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Ground Zero Transportation Hub (01/2004)
The plan for the permanent PATH station at Ground Zero, made public in January 2004, is an oval-shaped structure of glass and steel with two "wings" rising from its spine. The retractable glass roof of the building allows daylight to reach the train tracks 60 feet below street level.

Transportation And Lower Manhattan: Where Do We Go From Here? (05/2003)
In 2015, if all goes as planned, people will be able to move easily to and from lower Manhattan by commuter trains and subways, and even take a one-seat ride to the airport. This vision of the future contrasts sharply with the realities of transportation in lower Manhattan today. Jeffrey Zupan explains what is planned and the decisions that must be made.

The (Proposed) Trains To The Planes (01/2003)
New York City is one of the few premier international cities without direct rail access to its airports. Mayor Bloomberg wants to fix that.

Save West Street (10/28/02)
"Downtown can be great again, without all the digging," argues Battery Park City resident John Dellaportas, who created a coalition opposing the plan to turn West Street into a tunnel. Dellaportas explains why transportation advocates, environmentalists, parents of schoolchildren and Battery Park City residents have come out against the tunnel plan.

Does Transportation Really Deserve Top Billing Downtown? (07/04/02)
If you ask any public official or civic leader what the top priority is for planning the city's rebuilding after Sept. 11, they will probably say transportation. Improving transportation downtown is a major part of the recommendations of almost every civic group dealing with the effects of Sept. 11, from the Civic Alliance to the principles of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation itself. However, spending a large portion of the money that the federal government gave the city after Sept. 11 on transportation improvements may not be the best idea for New York City.

Ground Zero Artifacts to be Preserved in Transit Hub - Aug 27, 2004
A 66-foot-long, travertine-paved remnant of the original World Trade Center concourse - still used every day by hundreds of commuters walking between the Eighth Avenue subway platforms and the PATH station - will be permanently preserved as part of the new trade center transportation hub, the Port Authority said yesterday. (New York Times)

Port Authority Looks for JFK Ferry Link - Aug 27, 2004
The Port Authority invited ferry operators Thursday to submit proposals for boat connections between Lower Manhattan and Kennedy International Airport. (Newsday)

Verizon Receives $77 Million in 9/11 Funds - Aug 8, 2004
Verizon Communications Inc. received another $77 million in federal funds earmarked for restoring utilities and rebuilding infrastructure damaged in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a regulatory filing Friday. (Newsday)

Metropolitan Transportation Authority Earmarks $495 Million for Security - Aug 3, 2004
The MTA has earmarked $495 million toward "enhancing security readiness" in an effort to protect the region's vast rail network, officials said yesterday. (New York Post)

Feds Plan to Extend Environmental Testing - Aug 1, 2004
Community members and scientific experts applauded an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to expand testing for 9/11 contaminants to residences and workplaces north of Canal St. (Downtown Express)

White House to Direct $2 Billion to Rail Link - Jul 30, 2004
The White House has agreed to let New York use $2 billion in Sept. 11 aid to help build a $6 billion rail link connecting the World Trade Center site to the Long Island Rail Road and Kennedy International Airport. (New York Times)

Vets Protest Iraq War at Ground Zero - Jul 25, 2004
Flashing peace symbols and yelling “Congress has spoken, the people have spoken: No more Vietnams,” eight members of Veterans for Peace came to the World Trade Center Site for about 20 minutes Tuesday to protest the war in Iraq. None of them made any mention of Sept. 11 during the protest. (Downtown Express)

Latest Memorial news


Memorial Winner:
Reflecting Absence

"Reflecting Absence," the design by Michael Arad that features two pools of water with pine trees and a paved stone field, has been chosen to be the memorial on the site of the World Trade Center.

The Eight Memorials
On November 19, 2003, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation unveiled the eight finalist designs in the World Trade Center memorial competition. The designs were selected by a 13-member jury. Each design must recognize the twin tower footprints and each individual killed in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993. The designs are on display at the Winter Garden and the jury will select the final design.

The eight finalists are:

  • Votives in Suspension (by Norman Lee and Michael Lewis)
  • Lower Waters (by Bradley Campbell and Matthias Neumann)
  • Passages of Light: The Memorial Cloud (by bbc art + architecture)
  • Suspending Memory (by Joseph Karadin with Hsin-Yi Wu)
  • Garden of Lights (by Pierre David with Sean Corriel, Jessica Kmetovic)
  • Reflecting Absence: A Memorial at the World Trade Center Site (by Michael Arad)
  • Dual Memory (by Brian Stawn and Karla Sierralta)
  • Inversion of Light (Toshio Sasaki)

The jury members are:

  • Paula Grant Berry -- A Brooklyn resident whose husband was killed on 9/11.
  • Susan Freedman -- President of the Public Art Fund, and a board member a the Museum of Modern Art, the Municipal Arts Society, and others.
  • Vartan Gregorian, Ph.D -- President of Carnegie Corporation of New York.
  • Patricia Harris -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg's deputy mayor for administration.
  • Maya Lin -- Designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC.
  • Michael McKeon -- Governor George Pataki's former communications director.
  • Julie Menin -- Owner of Vine Restaurant in lower Manhattan, and founder of Wall Street Rising.
  • Enrique Norten -- A Mexican architect who won a 2002 design competition for the Brooklyn Library for the Visual and Performing Arts.
  • Matrin Puryear -- A scupltor and a former winner of the MacArthur Foundation's genius grant.
  • Nancy Rosen -- An expert on public art.
  • Lowery Stokes Sims, Ph.D -- Director of Studio Museum in Harlem and former curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
  • Michael Van Valkenburgh -- New York City landscape architect who also teaches at Harvard Graduate School of Design.
  • James Young, Ph.D -- Professor at University of Massachusetts, Amhert's Judaic and Near Eastern Studies department.

Memorial Competition Website
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's official website for the memorial competition.

Memorial Mission Statement
Family members of 9/11 victims worked with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to develop a mission statement about the memorial for September 11. The mission statement was incorporated into guidelines for a memorial competition, which began in April, 2003.

Tributes and Remembrances
Immediately after the morning of September 11, New Yorkers and others around the world began commemorating the September 11 victims. Online, there are a number of sites with information about other projects and organizations devoted to remember 9/11, from memorial quilts to comic books.

Ideas For Memorials Downtown
Not long after the attacks, architects, designers and planners began developing ideas for memorializing the victims of September 11. See some of the ideas that they proposed.

 


Gotham Gazette Articles

My Memorial

Mike Kuo, the head of Imagine New York, writes about his group's report -- and how working on it affected him personally.

Transcript of Live Chat
Gotham Gazette held an online memorial chat with architectural experts Rick Bell and Fred Bernstein. Read a transcript here.

The Eight Memorial Designs
Most incorporate water, all use light, and together they are evoking strong reaction. A look at details of the designs, the criticism, the process of choosing them, and what is likely to happen now.

The Pentagon Memorial's Lessons for New York
By the time New York City's September 11 memorial jury narrows the Ground Zero memorial competition down to five finalists, the Pentagon will have already broken ground on its memorial - selected way back in March - for the 184 victims who died there on 9/11. What can New York learn from the other 9/11 memorial?

A Resident's Hopes for the Memorial
As the 9/11 memorial jury prepares to sort through design applications, lower Manhattan resident Tim Lannan writes that he wants the chosen memorial to convey the special sense of community he felt downtown after the attacks.

Competing to Design the 9/11 Memorial
Designers competing in the international 9/11 memorial competition were given until June 30 to figure out how to best memorialize September 11 and interpret the competition's guidelines, even as those closest to the tragedy disagreed on the details and concepts for the memorial.

Perspectives on the Memorial
Anthony Gardner, whose brother Harvey Joseph Gardner III was killed on 9/11, argues that a bus garage and commercial stores do not have a place in the sacred space where most of the remains of those murdered on September 11 were found.

Perspectives on the Memorial
In the first in a series of essays about the 9/11 memorial, retired firefighter John Finucane says that whatever design is chosen should list the names of the rescue workers together, with their name, rank, serial number and company.

The Memorial Hearing
At the May 28 hearing about the 9/11 memorial, Chris Ganci, whose father, Fire Department Chief Pete Ganci, died on September 11, urged the jury to chose a design that shows that rescue workers "willingly gave their lives to help other people." Julie Boryczewski said that the design should show what happened on 9/11 "honestly and equally." Read transcripts of their testimonies, and others, from the hearing.

The Memorial Jury
On April 10, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation selected the jury that will select a design for the 9/11 memorial. A look at the 13 jury members, and a timeline for the competition.

Transcript of Live Chat with Anita Contini (08/21/02)
Read a transcriptof our live online chat with Anita Contini, director of memorial, cultural and civic programs for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Find out what she said during our conversation as Contini fielded questions about the process of creating the memorial.

Looking At Memorials (08/19/02)
Anita Contini, who began her job as the person in charge of the memorial at Ground Zero this month, has a trip planned to help her figure out what her next steps should be. Her visits to the Oklahoma City memorial, the Vietnam memorial, a memorial to the victims of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Japan and others may have important lessons for Ground Zero.

Rebuild The Towers vs. All Memorial (08/05/02)
Preliminary results from Gotham Gazette's Ground Zero Planner show that over half the entries call for rebuilding the towers as they were, while a fifth insist all 16 acres should be a memorial. Also: what the experts make of these passionately-held, mutually exclusive views, and whether a real consensus can be reached.

Monica's Mission (06/29/02)
September's Mission founder Monica Iken describes her ideas for a memorialdowntown. She urges planners to make sure that everything built on the site reflects what happened on Sept. 11, saying, "the final resting place of our lost souls is not confined to the footprints of the towers."

Six Months Later (03/11/02)
The city has made an amazing recovery in the six months since the terrorist attacks. Ground Zero will soon be cleared of rubble. Subways, schools, and businesses have reopened. And two temporary memorials will be unveiled this week. But as New York moves to the next phase of rebuilding there are many unanswered questions about what to build, who is in charge, and how it will be funded. Gotham Gazette takes a lookat the status of recovery and rebuilding, how far we have come and where we are headed.

Two Views on How to Rebuild (11/26/01)
1. Make it fast, not fancy, Dick Netzer says, and in midtown, not downtown.

2. We must pause and reflect, says Nancy Biberman, before trying to build anything on the hallowed ground.

A History Of Crisis And Recovery (10/01/01)
In the very first week after the attack, the mayor looked to history for comfort and instruction in how New Yorkers could respond. The historical event he focused on was the blitz of London during World War II. But, as New Yorkers can discover in hundreds of history-related events starting this week, there is comfort and instruction as well in the long series of crises and recoveries that make up the history of New York City.

 

Staten Island Memorial Unveiled - Sep 12, 2004

Rounding out a long and intense day of events marking the third anniversary of 9/11, a memorial to Staten Island victims was dedicated on the borough's waterfront at the ferry terminal across the harbor from the Trade Center site. (NY1)

Fundraising For Memorial Has Yet to Begin - Sep 11, 2004
Eight months after the World Trade Center memorial design was unveiled, Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg have yet to find a prominent person willing to lead the foundation that's raising the money to build it. (New York Daily News)

Website Offers "Living Memorial" To 9/11 Victims, Families - Sep 9, 2004
A high-profile 9/11 organization launched an Internet-based memorial yesterday that will serve as a "portal of reflection, remembrance, interaction, education and scholarly research" about the terrorist attacks. (New York Daily News)

Memorial Planned For Flight 93 Victims - Sep 9, 2004
The 40 innocent passengers and crew who died on hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 should be honored because they played a role in the "only victory" during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said the father of one of the victims. That's what planners hope people remember as they submit designs for a crash site memorial in a national competition announced Wednesday. (Newsday )

Frederic Schwartz: Designer of Two 9/11 Memorials - Sep 9, 2004
Frederic Schwartz is standing on a peninsula at Liberty State Park where ground is to be broken tomorrow for the 9/11 memorial he has designed for New Jersey, only three-and-a-half hours after ground is broken in Westchester County for the 9/11 memorial he has designed there. But for a moment, his sad eyes are not focused on the empty sky across the Hudson River where the World Trade Center is supposed to be. (New York Times )

Construction on Staten Island's 9/11 Memorial Begins - Aug 17, 2004
Workers started installing a memorial to the September 11 victims on Staten Island Monday. (NY1)

Cantor Fitzgerald Finds New Home in Midtown - Jul 27, 2004
Nearly three years after 658 Cantor Fitgerald employees were killed in the attack on the World Trade Center, the stock and bond trading company has found a new home five miles from ground zero, on the East Side of Manhattan. Cantor signed a lease last week to move into space now occupied by Bloomberg L.P., the business information company founded by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, at Park Avenue and 59th Street, where Cantor plans to erect a monument to the co-workers who died in the Sept. 11 attack. (New York Times)

Cultural Complex At Ground Zero


When museums, theaters, and other arts institutions were offered the chance to move to Ground Zero, they jumped at it. Between June and September, 113 organizations responded to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's general request for proposals for the cultural spaces on the. A report (in pdf format) released this week gives a clearer picture of the three cultural spaces for the site -- an underground museum, a performing arts center, and one or two 'cultural buildings.' It also narrows down the list of institutions it is considering to run these spaces.

Just as these organizations are eager to move downtown, New Yorkers are eager to have them. In a survey last summer, 69 percent of people "strongly agreed" that building cultural facilities at Ground Zero was important. The governor and the mayor have voiced their support for the creation of a cultural district downtown. Even developer Larry Silverstein, who has long been accused of caring for nothing but the sanctity of office space, has said he would like to see an arts center at Ground Zero.

Using culture to revitalize Lower Manhattan has been around since long before 9/11. According to Sharon Zukin, author of The Cultures of Cities the business improvement district for Lower Manhattan has been trying to bring cultural institutions downtown for at least fifteen years, following the model of Times Square, where theaters and non-profit arts groups were used to revamp the area.

Zukin claims that this strategy has become common worldwide. "Culture used to be seen as a by-product of wealth," she said. "Now culture is seen as a generator of wealth. And therefore, governments, businesses and various organizations pursue culture in a much more determined and ambitious way that they have in previous generations."

The report released this week named the fifteen institutions that the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is considering for the cultural areas at Ground Zero, though it did not describe the institutions' proposals for these sites. By April, the agency expects to choose who will fill the three main cultural areas proposed for the site. Each area may be run by a single organization, or several organizations. After that, funding for the buildings and architectural designs will be worked out.

The three cultural sites proposed for Ground Zero are:

The Memorial Center -- an underground museum on the memorial site, sized between 50,000 to 70,000 square feet. Its mission will be to tell the individual stories of the victims of the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and present the contributions of the rescue, recovery, and relief workers after 9/11. Artifacts from the attacks will be displayed here. Advisory boards comprised of victims' family members and community leaders will work with the public and museum directors, curators, and conservators to develop content.

• The Museum of the City of New York, The New York Historical Society, and the New York State Museum will be discussing developing content for and how to curate this site with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

• Project Rebirth and Sound Portraits Productions/Story Corps. will be speaking with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation about developing concepts for special events at the memorial center.

Performing Arts Center -- a 100,000 to 200,000 square foot building located due east of the Freedom Tower, on the northwest corner of Fulton and Greenwich Streets. It will house either a single organization operating a large theater program, or several organizations operating theaters of various sizes within the same complex.

• The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is considering asking the Joyce Theater Company, the New York City Opera, the Signature Theatre Company, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Tribeca Film Institute to operate in this space.

Cultural Buildings -- One or two on the southwest corner of Fulton and Greenwich Streets. Several uses are being considered for these buildings, which will create a total of 200,000 to 250,000 square feet of useable space. Possibilities include a museum focusing on the World Trade Center site, exhibits focused on international culture, educational institutions focusing on children, and a space for civic organizations to facilitate public discussion.

• The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation will be speaking with the Children's Museum Of The Arts, The Drawing Center, The Museum Of Freedom and the New York Hall Of Science about developing this site. The buildings may also offer space to international public programs and educational events from organizations like the 92nd Street Y.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation will also be considering institutions not on the 'short list.' To read the full report, which includes a list of all 113 cultural institutions that responded to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's call for proposals, click here (in pdf format).



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