Keeping the Vision at Ground Zero

[JMGarcia]

NY Times

As the two-year anniversary of Sept. 11 draws near, New York City — and the world — may well imagine that the site of the terrorist attack is on its way to transformation. Everyone has seen the thrilling structures planned by Studio Daniel Libeskind, including the exposed slurry wall that will remind history both of how deep the wound was and how solid the city's physical and social foundations proved in time of attack. Everyone is expecting the selection of a memorial to the victims that will be equally powerful. New Yorkers also trust that the leaders of the development will be able to combine these projects with a larger rebuilding of Lower Manhattan. The greatest memorial of all to the victims will be a grand, vibrant, diverse community of residences, businesses, cultural institutions and parks. But although our vision of what is supposed to be coming gets clearer every day, the process of getting there still faces some of the same problems it did in those first weeks after the tragedy.

Mainly, there is still confusion about who controls the 16-acre site. The owner of the lease on the destroyed towers threatens to dominate the rebuilding process. Other business people with ties to the area are pressing for plans that would maximize commercial development. Residents of the neighborhood want to have a park more than the slurry wall. The confusion isn't surprising, given the mix of public and private interests that had a stake in the site before it was destroyed. But ground zero has now become the most public of all American public places, and the decision on what to do with it must be made by public bodies for the public good. No matter who controlled it before, this site now belongs to all of its survivors, not one group.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, charged with coordinating the rebuilding, launched what turned out to be an inspiring and successful public process to help decide what to do with those 16 empty acres. It resulted in the rejection of some initial dull proposals for Mr. Libeskind's stirring concept.

Lately, Mr. Libeskind has irritated some with his demands and antics, but the development corporation and Gov. George Pataki, who pushed for the Libeskind proposal, should take those irritations in stride and protect the plan. The soaring tower that echoes the Statue of Liberty and the slurry wall that held out the Hudson River are central to the Libeskind vision. At the end of the process, if a dramatic promise has been nibbled into something mundane or worse, the political leaders will have failed at what is perhaps the most important monument and urban development project in recent American history.

Perhaps the most persistent threat to the public vision of the rebuilding process comes from the private developers who had a stake in the site before it was destroyed. Foremost among them is Larry Silverstein, who had acquired the lease for the World Trade Center towers six weeks before they were attacked. Mr. Silverstein is now involved in complicated court cases with the insurers, and he expects to claim between $3.5 billion and $7 billion and use it to build whatever he thinks best.

Mr. Silverstein and other leaseholders often appear more interested in expanding the amount of office and commercial space in the plan, but they must recognize that this is not a normal real estate development with a few additional legal entanglements. The site now belongs to a bruised public that has already resoundingly rejected plans that call for massive blocks of office buildings and stores. If the private interests involved in this venture fail to accept that, the public representatives should not hesitate to consider condemning the property and taking control on behalf of the people.

Others, well-intended, are pressing ideas for the area that would limit the scope of the Libeskind vision and drain resources away from the grander plan. One is the concept of a Museum of Freedom. All of ground zero, from the memorial to the 1,776-foot tower, must express the concept of freedom. A single museum about freedom would narrow, rather than expand, that feeling. And the idea of subsidizing a museum of any kind should compete with suggestions for other kinds of cultural amenities. That debate has just begun.

Governor Pataki recently came up with an energetic timetable for rebuilding Lower Manhattan, thus attaching his name to the whole messy venture. That is both commendable and brave, since the progress can be easily compared to his promises. Some critics have accused him of laying out his timetable so that he can have something to show his fellow Republicans when they come to New York City next August for their national convention. Mr. Pataki has denied such a partisan motive. But in reality, it is not a terrible idea to have an August 2004 deadline for the governor and mayor to be able to show their colleagues and the international media how much progress they have made at ground zero.

------------------

I wonder who's going to get taken more seriously. The NY Post and their pro-Silverstein editorials or this from the NY Times?

[Kris]

The Post is required reading for all decision makers and a reference for us all.

[Fabb]

One is the concept of a Museum of Freedom.

That is such a brilliant idea.
I can't wait to join hordes of visitors who will flock to this museum as soon as it opens. And will probably come back several times.
It's really the key to the success of the new complex.

I am, of course, kidding.

[BrooklynRider]

It will provide a chronological history of America's warpath and rampage to bring freedom to those predominantly white countries that we have a financial interest in, with a special section on why certain dictatorships and totalitarian regimes are "good and fine by us".

It should be as enthralling asthe Museum of Finance, which I'm sure you all know is in the old Standar Oil building because you have visited repeatedly.

[Fabb]

One of the very best !

[Kris]

Freedom will be enclosed in protective glass for people to study and admire.

[NYguy]

Quote: from Kris on 6:22 am on June 30, 2003
The Post is required reading for all decision makers and a reference for us all.You're correct.

NY Post...

GROUND ZERO ACTION

By STEVE CUOZZO *

June 30, 2003 -- GOV. Pataki has pulled the plug on the Ground Zero land-swap proposal, The Post's William Neuman reported Friday. It's the most welcome political news downtown has seen since 9/11. Now the question is: Can the governor can keep the streak going?

It sounds like Pataki's been reading the papers. The Post reported last month that Wall Street firm Huntsworth Financial - confounding propaganda that companies want no part of Ground Zero - is moving to new offices overlooking it because its executives want to be there to witness the site's rebirth.

And the Wall Street Journal reported last week that lawyers at Thacher Proffitt & Wood moving into the World Financial Center are enthused about getting to watch "the progress being made" below - and few employees chose an option to sit at windows facing the other way.

The realization that Wall Street honchos not only await Ground Zero's rebirth, but are excited about watching it happen, might explain Pataki's welcome and overdue action.

By putting an end to the trade talk - the idea that the city would give the Port Authority ownership of JFK and La Guardia Airports in exchange for the World Trade Center site - Pataki is at last heeding warnings that the reclamation effort must shake off its political baggage now.

Ground Zero planning, contentious enough, is sandbagged every week by another loose piece of luggage somebody throws on the belt. Two weeks ago Pataki was the culprit, telling the PA he didn't want a bus garage under "Danny" Libeskind's suburban-like sunken lawn. Last week Rudy Giuliani popped up to call for a 9-acre memorial park on the 16-acre site.

But the land-swap scheme was the worst albatross. The possibility that a city that can't manage to build public toilets might end up responsible for rebuilding Ground Zero cast a long, dark shadow over the site's future. *

As long as the land-swap idea remained alive, it made nonsense of whatever has been accomplished until now. The work of all the players - the LMDC, the PA, Larry Silverstein, his retail partners Westfield America and even Pataki's pet Libeskind - was at risk of being wasted via a deal that could have sent the whole process back to square one.

Why bother having the Pataki-controlled LMDC and PA plan anything if the city might end up controlling the site? Mayor Bloomberg has made no secret of doing something entirely different with it if he had his way. (And the stink the mayor's made over Pataki's scuttling of the land-swap talks, reported by The Post's David Seifman on Saturday, proves that Bloomberg took the idea damned seriously.)

This columnist noted with alarm on May 8 that "Pataki has yet to give the scheme the kiss-off it deserves," and "why he hasn't is the great - and inexplicably overlooked - downtown mystery."

Maybe Pataki just didn't want to tick off Bloomberg by publicly dumping the mayor's pipedream. But now the gov has told the PA to suspend talks on the scheme - and it looks dead for good.

What was it that gave Pataki a kick in the butt? Thank a new, more optimistic mood downtown, and the clock ticking down toward next summer's Republican National Convention here.

Ground Zero now has an air of physical progress - the PA is building a new PATH station, and Silverstein is doing preliminary work on 7 WTC next door. But true World Trade Center site redevelopment is still bogged down.

Both Silverstein's insurance issues and the strength of the real-estate market matter. But the real logjam is political.

Silverstein and Libeskind continue to bicker over who will be the lead architect for the 1,776-foot tall "Freedom Tower" that Pataki desperately wants under way for the Republican convention. (Does he think that the world's tallest office building can be drawn on a napkin a few weeks before the president comes to town?)

And the inertia is more embarrassing now that the rest of downtown is getting back on its feet. Delays at the WTC seemed forgivable when the area looked moribund. But in a climate where the Wall Street Journal reported last week that "Lower Manhattan Shows Signs of Recovery" and "The tide has begun to turn for Lower Manhattan," the Ground Zero morass is less easily rationalized.

Almost since 9/11, downtown's supposed irreversible decline enabled specious arguments against restoring the WTC's lost office space.

This newspaper for the past year was all but alone in insisting that downtown's condition, though serious, was not mortal - that its vacancy rate was far lower than was claimed elsewhere, that companies who'd once vowed never to return were trickling back, that the Financial District's great recuperative powers would inevitably reassert themselves.

Now this is happening in a way too obvious to ignore. Goldman Sachs has scrubbed plans to move traders to New Jersey. Uptown firms are kicking the tires at the WFC. After The Post first reported on Wall Street CEOs' dismay over poor street conditions and loss of momentum, Pataki announced a batch of short-term fixes and an accelerated construction schedule.

Although there's still plenty of space up for grabs, all it will take is a few big lease signings by year's end to make downtown look downright hot.

This is the atmosphere in which Pataki has finally buried the land-swap. Now, maybe he'll take the next step: lock all the players together in a room and not let them out until they produce a workable plan. It is not too late for the governor to drop his politically driven tinkering for what Ground Zero urgently needs: leadership.

[JMGarcia]

This is the atmosphere in which Pataki has finally buried the land-swap. Now, maybe he'll take the next step: lock all the players together in a room and not let them out until they produce a workable plan. It is not too late for the governor to drop his politically driven tinkering for what Ground Zero urgently needs: leadership.

Someone has got to control the children. ;)

[Kris]

And Cuozzo wins the Putz prize for editorial journalism.

[Evan]

Quote: from NYguy on 5:29 pm on June 30, 2003
[quote]Quote: from Kris on 6:22 am on June 30, 2003
Last week Rudy Giuliani popped up to call for a 9-acre memorial park on the 16-acre site. How does Rudy Giuliani have any say in the reconstruction? *He can complain all he wants, but he has no more influence than the rest of us.

[emmeka]

This is the Libeskind Tower 1

http://a.1asphost.com/guide/LibeskindTower1.jpg

[NYatKNIGHT]

You mean "Danny" Libeskind Tower 1.

[STT757]

"the Wall Street Journal reported last week that "Lower Manhattan Shows Signs of Recovery""

"The realization that Wall Street honchos not only await Ground Zero's rebirth, but are excited about watching it happen, might explain Pataki's welcome and overdue action"

Um does the NY Post even care that the Wall Street Journal is one of the companies that fled Lower Manhattan for NJ, and most of their employees will not return.

I work in Princeton and a couple months ago I was visiting a client who worked for the WSJ, he used to work in Lower Manhattan. But after 9-11 he and almost every other WSJ/ Dow Jones employee was relocated to the Dow Jones's sprawling campus on Rt 1 on the South Brunswick / Princeton border.

He told me that the WSJ/Dow Jones occupied 14-17 floors in Lower Manhattan before 9-11, now everyone has moved to the Princeton campus except the top excecutives.

He said they only have 4 floors in Manhattan, and that the real WSJ reporting work is done from Princeton.

He was under the impression that they would not be returning, which was really hard on some folks. Alot of folks live in Connecticut and now were commuting to Princeton NJ!

I think it's terrible the WSJ is not reporting from Wall street/ Lower Manhattan, Princeton is really nice but they belong in Manhattan. They can keep the back office stuff in Princeton but move the main WSJ operations back to Manhattan.

BTW..

The Princeton campus is locked up tight, cameras, security gates etc every where. It took me a while just to get into the parking lot, and they had someone escort me in a Pick-up.

[TonyO]

The president of the LMDC was just on NY1. *Hearing him talk, I got this:

- he wouldn't comment on the land swap deal, instead referring to the city or PA. *Seemed like he was implying it was a non-issue.

- More interestingly, relocating the signature tower from the NW corner of the site: open for discussion! *Seemed that they wanted to give the impression that all options were on the table for this.

- Bus garages that would make the "pit" more shallow: they are looking for other locations for this.

Pataki is definately flexing his political muscle here, albeit a flabby, weak one as I see it. *In the tone of the interview, it sounded like a more 'hands-off' approach to the buildings and a more 'hands-on' and rigid approach to the memorial.

[TLOZ Link5]

Customs hasn't returned Downtown either, has it?

[Fabb]

Bus garages !
That would be intolerable. Don't they have any respect ?

[Chicagoan]

Right on! I wonder how they can reconcile the image of the site, with emphasis on the area of the Towers, Hotel, and WTC5 ( I think it was)- as sacred ground and yet have a bus garage/terminal underneath.

[Harmonicaman]

An optimist's view:

Why the brouhaha over a bus garage??? *There's already going to be a subway tube running under the memorial site and the bus garage will be totally hidden and out of the public's view (and their perception). *The alternative is to send them to somebody else's back yard. *Does this mean we must also reroute any sewer and electric utilities that may happen to run under the site?

I think it is much wiser to utilize the space for something useful and create a fitting memorial above it. *This is a logical and practical compromise; especially considering how precious space is in that part of the city. *


And as for those people who are lobbying to expand the size of the memorial site; why propose half way measures - lets level everything south of Canal Street and turn it into a really big memorial park; or better yet, everything south of 57th Street, that should create enough room to make a really nice memorial!

I think the Libeskind plan is well conceived and the area provided is perfectly adequate to create a spectacular and memorable monument to 9/11. *Sometimes it's best to just accept what is and trust the decision making process - this pointless bickering over trifles is unseemly; I compare it to jousting with windmills. *

Don't worry about it, it's time to move forward. *Everything will turn out just fine in the end!

[ZippyTheChimp]

Some comments I remember from the PA presentation to CB1 (when the PA took a neutral stance on the subject of the bus garage).

There was concern that a bus garage would eventually become a bus terminal.

CB1 position was that they could not find a site in lower Manhattan for commuter bus parking - there was no alternative to on site parking except street parking.

The PA stated that there would have to be other facilities
located under the memorial. The structure that can be seen against the southern wall is power for PATH.

I may be wrong about this one - PA stated that by law, some underground parking must be provided.

Some suggested that underground bus parking is ok, as long as the two footprints are not touched. PA stated that this would severely reduce the number of buses that could be parked. Also, the entrance ramp (for trucks also) would be on the NW at Vesey, and this ramp would intrude on the north tower footprint.

Underground loading docks will be necessary.

[BrooklynRider]

The families of thousands of victims have assumed a proprietary interest in the development of the site. *They advocate for a place for family members to go to comtemplate their loss. *Yet, they are adverse to putting a bus garage on the site to accommodate visitors. *

Now, I am guessing that, if the PA proposed a bus garage for victims families only, they would somehow find a way to justify it.

To not include a bus garage would be a monumental failure in the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan and the creation of a TRUE transportation hub.

[Fabb]

Quote: from BrooklynRider on 7:49 pm on July 3, 2003

To not include a bus garage would be a monumental failure in the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan and the creation of a TRUE transportation hub.

A failure ?
Certainly not.
I believe this will be the most advanced bus garage in the world.

[Harmonicaman]

This New York Times article succinctly summarizes the debate:

Posted on Sun, Jul. 06, 2003 *

Sept. 11 memorial to drive debates
By Edward Wyatt
NEW YORK TIMES

NEW YORK - For months the talk about the World Trade Center site has concerned office space, building designs, street grids, transit hubs and financing, but last week attention turned to what many people first thought of immediately after Sept. 11 -- a memorial to the dead.

June 30 was the last day for entries in the competition to design the memorial to the 3,022 victims of the attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania and the 1993 trade center bombing.

By the 5 p.m. deadline, thousands of proposals, enough to fill a caravan of delivery trucks, had been received at a nondescript, six-story warehouse on West 36th Street in Manhattan. The final entries trickled in for more than an hour after the deadline.

The contest is already expected to be the largest design competition ever, more than twice the size of the effort to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Little more is likely to be heard about the proposals until September, when about five finalists are supposed to be announced.

Entrants are forbidden to discuss their proposals, and the jury will review the submissions anonymously in an attempt, rebuilding officials say, to avoid the kind of political pressure that so infused the selection of Daniel Libeskind's overall design for the site.

While the winning entry, to be selected in October, will serve as the centerpiece of an attraction that is expected to draw millions of visitors each year to Lower Manhattan, it also must resolve several issues that have not become any less pressing with the passing months.

Among them is whether Libeskind's setting, with its exposed foundation walls and recessed memorial site, can be reconciled with the wishes of the victims' families, downtown residents, businessmen, architects, developers and politicians.

All have tried to shape the site's future to fit their own desires.

"This is a unique process that will bring together all the lessons we learned as a result of the site planning," Kevin Rampe, the president of the development corporation, said in an interview last week.

"The result will be a function of what we have said our intent was all along, that the memorial will be the centerpiece of all our efforts."

Rebuilding officials have insisted that the winning memorial must be faithful to Libeskind's plan.

Several officials acknowledge privately that far from the memorial being held hostage to the Libeskind plan, the memorial design itself is likely to drive many if not most of the decisions about the future of the trade center's development.

"The whole debate will change in six months," one rebuilding official said. "Once there is a concrete memorial plan, people will expect that to be maintained, and the question facing all of the other developments on the site will be, 'Does it work in relation to the memorial?'"

That is why, perhaps, that for all of the emotional upheaval and political jockeying caused by the contest for the overall design, many insiders predicted that the difficulties would only increase as the memorial decision drew closer.

Already, that has begun to happen.

Entrants in the memorial competition were encouraged by jury members to think broadly, and several people who entered the competition said privately that they hoped to undo elements of the Libeskind plan.

Family members of Sept. 11 victims, believed to be speaking with one voice immediately following the attacks, have splintered into several groups.

Relatives and friends of firefighters dominated a recent public hearing on the memorial with their insistence that rescue workers receive separate recognition in a memorial for their efforts.

A separate group of family members has campaigned for the preservation, "from bedrock to infinity," of all of the area within the trade center's foundation walls.

That would exclude more than half of the site's 16 acres from new development, not only at the surface but also underground, where much of the transportation system is already being rebuilt.

That group, known as the Coalition of 9/11 Families, which wants the federal government to take over the memorial development, also enlisted former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani to lobby for their case.

Downtown residents and businessmen, including two directors of the development corporation, have pushed for moving the memorial from 30 feet below ground level, where Libeskind would have it, to ground level.

That would allow residents and downtown workers to easily cross the site to reach the planned transportation hub, retail stores and office buildings.

Larry A. Silverstein, the leaseholder on the planned commercial space at the site, has publicly said he intends to work with Libeskind. But behind the scenes he has aggressively pushed to alter Libeskind's designs and proposed to move around some elements of the site plan, including the signature 1,776-foot tower.

Although construction of those buildings will not be completed for years, their locations must be settled soon to provide for the completion of underground structures, like concourses to move passengers around the transportation complex.

Broader questions also continue to hang over the site. Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who have agreed on little in recent months, have resumed a public battle over which entity will have jurisdiction over the site.

The choices are the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the property, or the city, whose economic future will be greatly influenced by the rebuilding effort.

For all those issues, what rebuilding officials fear most, they say, is that when the finalists are presented to the public next fall, the public will spurn them all, much as occurred a year ago when six initial site plans for the trade center property were rejected as unimaginative.

The problem is compounded by the requirements of the competition. Entrants were restricted to displaying their design concepts in two-dimensional images on a single, rectangular piece of presentation board, measuring about 30 inches across and 40 inches tall.

Whether such simple drawings will capture what it will be like to stand within the 4.7-acre memorial site is a very real question.

Anita Contini, the development corporation official overseeing the competition, has spoken frequently about the breathtakingly simple drawings used by Maya Lin as part of her winning entry for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the difficulty that many people had translating them into an understanding of what the memorial would become.

[Fabb]

several people who entered the competition said privately that they hoped to undo elements of the Libeskind plan.

Can they do that ?

Well, whether they can or not is not the real issue. Now, there's an easy excuse to alter Libeskind's plan if necessary.
Making the memorial a priority was very smart. The numerous proposals for the memorial will offer endless possibilities for the rest of the site.

[Harmonicaman]

Actually, the rules of the LMDC WTC Memorial Competition did leave the door open for designers to make changes to the overall site plan

In my opinion the jury will select a memorial design that fits within the plan envisioned by Daniel Libeskind.

[Fabb]

Yes.
But only if they want to keep him.
If the man proves to be more rigid than he was supposed to...

[NYguy]

A reminder of the Childs/Libeskind connection, from a Chicago Tribune article last year...
*********************************************

A huge skyscraper eyed for Ground Zero -- and why it might soar
*
Blair Kamin, Tribune architecture critic
Published June 6, 2002

For months, the conventional wisdom about putting up new skyscrapers at ground zero has gone like this: They should rise no more than 50, maybe 70, stories because nobody will want to rent office space in a gigantic high-rise that could serve as a bull's-eye for fanatics.

But another idea has surfaced in recent days, and it ought to be debated around the nation before the multibillion-dollar, federally backed rebuilding project gets under way: Build something monumental. Not a replica of the twin towers, but a bold architectural statement that would restore a jolt of thrilling verticality to a skyline that now looks fairly uniform in height and therefore rather dull. *

This view has taken hold among the architects drawing up plans for Larry Silverstein, the developer who owns the lease to the World Trade Center.

The architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill of New York, have quietly drafted plans for an office building that would rise at least 1,300 feet, roughly the same height as the twin towers, they revealed to the Tribune this week.

A soaring skyscraper also appears to be winning support among ordinary citizens, many of whom have joined with influential civic groups in recent years to oppose supertall buildings on the grounds that the megatowers cast enormous shadows and blot out the sky.

Consider what Jonathan Hakala of Hoboken, N.J., a venture capitalist who worked on the 77th floor of 1 World Trade Center, had to say at a May 23 public hearing about rebuilding lower Manhattan: "If you're going to put buildings on the site, build one of the seven modern wonders of the world, and please give us a skyline that will once again cause our spirits to soar."

Hundreds of people at the meeting cheered his remarks. But perhaps all of us should applaud.

Why not think again about scraping the sky, especially now that the last piece of steel has been removed from ground zero? Surely that idea should be on the agenda now that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the Trade Center site, and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the city-state agency spearheading the rebuilding, have chosen the New York City architectural firm of Beyer Blinder Belle to draw up a range of development plans for the 16-acre site as a whole.

Properly handled, a very tall tower could complement, rather than compete with, the memorial that will be built at ground zero. It would act as a kind of campanile that would beckon pilgrims to the site. It also would make permanent the link to the heavens suggested by the ghostly vertical beams of the temporary "Tribute in Light" memorial, which captivated Americans in March and April.

This is not a call to erect the world's tallest building, a chest-thumping, let's-show-'em display of America's global economic might that would repeat the overwrought gigantism of the twin towers. Height, in this case, is less important than what a very tall building can achieve -- a poetic spiritual statement rather than a raw assertion of power.

The key to making such a statement is that the identity of a skyscraper is relative. It has to be significantly taller than the buildings around it. Otherwise, it's just another urban foothill, not a mountain that commands the eye. Whatever one thought of the boxy and banal towers of the Trade Center, no one could deny their power to mark the view of lower Manhattan like a pair of giant totem poles.

"It gave purpose and a focus to that whole urban assembly," said David Childs, the Skidmore partner who is working with Silverstein. "So when it was gone, the void was even sharper."

For precisely that reason, it has been difficult to get excited about the public pronouncements coming from Silverstein post-Sept. 11. Since the terrorist attacks, the developer has maintained that he wants to build four or five office buildings of roughly 50 to 70 stories.

Of course, his caution is understandable. "People are jittery enough in New York that developers feel that it's too risky to build something supertall," says Carol Willis, director of The Skyscraper Museum in New York. "There isn't a market for those top floors. Developers are likely reflecting the still-shocked and stricken character of all of our psyches."

In the last 20 years, she adds, influential New Yorkers have turned against plans for megatowers, like the tallest building schemes developer Donald Trump has unsuccessfully floated for lower Manhattan and the city's upper West Side. "People march and say, `We don't like the shadows. Our children will turn pale and sickly,'" Willis says. "New York did not have the civic appetite for tall buildings. They had civic advocates actively yelling against adventurous buildings."

Behind the scenes, however, with Silverstein's apparent approval, Skidmore has been working on conceptual plans for a very tall tower -- one that might rise to roughly the same height as 1 World Trade Center and its sister, 2 World Trade Center, which were, respectively, 1,368 and 1,362 feet tall.

The tower also could be shorter, perhaps 1,300 feet or 1,350 feet, but it clearly would be no ordinary office building. It would contain about 65 to 70 stories of office floors, with the highest of those floors reaching 900 feet or more. Above them would be an empty vertical space, enclosed in a skeletal extension of the building's superstructure, making it visible to passersby. This chamber of air, which would be 300 to 400 feet tall, would soar ethereally toward the clouds.

At its summit, the building "would begin to dissolve like the branches of a tree," Childs said. Silverstein, he added, is "greatly intrigued" with the proposal, which calls for the tower to shift from a rectangular base shaped by the city street grid to a circular top.

Childs declined to make an image of the design available for publication, saying it remains in the conceptual stage.

Still, having seen an architectural model of the design, I can observe that it's a clever plan -- a way for the developer, his architect and all of New York, perhaps, to have things both ways. You don't want to be in an office above 70 stories? The proposal doesn't go above that limit. You want a soaring, inspiring memorial? The plan accommodates that desire too.

But Child's plan is more than merely clever; it has the potential to be profound. The essence of its skyline statement would be absence, not presence, a void rather than a solid -- an idea that seems exquisitely appropriate to memorialize the 2,823 people killed in the attacks. It also turns out to be a form that architects have explored before, though not to memorialize such tragic events.

In 1988, for instance, the French architect Jean Nouvel won an architectural competition for an office building in the La Defense section of Paris with a design for a cylindrical, glass-walled tower called "La Tour San Fins," or the Tower of Infinity. The project was intended, oddly enough, to serve as a world trade center, one that would cater to French or international companies that needed office space in the capital.

The visual trademark of the Tower of Infinity was that it became more transparent as it rose, shifting from a base of polished black granite to a clear glass top that would merge imperceptibly with the often-overcast Paris sky. At 1,400 feet, the project would have been Europe's tallest building. But the recession of the late 1980s stymied its construction. Even so, like other unbuilt competition schemes, Nouvel's design has lived on in architectural books and lectures, and it now appears to be an idea whose time has come.

The rub, of course, is money. At first glance, it seems silly to ask a profit-minded developer to put a void as tall as a football field at the top of his skyscraper. Even if no one wanted to rent that space, the extra structure will surely cost millions of dollars, perhaps making the plan unfeasible. But this is no ordinary office building. Perhaps, citing the national need for a great monument to heal the wounds of Sept. 11, the federal government could subsidize this part of the skyscraper, easing the developer's burden.

Certainly, the plan has practical advantages. Because such a tower would have fewer office floors than the 110-story World Trade Center, it would not require the large number of elevators needed to ferry people to the top of a supertall building. These elevators take up room that might otherwise go to profitable office space and make such skyscrapers, in the words of structural engineers, "inefficient."

But the principal advantages would be symbolic. By poetically connecting the earth and the sky, a very tall building topped by a memorial would build on the foundation of the "Tribute in Light" and its twin beams of ghostly blue lights shooting into the sky. The top of such a building could be tastefully illuminated from within, forming a permanent tribute to the victims and heroes of Sept. 11.

A memorial tower also could be an integral part of the ensemble of buildings and public spaces at ground zero, including the memorial that seems likely to be built in the footprints of the twin towers. Indeed, the tower and the memorial might perfectly complement one another. The tower would act as a "skyline marker" that would draw people to the memorial. The memorial, meanwhile, would open a swath of ground-level space so people could see the tower from top to bottom, as they can so rarely do in Manhattan's crowded cityscape.

Yet for all these apparent plusses, it is less important to focus on a single proposal for the Trade Center site than to explore the concept of height. Certainly, other ideas could work. It would be foolish to close off options at this point.

Whatever its design, a soaring tower would fill the haunting gap that now exists in the lower Manhattan skyline. Just to the west of the World Trade Center, Connecticut architect Cesar Pelli designed the 40- to 50-story office buildings of the World Financial Center to be "foothills" to the "mountains" of the twin towers. Now, with the mountains gone, the foothills seem lost, in search of the 110-story backdrops that served as their aesthetic foils.

Some will pronounce it foolhardy to build a new symbolic tower in lower Manhattan because such a building would invite another terrorist attack. But as the federal report on the Trade Center's collapse noted, the key to protecting tall buildings and other symbolic structures rests not with a new wave of fortifications, but with better airport, airplane and airspace security.

Beyer Blinder Belle has a July 1 deadline to submit six proposals to the board of the Port Authority and the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation. Those plans will be narrowed to three or fewer by Sept 1, with a final blueprint to be selected by Dec. 1.

There is a fundamental issue at play here: How do we creatively respond to the challenge of memorializing the dead while going on with the process of living? Are we content to diminish both the heights of our skyscrapers and our aesthetic expectations for fear of another catastrophic terrorist attack.

This much seems clear: If we want what rises in lower Manhattan to be the stirring tribute that the victims and heroes of Sept. 11 deserve, then it's high time to think again about height.

Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune

[Fabb]

So SOM has been working silently. Good. That's for a reason.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Then the question is more obvious.

What the hell is Silverstein doing?

[TonyO]

This is not really new in itself, one could easily have inferred this from what has been said about that tower from the beginning.

What is new, however, is the idea of thinking tall again as a non-blasphemous idea. *We could actually think about tall buildings in Manhattan as a *good* concept. What a novel idea! *(slight sarcasm included for effect)

I bet that Silverstein does a power play here with this idea. *Sure, keep those floor empty and get the subsidies. *Then, when our collective heads get back into things, put floors in and rent the space.

[NYguy]

Quote: from tonyo on 6:20 pm on July 7, 2003
I bet that Silverstein does a power play here with this idea. *Sure, keep those floor empty and get the subsidies. *Then, when our collective heads get back into things, put floors in and rent the space.

Problem is, by then it would be too late. *Would the building be designed with enough elevators for future office workers above? *Probably not. *It sounds like the upper portion of the building won't have very large floorplates either. *It could work better with apartments, but that's not likely.

[JMGarcia]

It seems to me that both the Libeskind and SOM designs are essentially the same. Both have the same upper limit of office space. Why is one a "huge skyscraper" and the other not?

Personally, I'd like to see the design before I decide. The "branches of a tree" in the SOM design may be even more ethereal than Libeskind tower and it certainly doesn't sound like it will be occupied like Libeskind's. If it does appear beefier than it might be for the best but it should reach the 1776ft height, not 1300ft. I have said from the very beginning that the office tower part of Libeskind's spire should be much taller, almost the height of the roof of the spire portion, even if it is unoccupied. This design seems to be approaching that concept. Hopefully the ideal compromise of a beefier tower can be achieved by these folks.

[NYguy]

You're right Garcia. In fact I think it's where Libeskind got his inspiration from in the first place. *His was not the only tower to include open space at the top. *My favorite, Foster's tower(s) included about 200 ft of open space at the top. *

I think by the time these designs came around, it was already a given that Silverstein's preference (or anyone building there) was for the open space at the top, at least partially based on David Child's early discussions and to ease fears about height.

The 1300 ft figure was before Libeskind's plan though, and any modifications will be based on Libeskind's plan. *That means the tower will reach the 1,776 ft mark -including the observation deck, restaurants, and offices for the broadcasters who have also signed on since that 1300 ft mark was discussed.

[BrooklynRider]

I know it goes against the tide on this board, but I am more supportive of a developer lead solution than the current mess.

I think Liebskind needs to go - FAR FAR AWAY from this project.

[Kris]

Fine, but why? Because you're pro-business?

[BrooklynRider]

1) *I think Liebskind's vision is seriously flawed. *
2) We are far enough out of the lofty idealized "competition" and "selection" process to see that there are many on-going variables that impact design and planning. *People less familiar are "fighting" for the "integrity" of a plan that simply MUST evolve and change.
3) There are too many "commitees" who have their hand in this. *Nothing gets done by committee ANYWHERE, let alone numerous committees. *They simply add a bureaucratic, deadweight component to process.
4) This is NYC. *Silverstein holds the lease. Silverstein holds the money. *No one is better poised to build it from a financial perspective, lawsuits notwithstanding. *The city and government agencies need to tread lightly as far as honoring his lease, because there will be LONG ranging implications if they set a precedent of ejecting a legal owner through, what would essentially be a claim of emminent domain.

or, I'm just talking out my ass. *

[Fabb]

This is NYC. *Silverstein holds the lease. Silverstein holds the money.

Don't you see a contradiction in your theory ?
Because this is NYC, Silverstein is not the only one who can afford to rebuild the WTC.

[Jasonik]

I agree that the developer holds most of the cards in this game, but the LMDC was created to add NY influence to an autonomous PA piece of land. *That is the special flavor of this situation; the land is semi/quasi-public already. *Silverstein had an insured lease, so he must be 'made whole' for that.

Either the state pays to buy Silverstein out, or it makes a ton on his investment, tax base, infrastructure, etc. *Interest groups *are trying to bully him with the LMDC and Libeskind's 'public mandate' but really, do they have a choice other than to concede to his and the PA's final word?

[ZippyTheChimp]

Brooklyn rider, you're right about the developer, but wrong about Silverstein. He lacks the ego that created Woolworth,
Chrysler, ESB. I'm sure there are others who would like to put their stamp on history - where are they?

[Jasonik]

If it were broken up and dealt with in parcels, maybe, but the LMDC is pushing this grand unified scheme, so it won't go the way of the Civic Alliance "proposals" from a few weeks ago.

Do you think Larry would sell the lease now, and just be finished with the whole mess, sell the development rights? *I would love to see Libeskind's face if that happened.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I was speaking in the context of the buildings as skyline defining - since that is what most of us have a problem with. If Silverstein wanted to be bold and build a supertall building(s), I'm sure the PA would have no problem with it, as long as the site was developed as agreed.

Like or not Libeskind's design, he at least understands that this is more than replacing lost infrastructure. I don't understand why so much of the criticism is directed at him.
He is an architect contracted by clients - the primary being the PA. They control the site. Silverstein is just a renter - he has no ownership.

[Jasonik]

I guess I'm foggy on who has to rebuild, meaning must spend.
Silverstein is recieving insurance money to replace what he had rented, right? *
The PA is replacing infrastructure with Federal money disbursed throught the LMDC, right? *
The LMDC is kind of a planning and oversight body that commissioned a master plan by Libeskind, are they obligated or empowered sufficiently to ensure absolute adherence? *Did the PA sign on and agree to uphold this?
I have gotten the impression the PA could do OK without the LMDC in terms of planning, and rebuilding, but poorly with respect to allocating a memorial site, and dealing with the community. *Libeskind is the glue holding it all together, or should be. *
Maybe having fallen victim to the efforts that seek to undermine his vision and authority, I ask; do those with the money have to follow his lead?

The memorial selection has the potential to put all of this in a totally new light. *Of the players, when push comes to shove who has the best footing?

[TonyO]

I don't think that most of the comments against Libeskind's plan are targeted in a personal way. *If they are, I think its just misguided. *Its the plan, not him.

Silverstein has an ego. *Just not the one that builds tall buildings. *Otherwise I think he would have left this process long ago.

[JMGarcia]

Quote: from ZippyTheChimp on 4:39 pm on July 10, 2003
I was speaking in the context of the buildings as skyline defining - since that is what most of us have a problem with. If Silverstein wanted to be bold and build a supertall building(s), I'm sure the PA would have no problem with it, as long as the site was developed as agreed.

Like or not Libeskind's design, he at least understands that this is more than replacing lost infrastructure. I don't understand why so much of the criticism is directed at him.
He is an architect contracted by clients - the primary being the PA. They control the site. Silverstein is just a renter - he has no ownership.


I too have never understood how Libeskind can be blamed when it is the other players holding him back and indeed picked his design to begin with.

In the end run it is Pataki, via his control of the PA, that has the final say on all things on the site. Silverstein is truely the uneccessary complication to the matter. There would be much, much less conflict without him holding back the skyline.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Jasonik:
The LMDC draft scope of the GEIS is here
http://www.renewnyc.org/content/pdfs/WTCDraftScope.pdf

It will outline what's going to happen over the next several years. The document states that the Federal Transit Admin (FTA) will be the lead agency responsible for the PATH terminal. The FTA and the MTA will be lead agencies for the Fulton Transit Center. There will be a separate EIS for each of these.

The LMDC is lead agency for everything else.

[Jasonik]

Zippy, thank-you.

So essentially Silverstein has a lease on this stack of paper...

[NYguy]

NY Post...

WTC SPACE DEBATE

By WILLIAM NEUMAN *

July 11, 2003 -- Development officials are considering slashing the amount of office space to be built at Ground Zero — reopening a potentially rancorous debate over one of the key issues at the World Trade Center site, sources told The Post.

The Port Authority and the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. are weighing a 20 percent reduction — placing some 8 million square feet of office space at the trade center site instead of the 10 million square feet destroyed on 9/11.

Sources said even some top officials at the PA who had fought against scaling back the office space now realize the site can't hold 10 million square feet.

The office space issue has taken on a new urgency as planners get down to the nitty-gritty of figuring out exactly what will be built.

The debate — which could ruffle WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein — is rooted in the physical constraints of the site, where large portions have been set aside for a memorial and restored city streets.

The taller, wider buildings needed to provide 10 million square feet of office space would require bigger elevator cores, sources said.

Bulky elevator banks would cut into the space at ground level and below that could be rented to high-paying retail tenants. *

Silverstein, who has insisted on replacing all the destroyed office space, wants to solve the retail space problem by putting up five smaller office towers instead of the four envisioned in the Ground Zero plan by architect Daniel Libeskind.

But sources said the five-building proposal has been all but rejected because it would interfere with plans for a grand WTC train station.

The Libeskind plan approved in February contained two scenarios.

One showed 10 million square feet of office space on the site — with tall, fat buildings. The other envisioned 8.3 million square feet on Ground Zero, plus a 1.7-million-square-foot tower off the site, allowing for thinner, shorter buildings.

Attention has focused on the first scheme, but officials are reassessing.

The square footage debate has seesawed for months, beginning a year ago when a first set of plans was panned by the public for being too dense.

To accommodate Silverstein, officials are discussing ways of placing a building off-site.

Silverstein "has the right and obligation to put 10 million square feet back on the site," said his spokesman, Howard Rubenstein.

"The LMDC and Libeskind and Larry Silverstein are analyzing all the potentials, including possibly building off-site, but Larry has not had any discussion concerning less than 10 million square feet."

[NYguy]

Daily News...

Can't jam site

By MAGGIE HABERMAN

The man who hopes to rebuild Ground Zero may have to dream a little smaller.

The head of the Port Authority, which owns the site, has told developer Larry Silverstein that squeezing five buildings onto the site is almost impossible, sources told the Daily News.

Silverstein held the lease on the twin towers and has been pushing to change the Ground Zero plan by architect Daniel Libeskind, which envisions four dense office towers.

Silverstein wants five to make sure the full 10 million square feet of office space lost in the terror attacks is restored.

But sources said PA Executive Director Joe Seymour, who is an urban planner, told Silverstein last week in a phone call, "I can't see how five buildings work" on the 16-acre site.

Other sources said some PA officials are still discussing ways to help Silverstein, including buying the Deutsche Bank site at 130 Liberty St. for a fifth tower.

That building is on city land, and sources said the city won't likely sell it unless the PA pays full taxes on it, which it does not for the World Trade Center site.

A Deutsche Bank spokeswoman declined to comment. Spokesmen for for the PA and Silverstein said the sides were still discussing various options.

Insiders said maximum square footage is particularly important to Silverstein, who is trying convince a judge he needs to double his insurance payout to rebuild the complex.

[NYguy]

Silverstein held the lease on the twin towers and has been pushing to change the Ground Zero plan by architect Daniel Libeskind, which envisions four dense office towers.

Silverstein wants five to make sure the full 10 million square feet of office space lost in the terror attacks is restored.

Another 20 *or 30 floors of office space to the freedom tower could make up for some of that space...but Silverstein doesn't want that. *Maybe he will see the benefits of it if he can't get the extra tower he wants.


(Edited by NYguy at 8:21 am on July 11, 2003)

[Jasonik]

Does his aversion to height have anything to do with the terrorist insurance premiums that would add an oppressive cost to super-tall development?

[Fabb]

But sources said the five-building proposal has been all but rejected because it would interfere with plans for a grand WTC train station.


I can understand that. A five-building proposal is not realistic.
Here's my proposal : only 3 buildings of increasing height, say, 80, 100 and 120 stories of offices.
And there's spare room for a lovely park.
Larry, are you listening ?

[JMGarcia]

I was hoping that the taller of Libeskind's alternatives would get more serious consideration. It also has the plus of not requiring larger elevator banks.

[Evan]

I see nothing wrong withhaving 8.3 million square feet on site, and another 1.3 milltion square feet across the street. *This way, the site won't be as overcrowded as it would be with the addition of a 5th builiding, and more importantly, the site at 130 Liberty Street will get developed.

[Fabb]

The redevelopment of 130 Liberty St. is not a bonus. Who would have considered leaving it to decay ?

[billyblancoNYC]

A waterfall at the W.T.C.?

By Josh Rogers




The proposed waterfall designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, above and below.

How about building a waterfall taller than Niagara Falls at the World Trade Center site?


The idea perhaps sounds like just one of the thousands, if not millions, of ideas that have been proposed by architects and lay people and posted on Web sites, e-mailed to news organizations or discussed in barrooms all over the world since the 9/11 attack.


But far from some quixotic idea, a 250-foot waterfall facing the W.T.C. memorial area is part of the approved site plan by architect Daniel Libeskind. It is without a doubt the largest, least-talked-about aspect of the Libeskind scheme.


“It hasn’t come up in one conversation I’ve had with anybody,” Madelyn Wils said about the waterfall.


Quite a statement.


Wils is on the board of directors of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which managed the site planning process. She has attended virtually every L.M.D.C. meeting and executive session in which the Libeskind plan was discussed and has had countless private conversations with the various W.T.C. decision makers. She is chairperson of Community Board 1 and has presided over numerous public meetings and forums to discuss the site.


The W.T.C. waterfall would be roughly the height of a 24-story building and be more than 60 feet taller than Niagara’s American Falls, which is 184 feet tall, or the 176-foot Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side. It would be about 200 feet wide on the Greenwich St. side of the memorial site, according to the L.M.D.C. guidelines sent to the thousands of aspiring memorial designers.


The L.M.D.C. guidelines said that the waterfall was not part of the proposed memorial area, so presumably, the memorial ideas will all be compatible with a large waterfall.


A spokesperson for Libeskind said the architect would not comment on his proposed waterfall. An L.M.D.C. spokesperson said the state-city agency would not comment either.


Wils doubts if the costs of the waterfall have been considered yet and said the decision on whether or not to proceed with the waterfall plan will be dependent on the specific memorial design.


“I don’t know if it’s a reality,” she said, adding that it would be a major component of the design. “On the southern end of the site, that would be the predominating feature.”


Charles G. Wolf, whose wife was killed in the 9/11 attack, is on the L.M.D.C.’s family advisory committee. He had not realized there is a proposed waterfall opposite the memorial, but he is not concerned because he figures it won’t be built if it is not compatible with the selected design.


“If there is a waterfall and it works, fine; if it doesn’t work, let’s pull it out then,” Wolf said. “Nothing is cast in stone right now…. Waterfalls can be very peaceful, but a 250-foot waterfall could be thunderous.”


More than 13,000 people registered to submit a memorial design. The drawings were due June 30, and L.M.D.C. president Kevin Rampe said last week that he is certain more people submitted a design than the 1,400 who proposed a design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., which had been the largest memorial competition in the world.


The L.M.D.C. is not yet finished logging in every entry and the final number of entries is still unknown. The 13-member jury, which includes leaders in the world of art, architecture and academia, will select up to five by September and is expected to pick the final design in October.


Rampe and some members of the jury, in public comments, have encouraged the designers to be willing to deviate from the competition guidelines, but the written parameters do not indicate the same amount of flexibility. Almost 4,600 of the people who at least registered to design the memorial are from New York and are more likely to be aware that the restrictions may not apply. Wolf said he is not concerned that some artists could be at a disadvantage.


“New Yorkers know, ‘Don’t believe the signs,’ ” he said. “This is life. This is what you call street smarts. Does it set up different rules for different people? It probably does, but I don’t think it will box anybody out.”


Sudhir Jain, a member of the L.M.D.C.’s resident advisory committee, however, said he thought that some designers could feel constricted. He also was unaware about the waterfall. “If it’s a required element of the design, it should have been discussed more thoroughly,” he said.


Mark Ginsberg, one of the leaders of New York/New Visions, a group of architects and other professionals that advised the L.M.D.C. on the architectural selection process, said he had not given extensive thought to the waterfall, but he said he viewed it as a possible way to separate the memorial from street noise, similar to Libeskind’s idea to put the memorial 30 feet below street level.


He said he heard Libeskind mention the waterfall at least once during a panel discussion, and Ginsberg didn’t have the sense that the waterfall was a crucial element of the plan.


“Do I think the waterfall is critical,” Ginsberg asked. “No. Could it be nice? Yes.”
He agreed that the waterfall decision should be put off until the memorial is picked. As for the memorial, Ginsberg thinks, “if it breaks some rules, it breaks some rules.”


Ginsberg is part of a group that has opposed efforts to change the more well-known aspects of the Libeskind plan. He favors keeping the memorial below street level and leaving the 1,776-foot tower near Fulton and West Sts. and opposes adding a fifth office building to the site, which has been proposed by the site’s leaseholder, Larry Silverstein.


Wils, for her part, said she finds waterfalls soothing, but she’ll wait to see what design the jury picks and see if they voice an opinion on the waterfall.


“I think the jury’s completely independent,” she said. “They are looking at this truly as an open book.”


Josh@DowntownExpress.com

[Evan]

I don't see how a 250 foot waterfall would fit in the WTC site. *It just seems ridiculous to me.

[Eugenius]

Think of what would happen to the visitors in the memorial pit if a strong Southerly wind started blowing. *I bet there would be some brisk business in umbrellas.

[Harmonicaman]

I think some of you may have a misconception about the design of Libeskind's waterfall...

It's not a continuous waterfall but a system of terraces. *The Greenwich Street site access ramp actually runs through the waterfall terraces feature. *The stated function of the waterfall is to shield the memorial pit from street noise.

The LMDC's WTC Memorial Design Competition website has a nice picture showing rough details of Libeskind's waterfall terrace:

http://www.wtcsitememorial.org/downloads/index.html

Go to Download #9, it's a PDF file. *Rotate it 90 degrees counter-clockwise and blow-up the right central region of the image to see the waterfall's preliminary design.

[Jasonik]

Huh... I never looked that closely. *

It looks crude.
*
In my mind I've always imagined a reproduction of a the ribbed trade center wall structure minus the glass, perhaps the shroud. *Water would gurgle out of the broken top, and flow smoothly down the stainless steel structure. *Where the ribs pull together near the bottom storeys, the water would shed off and cause a semi-transparent cascade through which the memorial site would be viewed while descending the ramp.

This is not part of my design submission, but will be should I make it to phase 2. *I am fearful of the windblown spray though, and doubt people will choose to get themselves wet.

It would be pretty powerful to have a 'thunderous' waterfall that recalls the terrifying collapse, but this is probably even more impractical.

The imagery of all the tears shed because of this event is an extremely poignant reminder. *I hope, if included it will have a delicate refinement in spite of the large scale.

[NYatKNIGHT]

I don't think there would be a spray issue, it looks like it trickles down the side of a wall. There may be a winter freeze issue though, like other fountains the water may be turned off through the winter (leaving an ugly stained wall) - we'll see. It could be one of the best parts of the whole redevelopment if done right. Libeskind said at the CB1 meeting that it formed a barrier between the memorial area and the more lively retail and commercial zone along Greenwich St., and the glass enclosed gallaria leading to Church St.

It doesn't look like too much thought has been put into the details yet. The backside of the waterfall shows up along Greenwich St. in this rendering :
http://members.verizon.net/~vze26pnp/GS.jpg

It shows up center right in blue:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze26pnp/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/model13.jpg

[Jasonik]

Dug In at Ground Zero

Daniel Libeskind Wants to Ensure His Lofty Design Goes Up, and Down, According to Plan

By Lynne Duke
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 10, 2003; Page D01

First of two parts (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42094-2003Aug10?language=printer)

NEW YORK

His pronouncements soar and spiral, in a Polish-accented high pitch that paints pictures with words, hides meaning in metaphor, and yields bursts of spittle-flying laughter about some intellectual idea or other.

The puckish 57-year-old Daniel Libeskind wears all black, too. There's the shiny black cowboy boots, the mod black-rimmed rectangular glasses and the black garb. It's his trademark. And it is not an affectation. He is the real thing, described in a recent book, "The New Paradigm in Architecture," as an architectural "prophet." In his days as a theorist rather than a practitioner, he even had a kind of cult following among architectural students captivated by his metaphorical discourse. He is recognized for building powerful symbolism and narrative into his works, as he did with the Jewish Museum in Berlin, which one recent visitor said is a building that evokes tears.

Indeed, even the presentation that Libeskind made in his bid to design the stricken World Trade Center site provided a moving journey into his realm of symbolism. He described the site's "tragic vastness," of the surviving foundations that were "as eloquent as the Constitution itself" and which spoke of "life, victorious." His design, he said, would honor the dead but also reaffirm freedom. Framing the sunken depths of a Ground Zero memorial garden, Libeskind's odd-angled buildings would form a spiral whose apex would be a soaring "Freedom Tower" taller even than the fabled twins, with a spire that conjures Lady Liberty's raised torch out in New York Harbor.

The city was moved. He won the competition. State officials believed his plan most doable, most appropriate. The public, which had sharply denounced an earlier series of trade center design concepts by other architects, embraced Libeskind's vision.

But now, five months later, as Libeskind and redevelopment officials attempt to reconcile his symbolism-laden design with a host of construction, financial and political realities, he admits that his plan still remains vulnerable within the complex but delicate process that is reshaping Ground Zero's tortured spaces.

The cherubic-looking architect faces the site's developer, Larry Silverstein -- he of deep pockets. And Libeskind faces the feds, the state, the city -- which of course means tricky politics. Not to mention the armies of engineers, architects, urban planners, environmentalists, downtown residents, families of the dead, even the memory of the dead.

On any given day, so many variables are at play in this mammoth redevelopment project that what seems firm in the morning might have unraveled by dusk. Should the memorial district at Ground Zero really be located in the sunken pit where the twin towers once stood? Should the underground foundations, or the slurry wall, really remain exposed, as Libeskind envisions? Should his tower be as tall, 1,776 feet, as planned? Should it be designed exactly as he wants it? Should it be moved? And what about those hundreds of tour buses -- where should they park? Where should security checkpoints be installed? And on and on and on.

The revisions. The redesigning. The new studies. The jockeying. Not just an architect, Libeskind has emerged as a tough defender of his vision, amid the high stakes tug of war that threatens to pick his design apart. Sometimes he wins. Sometimes he loses. And the battle is far from over.

"When I walk on the street, people stop me," says Libeskind, eyes wide, as if still amazed. "They don't stop me for my autograph. They stop to wish me good luck. They say: Stick with it. Don't give up. Don't get stepped upon."

He acknowledges that he is vulnerable, that he's in a tough game, facing constant challenge. It is as if there are forces at work trying to strip his design of its soaring essence. When he talks about the onslaught, he talks of the need to have "backbone," to stand on "integrity," to maintain the public trust he believes his design represents.

Just who is trying to squeeze him? He breaks into gales of laughter. "I can't name names," he chirps.

Very diplomatically, he will only describe himself as being vulnerable to "the forces that would take this site and treat it as business-as-usual and say, 'Okay, let's get down to business' as if nothing had happened. But something huge has happened, something kind of immortal, forever marking this site.

"It's always difficult, a project of this magnitude," he says. "It would be very nice, in a dream world, that the public decided to build a project and it's going to happen. But we have to integrate all the aspirations and all the designs. There are many conflicts, and they have to be resolved and negotiated."

The site's complexity is mind-boggling. Libeskind's master design encompasses the 16 acres where the twin towers once stood, and calls for commercial buildings, cultural facilities, the preservation of the sunken pit, and space for a memorial to be installed once a memorial design is selected from a competition now underway.

Below ground, though, is where the plan really will take root. There the work has included repair of that massive slurry wall holding the Hudson River at bay, and the rebuilding of the commuter and subway train tunnels that coursed beneath the twin towers and were crushed in the attacks.

The bureaucratic tangle is equally as daunting. The site is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The redevelopment project is being organized by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. And both Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. George Pataki have considerable influence in the process, with Pataki being the ultimate arbiter. Pivotal, also, is Silverstein, the commercial leaseholder of the fallen towers, as well as Westfield America, the retail leaseholder. With all these parties represented at the table, not to mention technical experts of all kinds, even a "small" meeting on the project means 50 people will attend, Libeskind says. And the degree to which the public is emotionally invested in the project is perhaps unprecedented. Thousands of ordinary people have given their thumbs up (or down) to various designs presented over the past year. The LMDC, which solicited the comments, says the Libeskind design appealed to New Yorkers because of his preservation of the pit. In a local poll, respondents chose Libeskind's design over that of the other finalist, Rafael Vinoly.

Studio Daniel Libeskind, which has just finalized its move from Berlin into downtown New York offices near Ground Zero, has never tackled a project of this magnitude and complexity. In the past 14 years, he has been commissioned to design 10 buildings, most of them museums.

Until 1989, Libeskind's architectural designs were theoretical, the subject of his lectures and writings as head of the architecture school at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., then as founder of the Architecture Intermundium in Milan, which gave him a platform for his avant-garde discourses. He has taught, as well, at Yale, Harvard, UCLA and the University of London. His style is complex and fractal, with sharp angles and odd planes, infinitely building on one another, as if reflected in a mirror.

"The magic of architecture cannot be appropriated by any singular operation, because it is always already floating, progressing, rising, flying, breathing," he writes on his Web site.

With his wife, Nina, who also is his strategist, Libeskind has bought a loft in TriBeCa. Their 14-year-old daughter, Rachel, still in Berlin, will join them soon. Their two grown sons live on their own.

Libeskind's bio helps explain the fervor with which he is attacking this design project. Born in Poland, he lost numerous relatives to the Holocaust. Later, his parents moved the family to Israel. From there, when Libeskind was 13, they boarded a ship and sailed to the United States. They arrived in the morning light. Libeskind remembers the Statue of Liberty as his first welcome to America. They settled in the Bronx, and Libeskind became a U.S. citizen six years later.
The Architect And the Developer


It has become something of New York sport to pit Libeskind, the visionary architect, against Silverstein, the big-time developer. Both have large personalities; both are men with strong opinions and little hesitancy to express them.

"What Libeskind has going for him is the power of his vision, which really did capture the imagination of New Yorkers, and the power of his personality," said Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association.

As for Silverstein, Yaro deadpanned the obvious punch line: "Well, he's got this lease, ya know?"

It is Silverstein who holds the lease on the 10 million square feet of commercial space lost when the twin towers collapsed. It is Silverstein who has the money, from his 9/11 insurance claim, to redevelop the site. And it is Silverstein who has the legal right to rebuild what he lost.

The two men have no choice but to work together, and perhaps no choice but to speak kindly of one another in public.

"Personally, I like Larry," says Libeskind of the gravelly voiced developer known as a steely negotiator. "He's a real character, to say the least. A real character, a tough person, and I appreciate him very much."

After a bout of bad publicity highlighting the tensions between them, Silverstein declined to be interviewed for this article. A source familiar with his position, and who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said that Silverstein has a good relationship with Libeskind and feels the design plan is very well done and appropriate. Contrary to portrayals in the press, this source claimed it was completely inaccurate to say that Libeskind was being elbowed aside by Silverstein.

But from spring into summer, Silverstein and Libeskind traded jabs in the press over precisely who would design the 1,776-foot-tall Freedom Tower. The tower is to be the first building to go up on the site. With its spire, it would be the world's tallest building. Pataki wants the cornerstone laid by late next summer.

Though Libeskind proposed the tower in his master plan, Silverstein recently suggested that a different architect would design it. Libeskind then protested that he needed, as the master designer, to be involved to "set the standard of quality and spirit on the site for the future."

Not one to shrink from a challenge, Libeskind told a television interviewer, "I'm not about to just design the curbs of the streets."

The dispute finally was resolved -- in part at Pataki's urging -- when the two sides agreed to meet. It took eight hours, lasting deep into the night. But finally a deal was reached. Libeskind agreed to collaborate with David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill -- Silverstein's architect, known by the acronym SOM.

Libeskind always knew he'd have to collaborate. His Studio Daniel Libeskind is too small a firm, with too narrow a project history, to handle the huge World Trade Center project alone. Architects routinely collaborate on large projects. Nor is it uncommon for designs to be tweaked or refined as the project progresses.

Still, Libeskind and SOM are an odd mix. SOM is known as an establishment architectural firm that builds solid, attractive modernist buildings but in no way occupies the cutting edge of creativity. It has hundreds of projects to its name, including the Sears Tower in Chicago.

SOM submitted a design plan in the same competition that Libeskind won. Its plan called for a dense grid of high-rises that would be connected in the air to create new horizontal spaces high above the ground. Oddly, that plan was withdrawn before the competition reached finality. SOM also has designed Silverstein's 7 World Trade Center, which is under construction. (No. 7 is not part of the 16-acre parcel of land owned by the Port Authority.)

Childs said Libeskind had not been pushed aside and that he has "enormous respect" for the visionary architect. But because of the powerful hand that SOM and Silverstein hold, their collaboration with Libeskind has led to suspicions among some civic leaders that Libeskind's master design will be significantly altered.

The Civic Alliance to Rebuild New York, which includes more than 75 business, community and environmental groups, posted pictures on its Web site earlier this summer projecting how unattractive the site could become, with boxy buildings and shopping malls.

And, as if to confirm the civic fears, the two sides were at odds yet again shortly after their collaboration was announced. Silverstein publicly said the Freedom Tower might have to be built in a different location than that planned by Libeskind.

To resolve the tower dispute, Pataki, once again, intervened. There would have to be a "compelling reason" for moving the tower from the site where Libeskind has situated it, Pataki told the press. Libeskind is adamant that his tower be built as he designed it.

"It's not going to be another tower," he said when interviewed. "It's not going to suddenly be the tower from the SOM proposal that they gave." Then, as if backing away from a strident-sounding statement, he added, "And I believe we are both very enthusiastic."

Childs, his collaborator, confirmed that the tower's development will closely track Libeskind's design. It will be 1,776 feet tall, with an antenna, probably in the same location as Libeskind planned it, and with a "strong and meaningful relationship with the Statue of Liberty."

Childs added a caveat, though:

"But of course, everything is subject to the evolution of a design, of which Danny will be a part." And that evolution continued, most recently, when development officials appointed yet another big-ticket architect, Santiago Calatrava, to design the transportation terminal that is also a key feature of Libeskind's Ground Zero plan.

Libeskind praised Calatrava as a "great architect," and said, "Our design guidelines and our master plan will certainly be part of whatever Mr. Calatrava as an architect will do on that site."
'The Pearl'


Libeskind sees architecture as a naturally optimistic endeavor, the act of creation. Whether he is simply rationalizing, time will tell. But for now, he is philosophical about the state of play. "Evolution," again, is the buzzword.

The situation, he said, "is evolving and it's dynamic. Is it going to evolve and become a banal project? Or is it going to evolve and become better? It's the latter. If it's going to evolve into humanity-back-to-fish, you know, or [to] monkeys, it's devolution. But evolution means we can forge a consensus for everybody's benefit."

Metaphors come easily. From fish to monkeys and, now, to pearls.

He cups his hands like an open seashell. His eyes twinkle. He smiles puckishly.

"It is like the development of a pearl. You have a shell. It's a very limited area, this shell. Then you've got the sand, the friction coming from all sides, polishing. At the end, you get the pearl."

Lower Manhattan will be that pearl, he says, in remembrance of the dead, in celebration of life.


© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[NoyokA]

Childs, his collaborator, confirmed that the tower's development will closely track Libeskind's design. It will be 1,776 feet tall, with an antenna, probably in the same location as Libeskind planned it, and with a "strong and meaningful relationship with the Statue of Liberty."

Childs added a caveat, though:

"But of course, everything is subject to the evolution of a design, of which Danny will be a part." And that evolution continued, most recently, when development officials appointed yet another big-ticket architect, Santiago Calatrava, to design the transportation terminal that is also a key feature of Libeskind's Ground Zero plan.

I am wondering more about the unfolding at the DB property. If Silverstein and the PA is to buy it and transfer to the WTC site, the land transfer would subtract from their own insurance compensation, while the property is off site and with different insurers. But wouldnt it be cheaper to build onsite than to buy additional parcels, and recompense with the skinny of the on-site.

Question #2.

If Silverstein and the PA purchase the parcel how much do they dish out? Again its senseless. But I suppose DB would rebuild as developer and eventually put the buyer in the red, especially if their own financing doesnt include additional land appropriation.

tsk...tsk...

Im hoping the DB Bank can be repaired, or you guys can settle this issue for me.

[JMGarcia]

First, I doubt if Silverstein will purchase it. It is more likely to by sold to the PA or even taken by eminent domain by the city and given to the PA. Silverstein's lease will be expanded to cover it. Secondly, I doubt that DB wants to be responsible for rebuilding it themselves - its just too politically charged- but you never know.

The reason that its likely is too fold. There are complaints the site will be too crowded with all 10 million sq. ft. directly on site and Silverstein won't go higher. So silly.

[Jasonik]

I am not in the 'know' at all about this, but my guess is that the PA has the money to buy the property- no problem. *They will lease it to whoever, perhaps Silverstein, or Westfield, regardless, they will collect rent and recoup their investment in the land over the long term.

My take on the DB insurance battle is that the insurers know this is coveted valuable property, worth far more without the damaged building than with it. *Why should they shell out for a building that is to be demolished, when the policyholder will pocket the cash and then sell the property for a handsome profit.

I guess they didn't have the 'payout for rebuilding only' rider that Silverstein had on his lease.

[Kris]

A Year With Libeskind (http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/issueoftheweek/20040301/200/899)

[Kris]

June 20, 2004

The Incredible Shrinking Daniel Libeskind

By ROBIN POGREBIN

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/06/20/arts/liebskin.articlespan.jpg

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/06/20/arts/pogr.184.1.425.jpg
The future of ground zero as it was envisioned by Daniel Libeskind in December 2002.

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/06/20/arts/pogr.184.2.425.jpg
The future of ground zero as it looked to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation a year later.

ON Feb. 27, 2003, Daniel Libeskind stood on a podium under the palm trees in the Winter Garden's soaring glass atrium — the American flag behind him, some 300 members of the press before him — and entered the architectural history books as master planner of the World Trade Center site. A model of his plan was dramatically unveiled, praised by Gov. George E. Pataki as "an emotional protection of the site of ground zero itself" and by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg as restoring "lower Manhattan to its rightful place in the world." Mr. Libeskind quickly became a media darling and a bona fide cultural icon, from his spiky hair and funky rectangular glasses down to his elk-skin cowboy boots.

Yet last week — just over a year later — when ground zero's cultural tenants were announced in the same spot, Mr. Libeskind was far less visible. He sat in the audience, one row behind officials from the city, state and Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Governor Pataki praised the new transportation hub designed by Santiago Calatrava; the memorial, designed by Michael Arad and Peter Walker; and the Freedom Tower, which is being designed by David M. Childs, although Mr. Libeskind is collaborating with him. The governor only remembered to mention Mr. Libeskind at the last minute, after spotting him in the audience, saying that of course it all started with Mr. Libeskind's design.

Mr. Libeskind, smiling back at him, seemed satisfied. But people involved with the redevelopment of downtown say he has ample reason to be disappointed; in the year since he was anointed Architect on High, his influence, control and stature have steadily diminished. "Where is Daniel at this point?" said Robert Ivy, editor in chief of Architectural Record. "Has he been marginalized? How many of his ideas remain?"

Not many, it seems. The signature elements of his master plan — the Wedge of Light, the Park of Heroes, the exposed slurry wall — indeed, the very components that made Mr. Libeskind the emotional favorite among those competing for the job, have been altered, reduced or eliminated. With Governor Pataki determined to break ground on July 4, work is moving ahead on the Freedom Tower, but the planning is now dominated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, and by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the architectural firm hired by Larry A. Silverstein, the site's leaseholder.

According to those with knowledge of the proceedings, Mr. Libeskind does not even attend the meetings at which the plans are currently discussed. His once gushy press has lately been dominated by controversy: his power struggle with Mr. Childs; his battle with Mr. Silverstein over his fees. Governor Pataki still publicly praises him. But the shift in the architect's position suggests that the governor may no longer be an active champion of his cause.

To be sure, certain broad elements of Mr. Libeskind's "Memory Foundations" remain: a site divided by Fulton and Greenwich Streets into unequal quadrants, a memorial precinct in the southwest corner and an L-shaped array of office towers along Church and Vesey Streets, the highest pinnacle at the northwest corner. But in part that's a function of the political mandate to preserve the original tower footprints, limiting the number of ways the site could be arranged.

Arguably the sole remaining trace of what made Mr. Libeskind's ideas distinctive is the spire on the Freedom Tower — and some of the people involved in downtown redevelopment say even that may not survive.

How did it happen? How did Mr. Libeskind plunge from dominant visionary to supporting player? Several theories are currently in circulation: Mr. Libeskind had too little experience in the world of large-scale office buildings and profit-seeking New York City developers. Or he was politically savvy enough to know which battles can and can't be won. Or by nature he's less an executor of plans than a dreamer.

To this last, Mr. Libeskind said: "Dreamers are not impractical. The world has been made by practical dreamers."

In a recent interview at his Rector Street office near the World Trade Center site, the architect said that his plan had not so much been eclipsed as it had evolved — just as he intended it to do. "I think the plan has been going extremely well," he said. "We are absolutely on track."

He added: "This is not one of those master plans that are going to be forced on people like the Rome of the dictators. It has to be robust enough to withstand all the complexity and all the negotiations."

Asked whether he felt he needed to protect his original design, he said: "I'm not a guard dog. I'm a participant and I have to work with everybody."

It's a gracious stance, but distinctly at odds with the one he took in December 2003, when Mr. Childs's design for the Freedom Tower was announced. Mr. Libeskind told The New York Post that his role from then on would be to maintain the "guardianship of the master plan."

"When the politicians and architects and investors are long gone," he said at the time, "I'll still be on Rector Street making sure that every building on this site is dedicated to a very special moment in our history."

Ironically, his ability to compromise — although it has only lately come into full view — may have sown the seeds at the beginning of the design process for his eventual marginalization. He was smart enough to propose a flexible plan, one that could change in response to the needs of developers and politicians. That choice made him the favorite candidate for the job, but it also made him expendable.

MR. LIBESKIND first emerged on the scene as something of a savior. An initial round of planning for ground zero produced six designs — most of them by the firm Beyer Blinder Belle — that were generally deemed uninspired. Public disappointment in those results sent the development corporation back to the drawing board, and in Round Two Mr. Libeskind, who was supposed to serve as a juror, submitted his own designs to much acclaim. He conceived of the major components with a careful eye toward symbolism — a spiral of five towers, including one 1,776-foot spire echoing the Statue of Liberty; a Park of Heroes; a waterfall; a memorial descending down to bedrock.

For the public — in particular, the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks — the plan was a welcome antidote to a process that had seemed chiefly concerned with maximizing office space. And for Mr. Pataki, according to several downtown redevelopment officials, championing the plan (over the arguably more popular proposal by the architectural team Think) was a chance to make his mark in a period otherwise dominated by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. "Daniel Libeskind created a plan for the 16-acre site which would both remember loss and celebrate life," said Lynn Rasic, a spokeswoman for Mr. Pataki. "His vision continues to guide the rebuilding process — from providing a cultural framework around the memorial to reconnecting the site with surrounding neighborhoods to creating the height of the Freedom Tower."

Mr. Libeskind had a moving pedigree — his parents had survived the Holocaust; he had designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin — and a way of talking about both his own experience as an immigrant and his ideas for the site that was heavy-handed but affecting. Kevin Rampe, the president of the development corporation, said Mr. Libeskind's delivery was as crucial to his success as his ideas. "The one thing that people will never forgive in this city is a lack of passion," Mr. Rampe said. "He certainly relayed that passion and energy which I think helped drive the process forward."

But Mr. Libeskind's post-selection honeymoon didn't last long. Before two months had passed, pundits and architectural experts began calling his plan pie in the sky. Douglas Durst, a Times Square developer, told The New York Times: "I would expect the developer will negotiate what the buildings will look like. Ultimately, it would resemble the conceptual plan only in spirit."

Sure enough, little by little, the pieces began to change. "It very quickly began to morph," Mr. Ivy said. "Committees have come in and modified. The site became less deep, it became" — he paused — "less."

The first major change was to the Park of Heroes, which was cut roughly in half by a redesign of the Freedom Tower and an attached office building.

In February 2003, Mr. Libeskind was asked to raise the floor of his memorial. It was originally to be 70 feet deep, so as to place visitors right on the foundation of the original towers; now it would be raised by about 40 feet, so as to accommodate several floors to shore up the slurry walls and provide parking for tourist buses.

As for Mr. Libeskind's suggestion of a waterfall up to 100 feet tall, somewhere in the process it just went away.

Perhaps the most emotionally resonant element of Mr. Libeskind's original design was the plan to orient the memorial in such a way that each year, on the morning of Sept. 11, "the sun will shine without shadow." But in May 2003, the architect Eli Appia published a study showing that this so-called Wedge of Light would be in shadow much of that time from a building across the street. And Mr. Calatrava's design for the Path terminal, announced in January, moved the station north into the center of the plaza, which Mr. Libeskind had reserved for his Wedge.

Then came the battle over the Freedom Tower, the tallest building designated for the site. In May 2003, Mr. Silverstein announced that Mr. Libeskind would inspire but not actually design the buildings on the site. Mr. Libeskind said he was unconcerned. "I've been assured by Larry, whom I like, that I'll be meaningfully involved in the design of the building," he said at the time.

In July 2003, Mr. Silverstein persuaded the Port Authority to consider several changes to Mr. Libeskind's vision and hired Mr. Childs, an architect he had worked with extensively, to draw up plans. The Port Authority asked Mr. Libeskind to study the effect of moving his tallest tower to the eastern portion of the site, closer to a planned transit hub, and to consider adding an office tower above that. "Mr. Silverstein needed to build a building that had rentable floor plates," said Elliott Sclar, a professor of urban planning and public affairs at Columbia University. "Libeskind represents this vision that's floating above it all."

Mr. Libeskind fought back, together with his wife and business partner, Nina. If Mr. Libeskind is the artist with his head in the clouds, people who have worked with them say, Ms. Libeskind has her feet firmly on the ground, fiercely guarding her husband's interests. "I try to back Daniel whenever he's defending anything," she said in an interview. They hired Edward W. Hayes, who was a law school classmate of Mr. Pataki's and a model for the lawyer Tommy Killian in "The Bonfire of the Vanities," to negotiate with Mr. Silverstein.

Mr. Silverstein's office sent a letter to the development corporation and the Port Authority, claiming that delayed decisions could cause him to miss the deadline that the governor had set for groundbreaking. In April, Mr. Pataki made it clear that he was handing over much of the responsibility for the rebuilding to Mr. Silverstein, the only person on the scene with money who could actually build something. "As the governor said when he outlined his ambitious plan for rebuilding Lower Manhattan," Lisa Dewald Stoll, a spokeswoman for Mr. Pataki, said at the time, "this process leaves no room for error or delay, for parochial concerns or unnecessary legal battles." She added: "Quite simply, you're either part of the team or you're not. The schedule will be met."

The wrestling for control of the Freedom Tower became daily fodder for the news media for several weeks running. "Libeskind's Luster Eclipsed by SOM," said The New York Sun, referring to Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. "An In-Spired Shift at WTC," said The New York Daily News. As Mr. Sclar put it, "There was something admirable about the way he defended the integrity of his plan, but you have all these players with all these other interests."

Some started to sense blood in the water. On June 4, 2003, The New York Post gleefully introduced readers to "Fishing From the Pavement," a book of poetry that Mr. Libeskind had published in 1997, which included "10-dollar words and deliberately obscure references to radishes, bodily functions and genitalia." That same month, as Mr. Libeskind was struggling to retain his image as a serious architect, a pullout ad for Audi appeared in 15 Condé Nast magazines, featuring him posed inside a cardboard box.

One afternoon the next month, Mr. Silverstein and Mr. Libeskind holed up together and hammered out a truce; when they emerged, in the wee hours of the following morning, Mr. Childs was the lead architect, Mr. Libeskind was his collaborator. He defended his continued role: "It's not a matter of just moving a building here or there. It can change the views, the light and wind conditions, the composition of the entire site."

By fall 2003, the buzz downtown was that at its most basic, without all the symbolic flourishes, Mr. Libeskind's plan had turned out to be not so very different from the original six designs that were so roundly rejected. Joseph Seymour, the executive director of the Port Authority, told The New York Times in September: "When we roll it out, the land-use plan is going to be almost exactly what Beyer Blinder Belle proposed."

On Dec. 19, 2003, when the two architects appeared at the Federal Hall National Memorial to reveal a glistening, nine-foot-tall acrylic model, it was clear that Mr. Childs's vision had prevailed. The new tower eliminated some of the angular shapes in Mr. Libeskind's original drawings and devoted upper stories to office space rather than to the proposed gardens. On paper, the tower would still be topped by an off-center, 276-foot spire, but in Mr. Childs's lengthy discussion of the design, he scarcely mentioned that feature. Even so, Kent L. Barwick, the president of the Municipal Art Society, blessed the unlikely couple. "Though it was a forced marriage," he said at the time, "I think it worked out astonishingly well."

Mr. Pataki, who appeared with them at the presentation, has been careful not to take sides officially in their negotiations. "The governor tasked both Libeskind and Childs to collaborate and create a compelling design for the Freedom Tower which would work with the Libeskind master plan," Ms. Rasic said recently, "and they succeeded in doing so." But behind the scenes, had he in fact changed horses? Those close to the process say his loyalty was consistent: not to a particular aesthetic vision but to whoever could guarantee a groundbreaking in time for the opening of the Republican National Convention.

On NBC's "Today" show the day before the unveiling, Katie Couric asked Mr. Childs about his "rocky relationship" with Mr. Libeskind. "Creative minds have different thoughts about how you do things," Mr. Childs responded. "I wouldn't want to work with somebody who would just say yes." Asked more recently to describe his current working relationship with Mr. Libeskind, Mr. Childs declined to comment.

In an interview after the unveiling, Mr. Libeskind distanced himself from the project. "I'm not the architect of this building," he told The New York Post. "You have to ask Mr. Childs."

IN January 2004, Mr. Libeskind's plan was further eroded with the selection of a memorial design. Mr. Arad's plan called for the memorial to be brought level with the surrounding terrain. Mr. Libeskind's hallmark, the memorial pit, was now to be flat.

Since then, as the development process has moved forward, it has necessarily skewed toward the nuts and bolts: assessing environmental impact, solving technical problems and hiring people to begin construction, areas in which Mr. Libeskind, unlike Mr. Childs, is not an expert. Mr. Libeskind resettled himself somewhat outside of the spotlight he had once occupied and began to focus on other projects — a 350,000-square-foot multimedia building at the City University of Hong Kong, a shopping center in Switzerland and a performing arts complex in Dublin. People working on the project say that officials were tired of hearing about the creative conflict between him and Mr. Childs. "The Port Authority has told him clearly, `Get on board,' " someone with knowledge of those communications said.

To be sure, he is now spoken of as though the sun has set on his real contribution. Madelyn Wils, a director of the development corporation, said, "He's done a great job with designing the master plan and now he needs to work with the future architects, making sure their buildings make sense."

Meanwhile, Mr. Libeskind and his employer are engaged in a dispute over the value of that work. Mr. Libeskind had already been compensated by the development corporation for his work on the master plan. But he gave Mr. Silverstein a bill for $800,000 for his subsequent work on the Freedom Tower. Mr. Silverstein countered with an offer of $125,000, in part because Mr. Libeskind had not kept time sheets and could not substantiate his bill. The dispute has yet to be resolved.

"The attitude is very different in Europe," one architect familiar with the dispute said. "Architects demand much higher fees than in New York and people don't question the costs. They're the gods."

Some believe downtown officials ought to have stood by their master planner. "Others should have fought for him," Mr. Ivy said. "This is a case where the forces that be were inadequately cohered. We needed someone with the governor's power, the mayor's moxie to bring the parties together."

To others, the dimming of Mr. Libeskind's glow is inevitable, a function of both a culture with a short attention span and the proper progression from overall design to individual detail. If there is less excitement about the design for the World Trade Center now than there once was, said Frederic M. Bell, the executive director of the American Institute of Architects' New York Chapter, it is "not through any diminishment of respect" for Mr. Libeskind. "When the actual buildings get designed, they supplant the drawings of what they might look like with what they will look like, and that's natural."

For his part, Mr. Libeskind is resolutely positive about the changes he and his master plan have been through. "With each new piece, something good has happened to the plan," he said. "It's an amplification and an accomplishment of the fundamental ideas of the site and in many cases it's an improvement."

"I don't approach this as my plan," he continued. "It's the plan of New York. That's why the plan won, because it's very practical." He added: "True art, you have to work with business. We are living in a market economy."

The once feisty architect seems to have concluded that it is easier to work within the system than to fight it. Whatever the case, he is already reaping the benefits of his newfound prominence, having been asked to build several skyscrapers in Europe. And perhaps whether Mr. Libeskind proves to be the most influential designer of ground zero doesn't really matter; he was the first, and first impressions count for a lot.

"He provided the vision," Mr. Rampe of the development corporation said. "Has that vision changed? Sure. But he allowed us to see our way out of the darkness of Sept. 11 and to figure out what to do with the site."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[NoyokA]

Libeskind’s a good guy but it’s time for him to step aside, gracefully.

[JMGarcia]

My personal scorecard:

Calatrava vs. Wedge of Light - Imporvement

Childs/Silverstein Freedom Tower vs. Libeskind Freed Tower - Step backwards

Arad Memorial vs. Libeskind Memorial - Draw so far

[NYguy]

Interesting quotes...


The governor only remembered to mention Mr. Libeskind at the last minute, after spotting him in the audience, saying that of course it all started with Mr. Libeskind's design.

..... work is moving ahead on the Freedom Tower, but the planning is now dominated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, and by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the architectural firm hired by Larry A. Silverstein, the site's leaseholder.

According to those with knowledge of the proceedings, Mr. Libeskind does not even attend the meetings at which the plans are currently discussed.

Arguably the sole remaining trace of what made Mr. Libeskind's ideas distinctive is the spire on the Freedom Tower — and some of the people involved in downtown redevelopment say even that may not survive.

[MrShakespeare]

New York Post
(c) 2004 N.Y.P. Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

Saturday, October 30, 2004

PostOpinion

MISSING FROM GROUND ZERO

STEVE CUOZZO

EVER since Time Warner Center was completed last winter, many New Yorkers have been struck by the way its par allel towers momentarily evoke the taller twins that once stood downtown. But this month's opening of Jazz at Lincoln Center's spectacular new home in the Time Warner complex points up another haunting connection to the World Trade Center site. David Childs, architect of the Freedom Tower, also designed Time Warner Center. And Rafael Violy, who designed the jazz complex, also headed up the Think team that produced the runner-up master site plan for Ground Zero.

Violy's jazz-center masterpiece, officially Frederick P. Rose Hall, makes you wonder: what might the future of Downtown look like if Gov. Pataki hadn't scuttled his WTC conception at the last minute? What might a Violy-Childs collaboration have been like?

You remember the Think proposal: It is best remembered for its two latticework towers that would have risen nearly 1,800 feet above the tower footprints.

It was actually the winning proposal, endorsed by this newspaper, the Times' architectural critic and the Real Estate Board of N.Y. - and the choice of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.'s selection committee.

But Pataki overruled his own planners in favor of Daniel Libeskind's scheme. Maybe Pataki understood political and economic reality at Ground Zero better than anyone else: He saw that neither plan was viable as first drawn, but that Libeskind's was the easier to manipulate into buildable form.

Yet Violy's work for Jazz at Lincoln Center is so humane, so attuned both to the needs of the performing arts institution and to the many conflicting public and private requirements of its setting, we can only speculate on what might have been.

Now, Columbus Circle is not Ground Zero, just as Time Warner Center is no Freedom Tower; at Columbus Circle, Childs did not have anything like the creative latitude that he had Downtown.

The dimensions of Ground Zero and the jazz complex are so vastly and obviously different, it might seem ridiculous to draw parallels. But one glance at the egg-shaped Rose Theater, so warmly designed it seems to hug you, or at the smaller Allen Room with its heroic view of Central Park and the skyline, is enough to make you miss Violy's spirit at Ground Zero.

We miss, too, the comparative civility of the Violy-Childs interaction. Had Violy been tapped as Ground Zero's site planner, it's unlikely there would have been a destructive brawl between architects like the public spectacle that Libeskind made of his "forced marriage" to Childs on the Freedom Tower.

Libeskind presents a venomous portrayal of him in his book "Breaking Ground." Even Hollywood waits years to air its dirty laundry; Libeskind didn't wait for the ink to dry on the $370,000 check he squeezed out of Larry Silverstein for his work on the project.

At Time Warner Center, Childs and Violy worked together, with some inevitable head-butting, for several years. While Childs was responsible for the building's exterior, Violy designed the jazz performance venues and related facilities - a highly specialized building-within-the-building.

Although not a true collaboration, the job nonetheless required the two strong-willed talents to mesh. Childs and building developer the Related Cos. were amenable to Violy's idea to move two of the jazz theaters from the project's interior, where they were originally positioned, to its front.

The result is that two of the performance spaces enjoy stupendous views through the steel-cabled, double-pane window that Childs' firm, Skidmore Owings & Merrill, created for the facade.

The window is no mere ornament. Where Libeskind strained to invest his Ground Zero site plan with "metaphorical" content, Violy found a real and effortless metaphor in the Columbus Circle panorama: jazz musicians play before a backdrop of Jazz Age skyscrapers more evocative than any set designer could imagine.

As anyone knows who has seen it, the Allen Room is one of the greatest public spaces of any type anywhere - the result of two architects working for a common goal.

Will we ever see such shared purpose and subordination of ego at Ground Zero?
***