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Nine Months After Sept. 11, Top Players in Rebuilding Look Ahead


New York architect Mark Ginsberg lives six blocks from the World Trade Center. He and his family moved home about a week after Sept. 11, but soon found that what may seem like a small inconvenience changed their lives. The sand in their local playground was removed because it had been contaminated by asbestos, and not replaced until March. "For those of us with small children, the park and playground were the center of our community. For the period that there was no sand, the center was gone," said Ginsberg.

Then he paused. "Today I have the honor of moderating a panel of four people who are putting the sand back into a much bigger hole, in the neighborhood, the city and the country." He was speaking at "Turning 9/11 Around," a June 11 symposium held by the American Institute of Architecture's New York Chapter.

Ginsberg moderated the symposium's first panel, full of top players in the rebuilding efforts from New York's public sector. "Something amazing is going on," said Alexander Garvin, lead planner for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. "It has been going on for nine months. I go to places and there are people from all over the city who want to do something. There are organizations that have never sat at a table with one another that are ready to work together." He said that strongest example of this is the fact that his organization and the Port Authority are moving ahead in planning the rebuilding efforts together.

Robert Davidson, chief architect for the Port Authority, showed computer animations of work done so far to rebuild the PATH station destroyed in the attacks, the designs for a new ferry terminal at World Financial Center, and plans for a transparent viewing platform at Ground Zero, to be up during the site's construction. "People want to see what is happening on the site," he said. He showed animation of a completely transparent steel fence on the sidewalks, with so called "viewing portals" at key locations. The fence, lit at night, would also have boards where visitors could leave tributes. The full boards would then be collected and replaced. "We are in the process of determining the ways that we will archive these boards so that they can be preserved," he said.

Stephanie Gelb, who oversees the planning and design of Battery Park City, discussed the ways that Battery Park City's response to the disaster and cleanup can help direct rebuilding efforts for the entire site. "Battery Park City cannot be a real New York City neighborhood until it is integrated into the city. Planning for Lower Manhattan must address the issue of West Street," she said. West Street cuts the neighborhood off from the rest of Lower Manhattan. The community suffered during the six months that the street was closed from traffic. "The community was marooned, and effectively split in half," Gelb said. "Residents in the north could not go to restaurants in the south. Residents in the south could not go to school in the north." Gelb said that she also learned that Battery Park City is not a suburb. Before Sept. 11, the neighborhood's parks and schools attracted families that might have otherwise moved to the suburbs. But after Sept. 11, occupancy fell 60 per cent by the end of the year. The number of residents is almost back to what it was, after lowering and subsidizing rents. The new residents are largely younger and single.

Patricia Lancaster, commissioner of New York City's Department of Buildings, detailed her department's role after the Sept. 11 attacks, and talked about how the department will regulate tall building's safety in the future.

The panel then answered questions from architects, planners and journalists. An edited transcript follows:

Q: In your opinion, what is the most successful new building in New York?

Alexander Garvin: The most successful new building in New York is Central Park. (laughter)

Stephanie Gelb: I like the Rector Bridge [newly in place to reconnect Battery Park City with other neighborhoods, which were separated after Sept. 11]. It gets you where you want to go.

Q: Mr. Garvin, who has control of the $21 billion allocated to New York City, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, or the Port Authority?

Alexander Garvin: That is a little more complicated...some of the money has not yet been appropriated by Congress. We have $ 2.7 billion that have come in the form of Community Development Block Grants. A large portion of that has gone to the Empire State Development Corporation, which is running an assistance program for affected businesses and for residents, subsidizing rents. In addition to that, there are Federal Emergency Management Programs that are being run by the federal government, and the Liberty Bond Program that is set up to bring money into Lower Manhattan. There will be a wide variety of other things, but at this point, I can't really take all $21 billion and numerate them for you.

Q: Let me restate my question. Who decides how that $21 billion is spent?

Alexander Garvin: The Congress of the United States.

Q: In your agency, or the Port Authority, who decides?

Alexander Garvin: The grant of $2.7 billion is a grant from the federal government, from the Congress of the United States, which has been granted to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. We are distributing that money. Some of the money went to the Empire State Development Corporation, and it is for business retention and resident retention in Lower Manhattan. You can read about the program if you go to our website, which is www.renewnyc.com, you can read exactly how that money is being distributed. The Federal Emergency Management money, which is in excess of $5 billion, is being distributed by the Federal Emergency Management Association, not by us, not by the Port Authority. Some of the other money is mainly being appropriated by Congress. That is as far, and as good, as I can do at this moment. If you go to our website you will see exactly which businesses qualify and how much the grants are, they are automatic, they are non-discretionary and are given to people who rent or live in Lower Manhattan. There are three zones, one includes Chinatown, one includes Lower Manhattan south of Canal Street, they are automatic payments that come from the federal government to us, and from us to the residents.

Q: What would you say are the most important characteristics of a great building, the kind that you would like to see built in Lower Manhattan? And what do you think it will take to get that kind of building built?

Alexander Garvin: As a planner, I would tell you that an individual building is not as important as a public realm. What we need to do is create as great a public realm as we can, a public realm consisting of mass transit systems streets, squares, parks and the open spaces, all of the places in which the public moves. One of the things that the Port Authority and we are trying to do to move this forward is to present alternatives to everybody, so that you can see how you might [take part in] that public realm. (That public realm, around which the individual buildings will grow up. That public realm is what, I think, is the single most important thing to shape. Thereafter, there are opportunities for some great buildings, parcels and blocks and lots that will be there when we are done.) Some of that public realm will be built by the Port Authority, some of it will be built by other agencies, but we have to create a really great public realm in order to induce wonderful buildings that will make the city a better place to live.

Patricia Lancaster: I don't think this is what you meant, but as your Buildings Commissioner, I would say that the greatest building would be the one that is the safest.

Q: Even though you talk about the unprecedented cooperation that has taken place because of this tragedy, the approach sounds quite segmented, with mass transportation and other planning areas being incorporated but not really all planned together. Also, input is being requested through public hearings, and through public participation. And also, billions of dollars are being supplied by a body down in Washington D.C. that's going to decide how that money is being used. This is an incredibly chaotic array of activities that are going on, and my question is: Who is going to be in charge of all of this, not individually, but who do you see as being the power structure that is going to oversee this whole process, and how will they be able to control the actions of all these different individuals, lobbies, and money interests?

Alexander Garvin: This is a democracy, and in New York, our planning is about as complex as you are going to get. We do not have a single czar, we have community boards, we have operating agencies, we have the public. There are endless numbers of players in any decision that goes on in New York. If you come to any of the public hearings held by the Planning Commission, you will see that an ordinary, item, including a curb cut, or building a cafĹ˝, might involve large numbers of people who in other cities, would not be involved. We have created this culture of public participation, and we are very proud of it. So I can assure you that no single individual could be, or should be involved in determining all of these things. We have crafted, with the Port Authority, a rather extraordinary series of events that are going to unfold over the next few months.

We had a public hearing two weeks ago, we are going have a very large public event on the 20th of July at the Javitz Center, in cooperation with Civic Alliance, the Regional Planning Association, the Port Authority and we. We will be presenting to the public at that time some of those things. There will be half a dozen proposals, with all the elements, not just on the 16 acres that the Port Authority is going to rebuild, but also in the adjacent areas.

In late September we are going to have, not three out of six, but we are going to recombine, so if you had A, B, C, D, E, and F before, you are going to get G, H and I, which will combine two different things. The public participation, which will identify for us which elements are generally thought to be desirable, will exclude those things without support, or not enough support. Along with our consultants Parsons Brinkerhoff, Beyer Blinder and Belle and our other consultants (because both the Port Authority and we have other consultants) they will come in and bring that together. Hopefully by the end of the year we will have come to some consensus on a single recommendation to then put forward through a public procedure, rather like what usually happens when things like this take place.

Robert Davidson: Just to build on Alex's comments, yesterday there was a four-hour meeting that took place at 115 Broadway that was the first of three meetings that began to consider all of the transportation initiatives that have been out there in the public realm, and we all know what they are. The first meeting was with the Department of Transportation, City Planning, the Port Authority, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. It was a discussion about surface transportation. We dealt with all of the transportation issues that bring vehicles into downtown Manhattan, let's say south of Canal Street. The next one will be on water born transportation, ferries. The same thing will occur with respect to rail transportation. At yesterday's meeting we also had the New Jersey contingent, and the same thing will apply to the other discussions, they will be representing both states, all the agencies, City Planning.

Q: I have made my mind up that there is going to be some form of transit hub downtown. And it seems from your plans for the new PATH terminal that it is going to be a hell of a walk from the PATH to Broadway-Nassau. What ways have you come up with to address this, if any?

Robert Davidson: Its no secret, because it has been out in the public discussion since probably November or December of this year, that we have been thinking about what we have been calling the "downtown concourse," and it is a way to deal with the issues that exist in downtown Manhattan. There has been mention of, downtown needs its own Grand Central, and that's probably true, I would agree with that in terms of public space. But the difference between Grand Central and what's going on in lower Manhattan, is that we have a linear progression of disparate transit systems that were created over time. And, some how, we need to link them up. And we need to link them up in the best pedestrian fashion possible. So [we have been discussing] the idea that this could be developed as an east-west link that would link the three business districts as we are calling them, the Financial Center, the Trade Center site, and the financial district, link those business districts with all of the transportation that exists and the new transportation that will eventually be constructed, for example the permanent PATH terminal and the potential for some bus operation to occur within that zone. That's on the table.

Is It Too Late to Listen to the City?


As New Yorkers prepare for the biggest public meeting on rebuilding to date and the opening of a major exhibit of ideas for downtown, it is hard for many to ignore reports that the plans being developed by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation severely restrict planning options.

Many will make sure their ideas are heard this week, even if it seems that much has been decided without them. "This is no different than election day on any given year. You don't have any guarantee that the person you voted for is going to follow through on their promises, but what can you do? You have to participate," said Errol Louis, a director at the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development. Louis will be one of the up to 5,000 people at Saturday's public hearing on rebuilding.

Six Plans
On Tuesday, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation will release six land use plans for the World Trade Center site. While no information about the plans has been officially released, they have already generated a great deal of controversy. Last week, unnamed sources told the New York Post that the plans are too alike. Reportedly, all of them include nearly 11 million square feet of office space, as well as 600,000 square feet of retail and an 800-room hotel. The New York Times later reported that, while all of the plans rebuild the office and retail space that Larry Silverstein and his partner Westfield America lost in the attack, none include the apartment houses advocated by many planners and residents.

According to the Times' account, each of the plans reconnect at least two streets, Greenwich and Fulton, that crossed through the World Trade Center site before it was built. They also each call for moving West Street, the seven-lane highway on the western edge of the site, underground. Because the cost to bury West Street could be up to $2 billion, some planners and politicians have questioned this idea.

Many urban planners and civic leaders, who have advocated for rebuilding options like housing and parkland, are worried that the press' rumors will hold true on Tuesday, and all of the plans will really look the same. "If the options are only different in building height or street grid type issues, then the reaction from all the civic organizations and other groups that have been looking at this will be that permutations that really don't adequately define what the differences are for consideration are not acceptable," said Rick Bell, executive director of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architecture.

Officials from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Port Authority and others have refused to talk about the specific plans publicly. However, rebuilding officials have repeated that the plans are not rigid, and that public input will help the groups come up with three different composite plans in Sept. If one considers the first six schemes as plans A, B, C, D, E, and F, explained Alex Garvin, head planner for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, public input on these plans will be used to create H, I and J, three completely new plans.

The six plans, drawn up by architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle, engineering company Parsons Brinckerhoff and other consultants, will be discussed at the upcoming public hearing on July 20 (see below) and displayed in the rotunda of the Federal Hall National from July 22 to the first week of Sept. The exhibition will include a way for visitors to leave written comments about the plans.

Imagining New York
A large exhibit of New Yorkers' own visions and plans for downtown will be on display at the very same time as the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's official ones. On July 17, "Imagine New York: an Exhibition of Ideas" opens at the Urban Center Galleries. The exhibit, organized by Imagine New York, a project of the Municipal Art Society, will show selections from ideas and plans that people--from professional architects to elementary schoolchildren--shared at the 230 workshops Imagine New York held throughout the region.

The group, which has been working to involve people in the rebuilding efforts since March, will shift gears after the show. "This is one of the last legs of Imagine New York's initial project," said Aimee Malloy, director of the exhibition. "What we are trying to do with this exhibit is to capture not only the ideas but the project itself; the democracy and public participation in Imagine New York."

While the 19,000 ideas and proposals Imagine New York gathered certainly are a testament to civic participation, it is unclear just how much influence they will have as Gov. George Pataki, the Port Authority and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation make decisions about the site. Holly Leicht, co-director of Imagine New York, explained that the group sent their summary of ideas to every rebuilding official. However, said Leicht, not very many people from the development corporation have asked to take a closer look at the people's visons. Members of the victims' family group advising the corporation asked to see memorial ideas, and the engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff, working on transportation planning for the corporation, requested transportation ideas.

Despite the rumors that all plans have similar limitations, Leicht is still waiting to see for herself how much of Imagine New York's findings were included. No matter how the plans look, she hopes that public participation after Tuesday won't now be limited to just talking about the options they contain. "It would be very premature for so many decisions to be made," she said. "What we've been told is that the six plans are really straw men, and that the three that come out in September could be very different."

Listening to the City?
Leicht also said that she hopes the six plans don't limit the discussion at the July 20 public meeting on rebuilding. Called "Listening to the City," the event will be the largest forum on rebuilding to date, open to up to 5,000 people. A room in the Jacob Javits Convention Center will be set up with 500 round tables, each with a computer so that the ideas that come up during discussions are recorded.

Each table will get copies of the six proposals, and a section of the day will be devoted to discussing them. If the official ideas are as restricting as press accounts say they are, the forum may be filled with angry New Yorkers. "People still really want an opportunity to say what they think, not just react to what has been given to them," said Leicht. Saturday's meeting will be just the second time rebuilding officials hear directly from the public.

The forum, sponsored by the Civic Alliance, the Regional Planning Association, and local planning schools, will also set aside time to talk about memorial proposals and general ideas about downtown. Louis, from the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development, one of the event's co-sponsors, said that he has been working to make sure that non-architectural issues are also discussed, such as affordable housing and creating new jobs for those unemployed after Sept. 11.

That is, if it isn't too late to bring housing back into the list of possibilities for downtown.

9/11/01-02: Altering The Political Landscape


Most people have probably forgotten that September 11, 2001, started out as a day when New York City held primary elections. That memory may resurface for many as they head to the polls on the eve of the anniversary, September 10th, for this year's primary.

This year's primary election is not just a calendar year away from the attacks, but it comes at the end of a year when the political fortunes of many candidates have been deeply affected by the implications of the tragedy. The attacks were the background of political life in New York starting with last year's mayoral race and continuing through this year's race for governor.

CAMPAIGN 2001

On September 11th, the primary was canceled by noon. Like other New Yorkers, the candidates for political office Ð not just the race for mayor, but some 400 candidates for other local races Ð stopped what they were doing. For a while, many considered it in bad taste to campaign.

But the primary was rescheduled, there was then a Democratic mayoral run-off, and within a month, the contest was between Democratic Mark Green and Republican Michael Bloomberg.

Mark Green was the Public Advocate, someone with years of political experience. Mike Bloomberg was a businessman who had never run for political office before. The city's response to the attacks became an issue almost immediately.

Sitting Mayor Rudy Giuliani had become a symbol of strong leadership in a time of crisis: his confidence and compassion had brought assurance and inspiration to a city badly in need of both. Although the new term limits law meant he was unable to run for a third term as mayor, New Yorkers of every political persuasion were grateful to him for his role in the days and weeks following the attacks.

Against this backdrop, Mark Green choose to make a public comment critical of the mayor's recent job performance. His remarks suggested he would have or could have done as good a job if he himself had been mayor. Whether or not this statement was accurate, it was considered highly inappropriate and mean-spirited, and Green was widely criticized for making it.

At about the same time, Giuliani endorsed Bloomberg. Although Bloomberg was running as a Republican, the same party Giuliani belonged to, the two men came from very different backgrounds and were not natural political allies. But the fact that Giuliani made the decision under these unusual circumstances only made the endorsement more compelling. Giuliani's decision to make Bloomberg his public choice had a profound and immediate impact on the race.

Endorsements have long been seen as a way to increase a candidate's stature, or to deliver one small, loyal block of voters, or to decorate a campaign with a well-known name. Never before has an endorsement had the effect of changing the dynamics of a campaign the way this endorsement did.

THE GOVERNOR'S RACE

It would seem almost impossible that a candidate running for high office in New York could fail to learn from another candidate's mistake just five months earlier. But it happened, this time in the governor's race.

Andrew Cuomo, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor, was leading in the polls in early 2002. Then he criticized George Pataki's performance in the aftermath of September 11th as inept and ineffective; the governor, Cuomo said, had simply been holding Giuliani's coat.

Whether or not the remark cost him the nomination, he lost his lead in the polls not long afterwards. When he dropped out of the race a week before the primary, conceding to his primary opponent, H. Carl McCall, one newspaper ran the headline: "Cuomo Folds, Plans to Hold McCall's Coat."

THE REBUILDING PLANS

New York City's rebuilding efforts will be a statewide, as well as a nationwide. focus for years to come. The question of how to best rebuild and revitalize lower Manhattan was a main theme for each of the major candidates for governor throughout the campaign.

Carl McCall has put an emphasis on economic recovery, with a plan to create 100,000 new jobs in the areas of financial services, biotechnology, information technology and business services. He also proposed an International Center for Commerce and Culture, designed to attract international business headquarters and make New York City the true financial capital of the world.

Although Andrew Cuomo ultimately dropped out of the race, his rebuilding plans were some of the most creative of any of the major candidates. He saw the rebuilt downtown area as a sort of high-tech capitalist utopia: New York City cultural landmarks, a relocated World Bank, an integrated transportation system, a developed waterfront with a harbor economy, and a newly commissioned World Institute of Health, doing valuable research while also creating a biotechnology economy.

Meanwhile Governor George Pataki is said to be the beneficiary of what one Democrat calls the "Ground Zero effect." Pataki has promised the victims' families that nothing would be built in the "footsteps" of the twin towers, the actual ground space once occupied by the buildings themselves.

The legacy of last fall's terror attacks will continue to be felt. The political implications are only just now emerging.


Five Favorite Sites For Beginners:

  • NYVote.com - "New York's Online Political Source"
  • The Center for Responsive Politics - The definitive site for campaign financing. Searchable databases by state and zip code allow you to learn how much candidates have raised, and who has contributed to their campaigns. Indispensable.
  • Vote NYC - The New York City Board of Elections. A simple yet thorough primer on voting. How, when, where and why to vote in New York City.
  • The NYC Voter Assistance Commission - Yet another NYC site that provides the ABC's of voting -- in Spanish, English, Korean, Russian and Greek. Voter reg forms, info on the election year calendar, registration deadlines and elected officials. Learn how to become an election day worker: promote democracy and earn some extra cash.
  • Project Vote Smart - A wonk's delight. Enter your zip code to find out who represents you. Extensive information about candidates in all levels of government. Searchable by state, with excellent state legislative links. Biographies and (largely unflattering) pics of all NY legislators. Info on ballot measures too.
  • NYC Campaign Finance Board - Information on the financial particulars of candidates and their campaigns. The searchable database on contributions is both impressive and easily accessible: who gave money to whom and how much.
  • The City Council - The indispensable road map to NYC legislators and legislative info. Find out who represents you and every other imaginable detail about the Council's workings: rules, hearings, committees, news, legislative agenda, and the list goes on. Links to all other City government sites.

Other Recommendations:



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