstairs to get his shoes shined just before the first plane hit. "Some of the arguments kind of make sense, like the slow response rate [to the hijacked planes], or how Bush reacted that day. I saw Fahrenheit 911. It makes you wonder.
"But still, I just kind of deplore heavy-duty political rhetoric at a memorial. Why today? Why?" he demanded. "Right now I'm still dealing with survivor's guilt. How about giving us a hug rather than stamping in our face?"
http://images.villagevoice.com/issues/0537/ferg4.jpg
The 9-11 Truth squad protesting outside Rockefeller Plaza, home to NBC.
photo: Sarah Ferguson
Not all the 9-11 skeptics were so brazen. Distinguishing themselves from the proselytizers downtown, about 200 protesters gathered outside the offices of the New York Times shouting, "Tell the truth!" The protest was organized by members of NY911truth.org to condemn the failure of the mainstream press. They say the media failed to raise questions about the numerous unexplained anomalies of 9-11-like why it took NORAD so long to scramble planes when five war games were running that day, or why World Trade Center owner Ken Silverstein implied that that WTC building 7 was "pulled"—a reported comment which leads conspiracists to presume that the other towers could have been intentionally taken down, too.
"Why isn't the media asking these questions?" demanded retired Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bowman, who has become one of the celebrity skeptics because of his credentials as a former interceptor pilot who helped direct the Star Wars program under Carter and Ford. "Where are the tapes of the Pentagon hit? Where are the tapes of the conversations between NORAD and the air traffic controllers? Why are they hiding them? If our government had done nothing and just let normal procedures happen, those planes would have been intercepted and thousands of people would still be alive. It's treason," he insisted. "Bush and Cheney should be impeached."
But the Grey Lady didn't even blink, with not so much as a reporter poking a head out of one of the windows.
Many in the crowd seemed shocked that more New Yorkers had not joined them. They pointed to a Zogby poll taken last summer that showed half of all New Yorkers believe the U.S. leaders had "foreknowledge" of the attacks and "consciously" failed to act.
But that word "consciously" is slippery, and could just as well refer to what people can now read in the media: that Bush, the NSA, CIA and FBI on down had information that a big attack on America was about to happen.
Undaunted, the protesters marched through the canyons of Midtown, shoveling leaflets at bewildered shoppers as they chanted things like "Figure it out. It's not hard. Nine-11 was an inside job!" and even "Remember New Orleans!"—as if anyone could forget. They passed by the headquarters of FOX, NBC, Time Warner, and CNN, pausing to shout at the media for ignoring them as a few police officers looked on.
http://images.villagevoice.com/issues/0537/ferg2.jpg
Choking Victim inciting the masses to "**** World Trade" on 9-11.
photo: Sarah Ferguson
Maybe the marchers should have tried Tompkins Square Park, which by Sunday afternoon was awash in about 2,000 sweaty teenagers moshing at a 9-11 protest concert headlined by punk bands Million Dead Cops and Choking Victim.
According to organizers, it took a team of three lawyers to swing the permit past Parks Department officials, who reportedly didn't like the timing and theme of the concert, nor the fact that the lead singer of Choking Victim is also the singer of Leftover Crack, whose last concert sparked a melee between police and bottle-throwing punks last November.
But this time, the police seemed virtually nonexistent as Choking Victims' myriad fans sang along to lyrics like "Kill the cops," "**** America," and "**** world trade."
Onstage, lead singer "Stza Crack" preached more conspiracies. "George Bush's brother Marvin Bush was head of security at the World Trade Center up until 9-11, and they were doing nefarious things," Crack told his drunken fans. "They wanted another Pearl Harbor to install the Patriot Act and take us to war. Don't listen to the media; the media is there for maximum security—to tell you lies!"
As the band broke into their hit anthem of alienation, "Born to Die," a young punk in bleached hair and mod sunglasses dashed to the mike and shouted: "Kill George Bush! Or we're all going to die!"
Unlike at Ground Zero, the folks here seemed not to mind such giddy provocation. Josh Copeland, a 21-year-old Rutgers student sporting a heavy chain and padlock around his neck, said he didn't buy the conspiracy angles voiced onstage but supported more dissent about the "social and economic" causes of 9-11. "This is really for the sake of acting out. You see there's a huge turnout for this. People are really very angry and they don't know what to do. Protest is losing its power." "Yeah," said one of his beer-addled female companions. "The only thing left is drinking, drugs, and suicide."
Maybe the site should be renamed Circus Maximus.
Right. Once again we hear the claims to a singular event that apparently no one else in the nation experienced. Perhaps we're not giving him a "hug" because it isn't all about "him" and the innocent victims.Quote:
Originally Posted by From Article
It seems to break down the same way as evolution and intelligent design, either you have a curiosity about the opposing arguments or you don't. But, its a sure bet that taking any statement from this federal administration as fact, is dangerous for it flies in the face of overwhelming evidence - on some issues.
Matters of How Many and How Much
at the Sept. 11 Memorial
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
September 22, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/ny.../22blocks.html
IF you build it, and they come, will you have room enough?
The issue of crowd capacity at the World Trade Center memorial is not nearly as intriguing as the current melodrama over the tenancy of the cultural building on the site. Yet capacity has a lot more to do with how visitors will experience the memorial.
What makes this a tough issue is that concrete decisions must be based on widely diverging projections. Like chickens and eggs, capacity and demand have a circular relationship. The number of visitors cannot be reliably estimated until the memorial has been fully designed. But the memorial cannot be fully designed without a reliable estimate. And demand itself will be ever changing.
It would be fiscally imprudent and logistically daunting, given the competing claims for space on the trade center site, to build a memorial and memorial museum that could comfortably accommodate the biggest imaginable peak crowd on opening day. The resulting physical plant would be vastly overscaled for long-term use.
"We believe that certainly in the stabilized years, after the initial spike, that the memorial and the memorial museum will be able to accommodate the stabilized-year demand," Anne Papageorge, a senior vice president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, told a recent forum of victims' relatives, survivors and rescue workers, organized by Voices of September 11th, a family advocacy group.
What is that demand?
A 2002 study for the development corporation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey forecast attendance at "about 5.5 million annually in a stabilized year," within a range running from three million to eight million visitors.
A 2003 memorandum to the authority from Economics Research Associates said 5.5 million "could be considered a safe level of projection" for a stabilized year, after seven million to nine million visitors in the first two or three years of operation.
The 2004 environmental impact statement prepared by the development corporation accounted for "a first-year surge in attendance of up to nine million visitors," stabilizing at "approximately 5.5 million visitors per year."
Currently, using figures from Economic Consulting Services, the corporation is projecting a peak demand of up to 6.6 million visitors annually in the first three years of operation, 2009 to 2011, and declining to four million by 2018. (By comparison, the Statue of Liberty received 3,618,053 visits last year.)
"All of these projections are preliminary," said Stefan Pryor, president of the corporation, noting that the environmental impact figures were deliberately set high to permit the evaluation of conditions beyond what could reasonably be predicted.
Among the factors that have yet to be studied in detail, he said, were hours of operation, ticketing policies, season of the year and time of day. "We will work with those variables to ensure that we maximize capacity," Mr. Pryor said, including during the peak years.
Contemplating the difference between forecasts, Monica Iken, the founder of the September's Mission foundation, said, "Where did those three million people go?"
Ms. Iken, whose husband was killed on Sept. 11, 2001, asked Ms. Papageorge at the forum, "We wouldn't have, like, a turn-away policy or anything like that?"
Ms. Papageorge answered, "We're planning on implementing timed ticketing in the early years so that people will be able to know in advance when their time-ticket slot is."
As for the relatives of 9/11 victims, Mr. Pryor added yesterday, "No matter what the attendance level is on any given day, family members will not be turned away."
SOME speakers at the forum criticized the decision to reduce the number of ramps in the memorial.
In the original plan by Michael Arad, there were to have been four L-shaped ramps, two for entry, two for exiting, around both pool-filled voids on the twin tower footprints, reaching street level at the far corners of the memorial plaza.
Now, there are to be two switchback ramps that reach street level in the center of the plaza. Entry will be through the north ramp, exiting through the south ramp.
Ms. Papageorge said Management Resources, consultants in the design process, "actually suggested that we have a single entry/exit for orientation purposes because they felt that people would be confused if there were multiple entrances and multiple exits."
But Mary Fetchet, the founder of Voices of September 11th, told the architects who were at the forum that the memorial should have "as many entrances and exits as possible" and said she was worried about "traffic jams" in the new configuration.
So is Ms. Iken, a board member of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation. "Going anywhere at ground zero under the current plans - to the memorial, to the offices or to retail areas - is going to feel like standing in Times Square on New Year's Eve," she said.
And the estimates of those crowds can vary by the millions.
First of all, I only read a few paragraphs in the "conspiracy" article before I got sick and had to stop.
I am glad I was not there when this woman spouted all she "knew" about engineering and demolition. Jet fuel did not "melt" the steel, it just softened an already heavily damaged structure. And Structures 101 student knows about P-Delta (that when you get a bending of a column perpendicular to the load it is supporting) that it generates a moment and an uneven force distribution along the columns area. Given this, and the fact that deflection is directly related to material stiffness, which was lessened as the steel was heated by the fire, it is easy to see how thi shappened.
All you have to do is watch the tape carefully.
Also, just like a spring. If a column that was supporting 20 stories above it suddenly buckles, where does all the energy go? You think it just magically dissapears? It is not so crazy to assume that the "puffs" that these people saw at teh base were nothing more than the columns expanding after a good 100,000 pounds (actually it was probably much more than that) of axial force was suddenly removed from it.
Now, as for the memorial. WTH are these peoples problems? What is all this talk about projected visitors to the thing? Itthis a memorial or an amusement park? They should not be concerned with turning the memorial into an announcement as to what happened, or an attraction to see in the city. It should be just what the name defines, a MEMORIAL to the people that dies that day and NOTHING MORE.
This is no time to worship the dead, or turn their deaths into a tourist attraction.
EXACTLY.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninjahedge
I second that.Quote:
Originally Posted by BrooklynRider
third
Yes, I agree with the quoted passage, but the quote left out the main point by Ninjahedge, as it relates to the article:
No matter what the theme of the memorial will be, ignoring projected visitors (for any facility) would be a serious mistake in planning.Quote:
What is all this talk about projected visitors to the thing?
Considering where they'll all be coming from, if we build a high capacity Denny's offering breakfast specials on one side of the memorial and an equally high capacity Applebee's offfering lunch specials on the other, we can move two or three thousand an hour through there and be done by 3:00PM every day. Move the gift shop to Times Square and you can be cleaned up and locked up by 4:00PM.
5.5 M = ~ 15,070 / dayQuote:
IF you build it, and they come, will you have room enough?
The issue of crowd capacity at the World Trade Center memorial...
What is that demand?
A 2002 study for the development corporation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey forecast attendance at "about 5.5 million annually in a stabilized year," within a range running from three million to eight million visitors.
3.5 M = ~ 8,220 / day
8.0 M = ~ 21,917 / day
7.0 M = ~ 19,178 / dayQuote:
A 2003 memorandum to the authority from Economics Research Associates said 5.5 million "could be considered a safe level of projection" for a stabilized year, after seven million to nine million visitors in the first two or three years of operation.
9.0 M = ~ 24,657 / day
9.0 M = ~ 24,657 / dayQuote:
The 2004 environmental impact statement prepared by the development corporation accounted for "a first-year surge in attendance of up to nine million visitors," stabilizing at "approximately 5.5 million visitors per year."
5.5 M = ~ 15,070 / day
6.6 M = ~ 18,082 / dayQuote:
Currently, using figures from Economic Consulting Services, the corporation is projecting a peak demand of up to 6.6 million visitors annually in the first three years of operation, 2009 to 2011, and declining to four million by 2018.
4.0 M = ~ 10,960 / day
Zip, I know what you are talking about, but I am not looking forward to a design that will "accomodate" these people.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZippyTheChimp
If lines form to see it, so be it. It will be just another sad commentary on the mindset of the people. I really do not want a place that will have the corrals (sp) set up before the people even get there.
The only solution I see that makes sense it to just make sure that whatever SMALL piece they put in there has enough room for people to come and go. NOT building a shrine that can accomodate 8 million people in a year in, by, and for itself alone.
Blurred Line for the Ground Zero Museum
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
September 23, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/23/ny...23rebuild.html
The International Freedom Center, the embryonic museum that was chosen last year to occupy the cultural building planned at ground zero, released a detailed report yesterday intended to buttress its claim to the site against growing criticism.
But the report, which was submitted to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, did little to close a fundamental fault line in the greater debate over the World Trade Center redevelopment: whether there is room for anything not directly related to 9/11 on the 6.5-acre memorial quadrant where the twin towers stood.
While the report describes how the stories of victims, survivors and heroes of Sept. 11, 2001, would be presented in the galleries and theaters of the Freedom Center, it also makes clear that the museum would concern itself more broadly with worldwide struggles for justice, equality and tolerance and with controversial contemporary topics.
And that did not assuage critics, who now include the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association and Representatives Vito J. Fossella, Peter T. King and John E. Sweeney, Republicans of New York. If anything, Mr. King said: "I think it makes a bad situation worse. I really do."
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was the most prominent figure yesterday to speak in support of the idea that ground zero could play multiple roles, though he said he had not yet read the report and added, "There probably should be different rules for what takes place there."
"We have a number of things to do on this site," the mayor said. "One is to remember those that we lost. One is to remind the world that our freedoms are always at jeopardy, sadly, and that a terrible price was paid for our freedoms here. We don't want to forget that."
The Freedom Center and the Drawing Center in SoHo were picked in 2004 by the development corporation as the prospective tenants of a cultural building at the trade center site. The Norwegian architectural firm Snohetta was chosen to design it.
This summer the project came under criticism from relatives of 9/11 victims, the Uniformed Firefighters Association, The New York Post, The Daily News and others, who said they feared that the institutions would bring unwelcome politics and offensive artwork to the site - possibly anti-American - that would distract from the solemnity of the memorial.
In June Gov. George E. Pataki ordered the development corporation to obtain an "absolute guarantee" from the institutions that the site "never be used in a way that is going to denigrate America, denigrate our heroes, denigrate the sacrifices of Sept. 11."
Without responding directly, the Drawing Center began looking for alternative space downtown, with $150,000 in financial assistance from the development corporation.
Last month the corporation's chairman, John C. Whitehead, gave the Freedom Center until today to detail its programs and governance, which would be presented to the public for further review. He said that if at the end of this process, the corporation was "not satisfied with the I.F.C.'s proposal, we will find another use or tenant."
The report issued yesterday was the Freedom Center's answer. It can be read on the Web sites of the corporation (renewnyc.com) or the Freedom Center (ifcwtc.org).
To support its assertion that "an important trend in America and abroad is to link events that are being memorialized with broader educational institutions," the Freedom Center offered several testimonial letters, including one from Robert C. Wilburn, the president of the Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum Foundation.
Mr. Wilburn said there were two interpretive approaches possible at the trade center site: one that focused only on the events of 9/11 or one that could "be used to help us better understand the meaning of what happened on this tragic day and to encourage future generations to learn from this experience.
"I strongly endorse your efforts to significantly enhance the learning that occurs at this site. We have chosen this approach for Gettysburg."
But critics said that 9/11 could speak for itself. Edie Lutnick, the executive director of the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, envisioned a visitor, unable to get into the memorial and underground memorial museum, winding up in the Freedom Center's "World and Sept. 11" gallery, which will depict reactions from various countries.
"If you're turned away and you don't go below, you don't ever get the story," she said. "You only get - what? - Canada's reaction to 9/11."
Mr. King, of Nassau County, said about Sept. 11: "I don't think it has to be amplified. It doesn't have to be put into greater context."
And Mr. Fossella, who represents Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, said, "I don't want to be in a position to censor anything at that site, but I have a very strong sense that ground zero is sacred ground that should be limited to 9/11 events."
He said he supported hearings planned by Mr. Sweeney, the vice chairman of an appropriations subcommittee, into whether any federal financing had been used in the development of the Freedom Center.
At least one New Yorker - Chris Burke, the president and founder of the Tuesday's Children family services group - said he would wait for the public process to play out before venturing an opinion. His brother, Tom, was a partner at Cantor Fitzgerald.
Though he is a member of the Freedom Center's family advisory group, Mr. Burke said: "I'm not coming out in favor of the center. I'm not coming out against it. I'm in favor of reason."
After reading the report, he said the Freedom Center portrayed by opponents as a partisan, political, rationalizing, blame-America institution "clearly, to any reasonable man or woman, doesn't exist in these pages."
Mr. Burke added: "I hope that dialogue can rule the day here. I hope that the intelligent opinions that do get formed will allow the chips to fall where they may. I lost a band of brothers. I'm close to it. But I don't think we're ever too close or too far removed from anything not to let reason rule the day."
This is the kind of clear-thinking person who neeeds to be heard from:
Quote:
Originally Posted by lofter1
And in adiition to the visitors, we have these weird new career mourners that have sprung out of this event. They are going to park themselves in the museum, hold court over exhibits, and loiter in the memorial, obstructing things as "divine right."
Here is the link to the LMDC site / report: http://www.renewnyc.com/content/pdfs/IFC_submission.pdf
It is entitled:
The International Freedom Center
Content and Governance Report
September 23, 2005
It would be nice to have a place where one could casually drop by to visit, but that is never the case. And you will never see the reality in renderings.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninjahedge
Consider if the ticketing/screening/boarding process for the Statue of Liberty were just being designed. The reality of long lines stretching out of the park to Battery Pl would not be depicted. Ignoring the problem would lead to the same congestion we had at the Intrepid before the pedestrian bridge and bus drop-off/parking lot were built.
There's always unforseeable issues that will have to be addressed after the thing gets built. No one is ignoring the issue of crowding. I think the point was that the crowd issue shouldn't dictate the design and planning process.
The crowd issue is as important as any other consideration, and is probably the one issue that will affect the environment of the entire site, not just the confines of the memorial.
I don't know who is saying that the crowd issue should dictate the design, but it should not be treated as an unknowable variable to be addressed after the memorial is built.
Then maybe the memorial should be made smaller to allow more space for the people to see it!
;)
No one is. They're saying it shouldn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZippyTheChimp
^
???????
A good point. Besides the various infrastructure problems, I think the memorial lacks a sharp focus because of its size.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninjahedge
But a reduction in size will neeeeeever happen.
The crowd issue has directly affected the decision to change the original number of ramps as proposed by Arad to the current "one ramp in" / "one ramp out" design. This was done for purpose of keeping visitors from becoming "confused".
Go to: http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/sh...&postcount=214 or just read on from that article:
SOME speakers at the forum criticized the decision to reduce the number of ramps in the memorial.
In the original plan by Michael Arad, there were to have been four L-shaped ramps, two for entry, two for exiting, around both pool-filled voids on the twin tower footprints, reaching street level at the far corners of the memorial plaza.
Now, there are to be two switchback ramps that reach street level in the center of the plaza. Entry will be through the north ramp, exiting through the south ramp.
Ms. Papageorge said Management Resources, consultants in the design process, "actually suggested that we have a single entry/exit for orientation purposes because they felt that people would be confused if there were multiple entrances and multiple exits."
If you're going to quote me, at least give me a complete sentence.
Sorry, I was quoting the quote from Greenie.
I've fixed it.
Thanks
Memorial or Thrill Ride?
Public Presents Views on WTC Memorial
By Etta Sanders
Saturday September 24, 2005
http://www.tribecatrib.com/
Visitors should feel the horror. This was one piece of advice offered at a Sept. 19 workshop on the 100,000-square-foot memorial museum at the site of the World Trade Center.
While the memorial itself will be a place of remembrance and contemplation, the memorial museum that will be tucked below ground between the tower footprints will seek to convey life at the towers, the day of the attack, the rescue and recovery effort and the stories of those who died and those who survived.
The experience, said Jeff Howard, curatorial consultant for the memorial, should communicate "the immensity of the devastation and the enormity of the loss."
The September workshop was the first of two being conducted by the Civic Alliance, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) and the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation to gather public input into what should be included in the museum. A second workshop will be held on Oct. 11. (For more information go to www.civic-alliance.org. Public comments can also be submitted to the LMDC at www.renewnyc.com)
A report from the workshops will be available to the public and will also be given to the eventual museum director. The foundation is currently conducting a search to fill that job.
The workshop began with a presentation of what the designers already envision: a journey through the museum will begin with an iconic artifact that will stand at the entrance, perhaps the trident shaped remnant of the tower façade or the battered brass sphere that stood in the trade center plaza. The next section will show life at the towers before Sept. 11, 2001.
Visitors will then have a choice of paths, a so-called "immersion route," which will feature graphic images and the voices of survivors, or fact-based exhibits that will recount the events in a more informational way.
Additional artifacts-from crushed vehicles to piles of keys recovered from the rubble -will be featured throughout exhibits of the recovery, life in the frozen zone, the outpouring of support from around the world, the efforts of the volunteers, the spontaneous makeshift memorials.
At bedrock there will be a "library of memory" where family members of the victims can devote an album to tell of their lost loved ones. Before leaving the museum visitors can record their own stories and reactions.
Some common threads ran through suggestion of the 41 workshop participants. The space must be adequate for the numbers of people who will want to move slowly through the exhibits to reflect on what they see. There should be room to allow for changing exhibits as perspectives change over time. Artifacts from the buildings and the people who worked there, died there and lived nearby should be displayed. The stories of survivors and residents should not be forgotten.
And the museum should not shy away from powerful images. Suellen Johnson, an artist, said her group suggested using multi-media and even a smoke filled room to try and recreate the scene.
"It's vital for the museum to be very effective in truly depicting the horrible events of the day," she said.
October 6, 2005
Marking Off Sacred Ground at the Trade Center Site
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
"The I.F.C. cannot be located on the memorial quadrant," Gov. George E. Pataki said last week as he expelled the International Freedom Center from its place in the cultural building planned at the World Trade Center site.
From a long-range planning perspective, "memorial quadrant" is the most important idea in that statement.
It amounts to an official acknowledgment that the hallowed precinct that is to be devoted only to the memorializing of 9/11 has tripled in size since 2002 to become a 6.5-acre block bounded by Fulton, Greenwich, Liberty and West Streets.
By speaking of a quadrant, officials are also drawing lines in the sand, at Fulton and Greenwich Streets, within which they hope to contain the bruising battle over what is appropriate at ground zero. Otherwise, if the entire trade center site is regarded as untouchably sacred, a performing arts center and perhaps a half-million square feet of retail space and four office towers might be subject to elimination or modification.
"The conclusion of this debate is that the quadrant is special; indeed, sacrosanct," said Stefan Pryor, the president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. "Beyond the quadrant, Lower Manhattan flourishes with culture, life and energy."
Opponents of the Freedom Center, allied as the take-back-the-memorial movement, may see it differently.
Debra Burlingame, a member of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation board, was quoted last week by The Associated Press as raising questions about the performing arts center, which is planned across Fulton Street from the memorial quadrant.
"I'm sure we can have incredible theater, dance, all those things, but I'm not sure that it has to be there," she said.
And in August, Steve Cassidy, the president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, wrote in The New York Post, "Dance, music and theater institutions are needed, but not on this sacred, hallowed ground."
The words that development officials dread hearing - "dancing on the graves" - have already been whispered by opponents.
A map prepared by the Fire Department showing where human remains were recovered from November 2001 through March 2002 makes plain that the great majority were found within what is now called the memorial quadrant, bolstering its identity as a realm set apart. But the map makes equally clear that bodies and body parts were found almost everywhere at and around the trade center site, including the site of the Freedom Tower.
Early in the planning process, officials considered all of ground zero to be a potential building site. In spring 2002, the development corporation began preparing six possible site plans, two of which showed new construction on the tower footprints.
In June 2002, however, Mr. Pataki declared, "We will never build where the towers stood," effectively rendering 2.1 acres inviolable.
The April 2003 guidelines for the memorial design competition defined a "4.7-acre memorial site," including the tower footprints, bounded by an irregular polygon within the larger city block. The museum and cultural complex planned on that block, along Fulton and Greenwich Streets, were described as "a protective shield and a buffer zone for the memorial site" - in other words, apart and distinct from it.
In time, the cultural complex was transformed into a single building for the Freedom Center and the Drawing Center, which came under fire this summer from critics who worried that their offerings might be offensive or anti-American and that these institutions were occupying space that ought to be devoted to a 9/11 tribute.
On June 24, Mr. Pataki embraced the opponents' concerns and said he would seek an "absolute guarantee" binding the "cultural institutions on the memorial site" to newly articulated standards.
"I view that memorial site as sacred memorial ground, akin to the beaches of Normandy or Pearl Harbor," the governor said, "and we will not tolerate anything on that site that denigrates America, denigrates New York or freedom, or denigrates the sacrifice and courage that the heroes showed on Sept. 11."
Both institutions are now gone, leaving behind the question of whether these standards can reasonably be limited to the memorial quadrant. Some sense may have emerged as the development corporation explored options for relocating the Freedom Center within the larger 16-acre trade center site before Governor Pataki pulled the plug.
"I would have been O.K. with the Freedom Center existing somewhere else on the 16 acres but off the memorial quadrant," said Charles Wolf, a take-back-the-memorial advocate whose wife, Katherine Wolf, was killed in the attack. "But I realize that other family members would have wanted it off the 16 acres completely and I respect that."
Gretchen Dykstra, the president and chief executive of the memorial foundation, which will build and own the memorial and cultural buildings, said that expanding the memorial site to a full block, bounded on all sides by streets, gives it "a clarity that is intelligible, tangible and defensible."
About its tortuous expansion, Ms. Dykstra asked, "Is it surprising that thinking changes just as grief evolves?"
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
"Sacred"
"Hallowed"
"Sacrosanct".
F*ck it all. Lets build a church.
Torturous is the right word. However the grief is not evolving, it is metastasizing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gretchen Dykstra
I wonder if they'll be allowed to build restrooms on the site?
An acknowlegment that all which lies within the sacrosanct quadrant is now stagnant.Quote:
Originally Posted by BrooklynRider
October 6, 2005
Lower Manhattan Board Members Rebuke Pataki
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
In an extraordinary rebuke to Gov. George E. Pataki, members of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation Board took turns today deploring the governor's unilateral decision last week to evict the International Freedom Center from the memorial area of ground zero while the matter was still pending before the board.
Led by the chairman, John C. Whitehead, board members also said the sudden truncation of a long planning process could jeopardize their future effectiveness in the redevelopment of the World Trade Center.
"In all candor," Mr. Whitehead said as he opened the monthly meeting, "I must report that most of our board, including its chairman, were quite distressed that a process which we had established two years ago with full public approval was not allowed to work its way through to conclusion."
He added, "It is hard for us to negotiate and settle the many issues that will come before us in the months ahead unless we are seen by others to have the necessary ability to make the decisions, the necessary authority to make the decisions."
Every member of the board spoke out publicly, itself a great rarity. It was possible to infer from their statements that had the governor allowed the matter to come to a vote, the development corporation board would have tried to find a way to keep the Freedom Center on the larger trade center site, though off the memorial quadrant.
Whether supporters of the Freedom Center on the board would have constituted a voting majority, however, is open to question since at least two of them Roland W. Betts and Madelyn Wils might have been required to recuse themselves because of their ties to the Freedom Center or its chairman, Tom A. Bernstein.
Though one board member, Robert M. Harding, publicly declared his support for Governor Pataki's decision, a general tone of disappointment and discouragement ran through many remarks, even an undertone of anger at the level on which the debate had occurred.
"Regrettable and dangerous rhetoric was thrown about irresponsibly," Mr. Whitehead said. "The names of people of good character and good will were unacceptably dragged through the mud. These kinds of personal attacks should have and will have no place in our process as we move forward."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Talking Point
Free the rest of the W.T.C. from the memorial
By David Stanke
On Sept. 11, 2001, the World Trade Center was critically wounded by foreign terrorists intent on bringing America to its knees, On Sept. 28th, 2005, four years later, the World Trade Center died, brought down by a lethal mix of partisan fear-mongering, a reactionary and self-righteous American press, politicians lacking the bravery to stand for American principles, and a group of the bereaved looking to get the one thing they have always wanted, control of the W.T.C. memorial area as their own private property. At one time, I hoped that the memorial would be the spiritual and beloved heart of a revitalized and transcendent Downtown Manhattan. In four years of writing about the W.T.C., I have defiantly resisted the despairing name commonly adopted for the site. Now, I bid farewell and turn my back on the six acres. Ground Zero, rest in peace.
The Libeskind plan had an isolated memorial area with cultural buildings forming a bridge to the rest of the city. Only outside of the memorial area did other activities emerge, including culture, retail, and commercial. The “Take Back the Memorial” crowd targeted the first building off the memorial site, a cultural building. They rewrote the site plan, rejecting not just the specific institutions planned for the site, but anything not purely 9/11.
The definition of sacred ground has morphed to meet evolving agendas and may get even bigger – evidenced by comments from family members about the suitability of retail stores across the street. At first, 16 acres were sacred. Then, it was the Twin Tower footprints. Then it was the underground bathtub covering over 50 percent of the site. Recently, the area had settled at 6 acres on the southwest part of the site containing the tower footprints and a large portion of the bathtub. But the latest allotment suddenly grew when victim’s family members realized that the cultural building was not devoted to them. As this argument reached its peak, bones were discovered at Deutsche Bank next door. But no one has extended the claim of sacred ground to that space . . . yet. Sacred ground is not an objective, rational location. It is a political tool that morphs from time to time based on other objectives. It is curious that broader political debate should be prohibited on Sacred Ground, when Sacred Ground itself is essentially about power, politics and control.
It is not just the borders of the city that end at Ground Zero. The borders of the United States also end here. Governor George Pataki gave victims’ family members editorial overview of all cultural activities at the site, essentially appointing these individuals as the Ground Zero thought police. One of the strongest post-9/11 impulses was for the U.S. to respond as a beacon to the free world. That impulse is now officialy dead.
In response to this action, it is imperative that every Downtown organization and citizen let the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. and associated politicians know that enough is enough. It is time to erect a firewall around the ground zero memorial quadrant. Whatever else happens on that land, the rest of the W.T.C. site must be free of any control randomly selected by victims’ families. Culture, retail, and commercial should all be rebuilt with no discussion of how they relate to 9/11 or who it might insult.
Participants in all W.T.C. memorial activities should consider the moral framework of what is being done there. Current plans anticipate spending $500 million on a memorial dedicated exclusively to 3,000 murder victims. That is over $150,000 per person. Remember, these families have already received about $1 million per person on average to ease their loss. This spending is far beyond what the country spends even on its other heroes including soldiers, firemen and policemen who have died in service on any day other than 9/11/2001. Remember that we are a country at war, with a couple of states on the gulf seriously devastated, facing critical issues of fuel shortages, huge budget deficits, global warming, intractable poverty, racism, struggling public education, risks of pandemics, world hunger, genocide and ongoing risks of terrorist attacks. Since when do we have the resources to dedicate this level of attention to a monument to one defeat and its victims?
On Sept. 28th, the governor relented to the “Take Back the Memorial” crowd and abandoned part of his own vision that there should be something to lift us above the suffocating hatred of mass murder in pursuit of power and wealth; something that would inspire mankind to create a more peaceful and free world. He abandoned any hope that the memorial would serve as the heart of Manhattan. It is now simply a tumor perpetuating the work of the terrorists supposedly as an act of love for the deceased.
Half of the cultural facilities on the site have been turned into an expanded memorial center. The memorial complex, already a vast dedication of space and money to detailing every aspect of death and destruction, is now no less than a celebration of morbidity and defeat. Two driving values of American culture have been driven from the site. First, and most obvious, free speech and the drive to learn and expand through the expression and exchange of ideas. Second, a country built on perseverance, pragmatism, and pride in rising above challenges and crises has sunk to enveloping itself in the cloak of victimization, celebrating our losses to the detriment of the living.
The memorial center will clearly never tell the full story of 9/11. Specifically, it will not include the full truth of what happened in the aftermath of the attacks. Will it consider the ongoing looting problem that continued after the site was secured? Or the New York Times reporter who had his press pass to the site revoked after writing a story about the looting? Will it explain why a high ranking fire department official threatened physical action against me for taking pictures of the site in front of my house when a New Jersey fireman a week later was able to give me copies of a number of roles of film he took while wandering around the site? Will it discuss differences in the way remains of the deceased were treated based on whether they were a fireman, policeman or civilian? Can it address the political pressure exerted on the E.P.A. to declare the area safe to prevent spending more money on cleanup and protection of citizens? A memorial center telling the 9/11 story will never tell the whole story with the limits on free speech that have already been established.
It is another irony that the W.T.C. memorial dedicated to the “heroes” of 9/11 should be such an inherently non-heroic place. Heroism is courage in the face of danger, the willingness to sacrifice one’s own safety for a greater common good. The International Freedom Center was such a courageous concept. By focusing on human freedom and its role in overcoming acts of human hatred, the I.F.C. was shining a light into controversial areas. I am confident that America’s record of raising the standards of acceptable human behavior show favorably in this light. This country has made great efforts to reflect on our actions, and to correct those found lacking. It is that critical review of ourselves that allows us to set standards around the world. But at Ground Zero, that American confidence dissolves. Within these borders, we are unable to discuss the promise of freedom, because we have become too weak to stand up to the scrutiny.
David Stanke, who lives across the street from the World Trade Center site, serves on advisory panels on W.T.C. planning and frequently writes on rebuilding issues.
His e-mail is bpcunited@ebond.com
http://www.downtownexpress.com/
^ Excellent article. He nails it exactly.
Well, once again a posting of "Talking Points" inspired me. I wrote to the LMDC, gave them a blistering response to their actions over the IFC and cultural center, called for board's resignation and the dissolution of the LMDC. I'm sure they care.
^ Great article ...
The LMDC website is a joke.
No info on how to contact the LMDC except an email link.
No phone numbers, no addresses.
Does LMDC even exist?
If they do they just got a nice present from me.
But as BR noted, they could probably care less.
I wonder how it feels to become a sad and putrid joke?
David Stanke speaks the truth.
One thousand years ago the Vikings developed a system of arbitration and compensation as a deterent to bloodfeuds. Initially there was resistance as some felt it inappropriate to carry their relatives around in their purses and prefered revenge for solice (see "Bloodtaking and Peacemaking, Wm Miller, Univ. of Chicago Press).
Mr Stanke assigns limits of value to what the 9/11 families should get, and indeed it's without precedent, (several hundred of these families have yet to come forward to claim their money). I've had to cope with tradgic loss with no offers of compensation, as do many others every day, but I don't begrudge these people anything they can get, especially those orphaned the events of 9/11. Who can say when they've received enough.
If one is to consider the "moral framework" of this situation, take a look at the billions already gone by the board and who has profited from the ill winds of 9/11. With no oversight, why shouldn't the board members take turns recusing themselves while their projects get funded, and why shouldn't these designers, consultants, and contractors get well paid? The site did get cleaned up and the public has had plenty of glitzy models and digital images to look at. When it turns out none will be built, just to do it again.
Maybe the "process" should be looked at and some system introduced that separates the needy from the greedy.
I agree with you. Unfortunately I can't say more without sparking dozens of point-counterpoint replies.;)
I've reread this several times, but I'm too dense to penetrate to your point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nordica
Could you restate it for me?