World Trade Center Endures. Read the Signs.

[Kris]

September 18, 2003

BLOCKS

World Trade Center Endures. Read the Signs.

By DAVID W. DUNLAP

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/09/18/nyregion/path.xlarge.jpg
Rendering of rebuilt PATH station shows that it will bear the name World Trade Center. Joseph J. Seymour, executive director of the Port Authority, believes "it's a statement of hope."

It is still there.

Not destruction, not excavation, not rebuilding and certainly not the passage of two years have erased "World Trade Center" from the map.

That name has persisted quietly, at some subconscious civic level, without official edict. It is poignant, on reflection, to find yourself on an E train marked "World Trade Center" or in a station with "Chambers Street WTC" plaques on the platform columns. But it is no longer startling.

And it is no longer simply a reference to the past.

Instead, a series of decisions points to "World Trade Center" as the formal, future name of that acreage downtown, Daniel Libeskind designs and all. This matters because what New Yorkers call the place will shape how they think about it. How they think about it will inform how they plan it. "You certainly couldn't call it ground zero," said Joseph J. Seymour, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the site and has given the name World Trade Center to the rebuilt PATH station, which will open in November.

"By naming it the World Trade Center station, it's really a statement of respect for those that died there and what happened there," Mr. Seymour said. "At the same time, I think it's a statement of hope, that the World Trade Center will come back to be a powerful and meaningful development."

Larry A. Silverstein, the leaseholder and likely developer of the site, intends the World Trade Center name to endure not only in the first tower he is planning but across the entire property.

"They will be World Trade Center towers," Mr. Silverstein said this week. "We haven't assigned them a number because we're not sure which tower will follow the Freedom Tower. Time will tell that."

Freedom Tower is the name given by Gov. George E. Pataki to the 1,776-foot skyscraper that is to anchor the site on the skyline. Mr. Silverstein has decided to call the tower north of that 7 World Trade Center, which was the name of the structure that stood there until Sept. 11, 2001.

"There is an enormous amount of emotion vested in that decision," Mr. Silverstein said.

"In my way of thinking, to call it anything else would be to try to deny, if you will, the reality of what transpired on Sept. 11, and to have the terrorists accomplish in some small measure what they tried to do."

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which is also involved in planning the trade center site, has "given no consideration to changing the name," said Matthew Higgins, the chief operating officer. "And no one has raised the prospect with us."

The World Trade Centers Association has already arranged to return its headquarters to the site, said its president, Guy F. Tozzoli. The group represents 286 trade centers in 87 countries.

Mr. Tozzoli was the original director of the world trade department at the Port Authority, responsible for planning, building, renting and operating the first World Trade Center.

He suspects that the name Freedom Tower will be supplanted in time by World Trade Center. "That name will endure forever," Mr. Tozzoli said. "It probably has more meaning now than it did before."

But not everyone believes that the name is fitting for future development. The New York chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts is sponsoring a panel next Wednesday on the subject of recreating the identity of the trade center site (www.aigany.org).

"As soon as you call it the trade center, you imply that it should be a coordinated complex of large-scale buildings that has a kind of heroic quality," said James Biber, a partner in the Pentagram design firm and a panelist.

"It pretty much negates being connected back to the city fabric."

Susan S. Szenasy, co-director of the Rebuild Downtown Our Town coalition and editor in chief of Metropolis magazine, called World Trade Center a "great name" for what it was. "It doesn't fit any more," she said. "We keep calling it the trade center but it's not. It can't be." She will moderate the panel.

She has been thinking instead of names along the lines of 9/11 Memorial Plaza. "The date somehow has to be marked," Ms. Szenasy said.

Although there are other names with historical connections to the site or its environs — Hudson Terminal, Washington Market, Telegram Square, Radio Row, Little Syria — none seem quite right.

Yet Ann Harakawa, a panelist and a principal in the design firm Two Twelve Associates, which lost its office at 90 West Street in the Sept. 11 attack, said a new identity for the site should acknowledge its context.

That name, she said, will affect whether the site is perceived as a discrete 16-acre parcel or part of a broader district.

Two Twelve proposed to Mr. Silverstein that he call his first building 1 Greenwich Plaza, recognizing the plan to recreate Greenwich Street, a north-south route that had been cut off by the trade center.

"We said, `How can you call it 7 World Trade Center when there's no 1 through 6?' " Ms. Harakawa said. "We loved the idea of using Greenwich, particularly because we were in favor of extending Greenwich Street through the site."

But Mr. Silverstein would have none of it. "I looked at them absolutely appalled and I said, loudly and immediately, `No,' " he recalled.

As one of the several million New Yorkers who still say Sixth Avenue, 58 years after it was renamed Avenue of the Americas, Mr. Silverstein offered a practical reason for keeping the name World Trade Center.

"Even if we wanted to call it something else, New Yorkers would continue to call it what it was," he said. "That's the way New Yorkers are."

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/09/18/nyregion/bloc.583.jpg
Neither destruction nor rebuilding has erased the World Trade Center name from subway stations, like this one on Church Street near Vesey Street.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[TonyO]

*Please* have some sense and don't name anything the silly, child-like, "Freedom Tower". Hearing it makes me think of Disneyland or Las Vegas.

[STT757]

http://www.pathrestoration.com/gallery/psr/2003/07/tpt2.gif

[STT757]

Sorry the picture did not go through, someone just e-mailed me recently telling me the right way to do it but I forgot. Sorry.

If someone could show me again I promise to remember, thanks.

[Kris]

There's a button now, come on.

[James Kovata]

I think the WTC name is essential. I would be shocked and dismayed ... and PISSED if anything else were used for the site and its structures. But please.....this Freedom Tower name.....don't like it. Perhaps we should have a poll similar to the California Recall.

1. Do you want to Keep the name Freedom Tower?

2. If not, which of the following names would you choose?

Just a thought.

[NYatKNIGHT]

I'm not sure I share the "enormous amount of emotion" that Silverstein has for keeping the same name for 7 World Trade Center. I suspect the public will eventually call it something else.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I think that World Trade Center is a fait accompli. There will be no effort to rename - too politically charged. It's also apropriate, given the historic nature of the site.

I wish Freedom Tower could be renamed, but with all the attention it's gotten, we're stuck with it.

[DougGold]

When the Twin Towers stood, people referred to them as the World Trade Center also. The terms were interchangeable, and actually they never had any official address that read "twin towers." Certainly nobody ever called them Tower 1 and Tower 2 that I can remember.

I imagine the new Freedom Tower will also be referred to synonymously as the World Trade Center, and have to assume that it'll have the official address of 1 World Trade Center.

[ZippyTheChimp]

The term Twin Towers was not used much locally. It seemed to be more of a description from a distance, as when in NY, visiting the twin towers.

Generally for New Yorkers, it was the Trade Center. Going there usually meant a specific building, so it was the offical address 1 WTC and 2 WTC, or North Tower and South Tower.

[tugrul]

Wonder if anyone managed to find/save the 7.

http://www.skyscrapers.com/files/transfer/6/2001/07/107424.jpg

It would be hard to call the building anything else if that 7 is affixed to the building prominently near the entrance.

[NoyokA]

I will only call it the World Trade Center. Others, what else could it seriously be called? Whatever they come up with it must have a connection to the global community. This is afterall the World Financial Capital. And New York City if anycity deserves a World Trade Center, and it deserves to be designated at Ground Zero.

[TonyO]

I think Snapple Trade Center has a certain ring to it?

[Freedom Tower]

I don't understand why everyone is so anti "Freedom Tower". It is obvious that it was named that to be patriotic after the US was attacked. If you "hate" that name, why? Is it because you dislike this country or are unpatriotic? Do you have something against the word freedom? Honestly, I dont understand why everyone has something against the word freedom? Would you rather not be free? I personally don't mind the name. I'm sure itll piss off the terrorists, and that makes me like the name even more. In fact, it makes me like it so much I have used it as my moniker. Plus you have the freedom to call it whatever you want. If the majority of people like to call it the freedom tower, then let them. And btw, what does fait accompli mean? After all, I am in America, and I can't speak any french.

[NyC MaNiAc]

I think we offended Freedom Tower over here...

It's alright, I like the name.

[TonyO]

Just a few reasons why the name Freedom Tower is bad: tacky, obvious, banal and trite. For the same reason "let's roll" was hideously used to evoke some sort of gut-American hooha, this smells too.

[Freedom Tower]

You don't think "Let's roll" is an important phrase? It is what the passengers said right before they stopped those evil psychopaths from destroying even more. If those words weren't spoken a lot more could have been destroyed. I wouldn't support running around all day chanting "lets roll", but the phrase has some significant meaning to it. I don't hear it used often. I only hear it on the news, where it deserves to be.

[LuPeRcALiO]

It's not the phrases that give offense it's the exploitation that stinks

[NyC MaNiAc]

Actions are more powerful then words. "Let's Roll" is great, but the fact that they stopped those terrorists from Taking Out Air Force One/The White House/The Capitol Building is better.

[Freedom Tower]

Oh yes, I agree with that completely. Some of it was exploited, and thats horrible. Some people exploited a tragic day. But let's not overdue it and make the phrase itself sound bad. Using the word "Freedom" shouldn't be completely stopped because it is always viewed to be "arrogant" or "over-patriotic". I think naming the biggest building on that site the "Freedom Tower" is justified. If they renamed the city "Freedom Land" or "Freedom Ville" then of course it'd be ridiculous. But naming one building something patriotic isn't horrible, and it can be inspiring as well. But this is digressing so I'm gonna stop complaining for now ;).

[TLOZ Link5]

I just find it kitschy. One of the operating names at the beginning of the process was "Liberty Square," and I think that's a bit more dignified.

[LuPeRcALiO]

TLOZ Link5 I admit that "Heroes Park" and "September 11 Place" would not be out of place next to Pancho Villa Plaza in downtown Tijuana.

[TLOZ Link5]

That's true also. But I like the Wedge of Light.

[Freedom Tower]

There was some confusion, it seemed, over where the new Freedom Tower's roof ends and where the spire ends. In one posting they said the roof would end at 1776 feet and the spire/antenna at 2100 feet. Skyscraperpage.com agrees with that one. http://www.skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=7788

However, how come in the renderings the antenna/spire looked the same height? And how come so did the roof of the small part of the building? The roof of the real office tower does look higher but that is all. If anyone can straighten this out further please do.

[NyC MaNiAc]

They were not renderings...they were MASSINGS. Don't go by them.

Wait for the RENDERINGS sometime next month.

[Kris]

What's In a Name? For the WTC, a Lot.

By Akiko Busch

There are 93 World Trade Centers worldwide. So what bearing, if any, does this fact have on establishing the name of the trade center currently under development in downtown Manhattan? This was one of the questions raised at "Starting at Zero: Reinventing the Identity of the World Trade Center Site," a panel discussion held Sept. 24 at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York. The purpose of the event, which was sponsored by the American Institute of Graphic Arts, New York Chapter, was to reflect on the issues around the moniker of the sixteen-acre Ground Zero site; consider how the site's identity can be rebuilt; and most of all, think about how a name had the power to reflect our views of the city.

An odd fusion of sensibilities has already formed around the "World Trade Center" moniker. It has been no surprise that corporate interests want the Trade Center's name to remain the same: When the rebuilt PATH Station opens in November, it will be called the World Trade Center Station, and both the Port Authority and leaseholder Larry Silverstein have clearly stated their intent to use the WTC moniker for the site.

But other New Yorkers who have no financial stake in the new development also favor keeping the name. They believe that the monolithic nature of the original towers and the scale of the catastrophe that brought them down give that place name an immutable power and resonance; the site will be forever associated with the towers and their collapse. Efforts to change the name would simply be a pointless--and offensive--branding exercise.

Panelist Joshua Sirefman, COO of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) observed that unlike the towers preceding them, the new buildings in the Libeskind/SOM plan would constitute a series of places (and functions)--retail, cultural, memorial, transportation hub, office space. But that said, the name "World Trade Center" has evolved, and he suggested the other identities of the site be established within that. "It will still be the financial center of the world," he said. "The name helps to convey that."

Other New Yorkers are of a different mind. If the monumental twin towers were expressions of 1970s urbanism, these citizens hope that the new buildings will represent a urbanism more responsive to its times--a complex of buildings that are more sustainable, more connected to the city around them, more human, more humane.

"This is a working neighborhood, not an isolated financial center, and the more the name reflects that, the better," said architect James Biber. He was echoed by graphic designer Ann Harakawa, who suggested that "a name can reflect these opportunities."

Believing that a new name can resonate with new intent and a new identity, architect Rick Bell, the executive director of the New York chapter of the AIA, stated, "This is a chance to do something better." Perhaps most important, moderator Susan Szenasy asked, "Is it possible for us to think beyond ourselves, beyond our own experience?"

Panelists also discussed accuracy in place names. The McGraw Hill Building, the Chrysler Building, and the RCA Building have all ceased to serve their original developers and tenants, yet their names remain embedded in popular memory and imagination. Certainly World Trade Center is a powerful name, and its failure of accuracy is probably irrelevant in New York City, where all manners of place names like Madison Square Garden and Battery Park are used unquestioningly. "Powerful names," said Biber, "have a way of sticking around. Names are tenacious. The best ones are the ones that are colloquial."

An audience member questioned whether honesty was more important than accuracy. "There is a concept in psychology of the good mother," the member said. "This is a mother who is OK--not a great mom, but not a terrible one, either. Can't we adapt this concept here? A good enough name would be OK. What we need most to be watchful of are dishonest names. We have a long history of dishonest names in this country--think of all the places named after Native Americans after we wiped those populations out. Let's just strive not to be dishonest."

"Having a meaning in a name is a wonderful thing," Harakawa said, but it seems to remain open whether such meaning need necessarily be rooted in history. The executive director of the Port Authority told the New York Times recently the name World Trade Center is "a statement of respect for those who died there and what happened there. At the same time, I think it's a statement of hope."

If it's a statement of hope you're after, it would seem only logical that you might choose a name not reflective of the past but resonant with the future. But in September 2003, that seemed to be only one more uncertainty about the sixteen-acre site. If there is any consensus two years after the towers' collapse, it seems to be that the names of urban places be decided by the public rather than by an institution. As one member of the audience said, "In the end, having a voice is more important than what it's called."

A writer and editor, Akiko Busch was one of the principal organizers of the "Starting at Zero: Reinventing the Identity of the World Trade Center Site" panel.

www.metropolismag.com

[Kris]

November 28, 2003

Stuck in the Present Tense, Pointing to the Twin Towers

By DAVID W. DUNLAP

While "World Trade Center" signs around the new PATH station startled commuters and visitors this week, a smaller but even more poignant graphic remnant of the past was hiding in plain sight across Church Street.

"What has 200 elevators, 1,200 restrooms, 40,000 doorknobs, 200,000 lighting fixtures, 7 million square feet of acoustical tile ceilings, more structural steel than the Verrazano Narrows Bridge — and was built for a final cost of over one billion 1970s dollars?" asks the colorful sign between seven-foot cast-iron posts, outside Century 21, near the corner of Cortlandt Street.

"That's right, the World Trade Center."

Just over there. Where all that remains is sky.

Rebuked by the rawness of ground zero, the sign continues ebulliently:

"Now, every weekday, 50,000 people come to work in 12 million square feet of office, hotel and commercial space in the seven buildings in this city-within-a-city, where they are joined by 80,000 visitors passing through an enormous interior shopping mall."

"As many as 10,000 visitors in a single day ride the non-stop express elevators — from the lobby to the 107th floor in 82 seconds — to take in the spectacular views of the city and its surroundings," the sign concludes.

The trade center sign was one of 42 markers highlighting points of interest around Lower Manhattan, installed six years ago by a nonprofit group called Heritage Trails New York. They were written by Anthony Robins, an architectural historian and the author of "The World Trade Center" (Pineapple Press and Omnigraphics, 1987).

It is the only one of those historical signs that history overtook. And it seems to have survived for the last two years in part because it was forgotten.

Mr. Robins said this week that he had not known the sign was still standing. A spokeswoman for Century 21, which helped sponsor the sign originally, said, "This is the first time it was brought to our attention."

And Carl Weisbrod, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York, which has taken over maintenance of the Heritage Trails markers, said his organization was only now focusing on the fate of this particular sign.

Should it remain in place, unrevised, as a kind of poignant memorial by default? Or should it be updated to serve those who rely on the site markers for current information? Is it too precious to risk outside, better suited to a new location like a museum or perhaps the World Trade Center PATH station?

"We don't know yet," Mr. Weisbrod said. What he did say was that the sign would stay in place at least a year while the alliance planned the future of the Heritage Trail markers.

That will give passers-by the chance to reflect, with Mr. Robins, on the lost innocence embodied in his text.

"It was a symbol of that unbridled postwar optimism that you could turn around a city by building this incredible structure," Mr. Robins said in an interview. "It's so New York. Count all those tiles! Count all those pipes! Marvel at what's possible. And now — marvel at how hard it was to put together and how many minutes it took to take it down. It's inconceivable."

He paused. "It's not inconceivable. But it ought to be."


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Clarknt67]

That's true also. But I like the Wedge of Light.

I'm more excited by Al Franken proposed exhibit "Wedgie of Right."

[JMGarcia]

:roll:

[Clarknt67]

Since you asked, why people don't like the name Freedom Tower. I find it kitchy and hokey. It also is wrapped up, in my mind, in all that post-attack "Freedom Fries" and "Freedom Toast" silliness. The triumph of Jingo-ism over substance (Ah-nold declaring it's time to clean house in Sacremento while coming out in favor of all things that are good and pledging to work against all things that are bad.)

I just think we can come up with something a little more diginified and a little less Disney-fied.

[SunsetWorks]

"Mr. Robins said this week that he had not known the sign was still standing. A spokeswoman for Century 21, which helped sponsor the sign originally, said, "This is the first time it was brought to our attention."

When I visited Ground Zero in May 2002 this sign caught my eye, and I remarked to myself that it was in very good condition considering what it had endured on that day. Perhaps a large vehicle nearby had shielded it from the force of the collapses. It ultimately belongs in the museum.

[SunsetWorks]

http://wtc.blbart.com/graphics/wtcsign02.jpg
May 2002

[Merry]

I did do a number of searches, but sorry if this isn't the right place to put this.

Tenants Lose Reminder of Twin Towers

By Carl Glassman (http://www.tribecatrib.com/index.php?option=com_zine&view=author&id=3:)

http://www.tribecatrib.com/images/stories/2009/april/painting-vladimir.jpg
In the 600 Building lobby in Gateway Plaza last month, Vladimir Poutchkov holds his rendering of the mural that was partially cut away. It since was removed entirely.

A soaring image—and poignant reminder—of the Twin Towers came down last month, just a block away from where the buildings stood.

For the past 12 years, a bird’s-eye-view of the World Trade Center was the focal point of a 16- by 18-foot mural that was cut into pieces and removed to make way for the renovation of the lobby.

To many tenants in the 600 building of Gateway Plaza, the Battery Park City residential building hit hardest when the towers collapsed, the destruction of the mural was more than a decorator’s indiscretion. It was a heart-rending loss to their home.

“Something meaningful has been taken from us and in its place I am certain there will only be a woeful emptiness,” said tenant David Baker.”There is a shame in this beyond words.”

“It’s just obliterating history,” said Honey Berk, another tenant. “The towers are gone. You’re going to take away the painting? It feels a little disrespectful, actually.”

Commissioned by the Lefrak Organization, the Gateway Plaza landlord, muralist Vladimir Poutchkov painted the unusual perspective of the towers in 1996. Not surprisingly, the piece took on new meaning after Sept. 11, 2001.

Beth Lamont, who lives nearby in Gateway Plaza’s 400 building, remembers seeing the painting on the evening of Sept. 11 when she managed to sneak back to check her apartment.

“It was reassuring that something was still all right in our universe,” she said. “The picture at least, the image of the towers was still intact. So it had a great emotional impact.”

Some tenants who moved into the building more recently said they do not have that same emotional attachment to the mural, but understand those who do.

“I personally don’t have a feeling one way or the other,” said Maureen Packer, a two-year resident. “But I feel for those people who are still here and went through all the hard times. It should stay for them if they want it.”

Others said they are glad to see it go.

“Finally, I don’t have to look at it anymore,” said a tenant as she swept through the lobby.

http://www.tribecatrib.com/images/stories/2009/april/mural-process.jpg
His wife, Larisa, works on the mural in 1996 when it was almost finished.

The renovation plan, it seems, had called for the mural to be covered by paneling. Earlier in the month, a construction bridge had been erected for work on the upper part of the lobby, and a board was glued across the top portion.

“It’s done. It’s going to be covered forever,” a worker told a Trib reporter. “It didn’t match with anything. When you see the finished product you’ll be, like, there’s no way there would have been to have kept that.”

Complaints to Gateway Plaza management apparently led to the removal of the mural in sections, for possible restoration somewhere. But tenants don’t know what will become of them. Gateway Plaza manager Robert Heller did not return calls for comment.

According to Poutchkov, Heller claimed that the pieces would be saved and possibly given to a museum.

However, speaking through an interpreter, he said he did not know whether he would be given a chance to restore the work.

“This was done in a very barbaric way,” said Poutchkov, who emigrated to New York from Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1993. “They could have called me and I could have taken it down myself. Of course, everything that was taken off can still be restored. Thank God it wasn’t entirely destroyed.”

Still, Poutchkov seems resigned never to see his work in one piece again.

“What are you going to do? Artworks have their own destiny,” he said, “and artists have their own destiny.”

http://www.tribecatrib.com/news/2009/march/133_tenants-lose-twin-towers-mural.html