News Stories
Rebuilding at Ground Zero - Mar 3, 2003
The competition to design the World Trade Center site is over. The winner is Daniel Libeskind. But how much of his powerful scheme will be built? Libeskind's plan calls for a 7acre area, 30 ft. deep, to be preserved as testimony to the attack and the resilience of New York City and America - in effect, a Wailing Wall for the 21st century, with an emotional power that grows from calamity but tells of endurance.
(Time)
Daniel Libeskind Takes Home the Prize - Mar 3, 2003
Who would have thought a year ago that a world-class radical architect would be chosen to design the WTC site? The selection of someone of Libeskind's caliber for this historic project is a turning point for architecture and for the city, and it sends a clear signal that the public has an appetite for innovative design. It was public passion that forced the design competition from which Libeskind has emerged victorious.
(Newsweek)
Political Considerations Lead To Current Vision For Ground Zero - Mar 3, 2003
The creation of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation set off what could have been any government operation -- a plodding, obtuse process run by bureaucrats with little public participation. Instead, it evolved into a grand public discussion about architecture, public space and the nature of memory.
(New York Times)
Governor Compared Opposing WTC Plan To "Death" - Mar 1, 2003
Moments before he would cement his decision to go with the Daniel Libeskind plan for Ground Zero, Gov. Pataki compared the runnerup scheme's towers to "death," sources said yesterday. Pataki said he believed the latticework towers of design team THINK were a ghostly reminder of the fallen World Trade Center. The towers "look like death to me," Pataki said, according to several sources.
(New York Daily News)
Vision for Lower Manhattan Is Still in Flux - Feb 28, 2003
As the winner of a grueling design competition, Daniel Libeskind was exuberant yesterday. Joseph Seymour, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the 16-acre site, was more pragmatic. In four years, Mr. Seymour said, he expects the memorial garden will be completed, as well as a $2 billion transit center that will rival Grand Central Terminal and newly built stretches of Greenwich and Fulton Streets that are to crisscross the site. But many other elements of Mr. Libeskind's striking plans, he said, are "going to have to evolve."
(New York Times)
WTC Plan May End Up Looking Very Different From Architect Vision - Feb 21, 2003
Development officials are expected to pick the Ground Zero plan by architect Daniel Libeskind - but the new World Trade Center is likely to end up looking a lot different from the way he envisioned it. And that will come as a huge surprise to many New Yorkers, who had been led to expect that the buildings that go up on the city's hallowed ground will look just the way they do in the models that have been debated for weeks. Officials see Libeskind's plan as flexible, something they can shape to their needs.
(New York Post)
Two Finalists Are Selected for the Void at Ground Zero - Feb 5, 2003
Two teams of architects, one that sees the foundations of democracy in the concrete walls surrounding ground zero and another that imagines New York's rebirth in soaring towers of culture, have been selected as finalists in the competition to create the design for the World Trade Center site, rebuilding officials said yesterday.
(New York Times)
Three Designs for Ground Zero Emerge as Favorites - Jan 17, 2003
Three vastly different designs for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center, one emphasizing tall towers, another an excavated memorial site and a third a large public garden, appear to be receiving the greatest support in public discussions about the future of the site and of Lower Manhattan. However, only about one-third of people responding in comments submitted to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's website noted a preference for one plan over the others.
(New York Times)
World Trade Center Designs Questioned - Jan 3, 2003
Ideas for redevelopment of the World Trade Center site, presented last December amid a blaze of publicity, are being questioned by specialists. Architects were told to be bold and take risks. But for all their inventiveness and imagination, real-estate experts and those involved in the complicated planning process say that none of these super-tall towers will probably be built.
(BBC News)
Plans for Ground Zero Unveiled - Dec 19, 2002
Seven teams of architects from around the world unveiled new designs for the World Trade Center site yesterday, giving a remarkable civic tutorial on architecture and contemporary urban design aimed at mending the hole left in Lower Manhattan by the Sept. 11 attack. The designs, the subject of secrecy and speculation since the teams began work 12 weeks ago, include a broad array of elements: quiet memorial gardens and scenic plazas in the sky, soaring towers of bare scaffolding and sprawling canopies of glass. Four include what would be the tallest building in the world, and all set aside an area for a memorial to the victims of 9/11.
(New York Times)
In Design World, A Mixed Reaction - Dec 19, 2002
The nine visions for the World Trade Center unveiled by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. yesterday left architects and urban design experts feeling excited, puzzled, irritated and overwhelmed. But some observers pointed out that, imaginative though they were, all the proposals were shaped by a narrow yet ambitious program issued by the development corporation, which required a massive scale and millions of square feet in office space.
(Newsday)
Mayor's Proposal Envisions Lower Manhattan as an Urban Hamlet - Dec 13, 2002
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg yesterday offered his vision of the future of Lower Manhattan: a collection of neighborhoods stitched together by large parks and broad pedestrian walkways, with a direct mass transit link to Kennedy Airport via a new tunnel under the East River. Under Mr. Bloomberg's plan, Lower Manhattan would essentially be transformed from an ailing financial center with pockets of residential developments into an urban hamlet of housing, schools, libraries and movie theaters, as well as other businesses, some of which would benefit from a generous new federal tax package.
(New York Times)
Students Unveil Their Visions for WTC Site - Dec 4, 2002
Two weeks before the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. unveils the designs of seven teams of architects, and a week before Mayor Michael Bloomberg announces his vision for lower Manhattan, 48 architecture students at the New York Institute of Technology displayed models of what they want to see on the World Trade Center site.
(Newsday)
Port Authority Won't Be Part of Ground Zero Design Display - Nov 23, 2002
A lower Manhattan planner asked the Port Authority yesterday to unveil its master plan alongside other new designs for Ground Zero next month - but the bistate agency turned him down. Lower Manhattan Development Corp. board member Roland Betts, head of the agency's site-planning subcommittee, told the Gotham Gazette in an online interview that he has invited the Port Authority to present the work at the Winter Garden next month, when as many as nine plans for the World Trade Center site will be unveiled. Port Authority spokesman Michael Petralia insisted the agency is working jointly with the corporation on the plan and that it simply isn't done yet.
(New York Daily News)
Rebuilding Official Praises Designs For World Trade Center Site - Nov 22, 2002
Seven architecture teams commissioned by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to design plans for Ground Zero have created work that is "astoundingly innovative, creative and exciting," according to Roland W. Betts, a Lower Manhattan Development Corporation director. Memorials on the tops of buildings and below ground, a formal 19th-century-style garden and the tallest building in the world are among the elements included in several new sets of plans being drawn up for the World Trade Center site, according to rebuilding officials who have seen them.
(New York Times)
Port Authority Releasing Their Own Master Plan For Ground Zero - Nov 22, 2002
The Port Authority will release its own master plan for the World Trade Center site by February, detailing the memorialŐs size and location and transportation improvements, the agencyŐs executive director said Thursday. The master plan, being developed by architects hired by the Port Authority, will include mass transit, vehicular and pedestrian access and the minimum and maximum square footage of the commercial space.
(Newsday)
Design Announced For 7 World Trade Center - Nov 21, 2002
Developer Larry Silverstein released his designs for a new 7 World Trade Center on Wednesday. The 750-foot glass and steel office tower will have reinforced concrete walls, increased amounts of structural steel, double the required fireproofing materials and wider staircases than required by code. Located across Vesey Street from the trade center site, the $700-million tower will be the first building to rise again at Ground Zero.
(Newsday)
Larry Silverstein To Announce Plans for 7 World Trade Center - Nov 20, 2002
Marking an important step in the rebuilding of ground zero, developer Larry Silverstein is set to release plans on Wednesday for a new 7 World Trade Center, just north of where the twin towers stood. The 52-story lower Manhattan office tower will incorporate "cutting-edge safety and environmental features," Silverstein's spokesman, Howard Rubenstein, said Tuesday. The new building will be narrower than its 47-story predecessor so that Greenwich Street, formerly cut off by 7 World Trade Center, can be restored.
(Newsday)
Officials Debate How To Unveil New Ground Zero Plans - Nov 18, 2002
Ground Zero planners are grappling with how best to show the public the new round of World Trade Center designs set to be unveiled next month. The designs, replete with memorial and office spaces, will be completed before the middle of December.
The possibilities for exhibiting the new designs include a live broadcast at the glass atrium Winter Garden, which overlooks the site. Each design team would be given about 20 minutes of air time to detail its work. A tape of the broadcast then could be distributed to TV outlets.
(New York Daily News)
Designs Unveiled for Transit Hub at Ground Zero - Nov 13, 2002
Demonstrating the speed with which planning at the World Trade Center site is taking place, Port Authority officials showed early designs for a permanent transportation hub at the site today, incorporating many elements of the temporary PATH station that is already being built. The preliminary designs include a soaring glass atrium that would allow subway and rail passengers to see skyscrapers towering overhead from several floors below ground level, enabling them to orient themselves to where they are in the downtown landscape almost as soon as they step off the trains.
(New York Times)
Downtown Planners May Give FDR Drive a New Design - Nov 11, 2002
Planners overseeing lower Manhattan's comeback from the terror attacks are considering new designs for a portion of the FDR Drive south of the Brooklyn Bridge, officials said. The east waterfront access design has become a critical concern of planners -- and it is expected to be included when Mayor Bloomberg unveils his vision for lower Manhattan next month.
(New York Daily News)
New WTC Designs To Be Directly Shown to Public - Nov 8, 2002
The latest designs by Ground Zero architects will be brought directly to the public next month in two exhibits set up by curators from the Museum of Modern Art, officials said yesterday. Models and pictures of the designs will be displayed at the World Financial Center in mid-December, probably at the Winter Garden. At the same time, MoMA will display some of the same materials in its temporary space in Queens, said Terrence Riley, the chief curator for architecture and design.
(New York Post)
WTC Site Designers Including Much Office Space - Nov 1, 2002
Several Ground Zero architects are thinking bigger may be better - offering surprising designs that increase the office space on the site well beyond guidelines intended to trim the trade center's square footage, a development official said yesterday.
(New York Post)
City Council Issues Report on Downtown Greenmarket - Oct 31, 2002
Among the myriad ideas for how best to develop the former site of the World Trade Center and revitalize the downtown economy, add marketplace. A study issued last week examines the feasibility of several types of markets, ultimately suggesting a 42,000 square foot market hall be built as part of the WTC redevelopment project.
(Downtown Express)
Port Authority, City May Clash Over Rebuilding Office Space - Oct 28, 2002
A new set of guidelines for Ground Zero, meant to reduce square footage on the site, has set the battle lines for a potentially bitter real-estate fight between the Port Authority and the city. With pressure growing to peel office space from the trade center, the authority has insisted that any reduction below 10 million square feet be made up by allowing the agency to build elsewhere in lower Manhattan. But city officials are adamantly opposed to letting the bistate agency extend its reach beyond the 16 acres of Ground Zero.
(New York Post)
3 Plazas Could Border WTC Site - Oct 17, 2002
Three new public spaces could be created along the edge of Ground Zero within the next five years under a preliminary concept being put together by a prominent architect hired by the Port Authority. The inviting open areas would take in 7 World Trade Center, St. Paul's Chapel and 1 Liberty Plaza, helping to reconnect the disaster site to the rest of the city.
(New York Daily News)
Architects Get WTC Site Plans - Oct 12, 2002
Six teams of architects set off Friday on an eight-week course to plan the future layout of the World Trade Center site, as officials released a new set of program requirements, including a range of office space and a large transit station at Fulton and Greenwich Streets. The teams received a day-long briefing Friday from officials and a tour of Ground Zero.
(Newsday)
LMDC: Fewer Offices, More Options in Planning for Ground Zero - Oct 10, 2002
Officials overseeing the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan agreed yesterday to give designers more flexibility in planning the future of the World Trade Center site, reducing by 40 percent the amount of the commercial space that must be included in plans for it. The new instructions are to be given tomorrow to six new teams of architects, artists and designers selected last month to work on innovative plans to rejuvenate the symbolic heart of the financial district.
(New York Times)
Putting A Rush On World Trade Center Designs - Sep 28, 2002
Six teams of architects have until late November to come up with new designs for Ground Zero - and some of the builders say that's not enough time. "This is not the kind of project one would want to see rushed," said Jesse Reiser, an architect with Reiser & Umemoto in Manhattan, a member of one of the teams. "There should have been more time.""It can't be as complex as it should be in that time frame," said architect Charles Gwathmey, the designer of Morgan Stanley's Times Square headquarters and a member of one of the selected teams.
(New York Daily News)
Top Architects Competing for WTC Designs - Sep 19, 2002
A long list of celebrated architects - including Richard Meier of New York, Santiago Calatrava of Spain and Daniel Libeskind of Germany - are competing for the prestigious job of rethinking the World Trade Center site.
(New York Daily News)
Plans for Transit Hub - Sep 18, 2002
Preliminary computer images of a plan for a dramatic transit hub at Ground Zero show a wavy atrium roof and views looking out onto a future trade-center memorial and the Winter Garden.
(New York Post)
Architect At LMDC Sketched WTC Vision For Protetch Gallery - Sep 2, 2002
Months before renowned architect Billie Tsien joined the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., she sketched her own vision for the World Trade Center site. This week, the design by Tsien and her husband, Tod Williams - "Buildings in the Form of Trees," first drafted in January - will find a wider audience in the new catalog of the Max Protetch Gallery.
(Newsday)
WTC Designers Giving Up Rights, Money - Aug 29, 2002
Responding to thousands of unsolicited proposals for the World Trade Center site, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. is asking people to give up any rights to their designs or any payment for their work.
(Newsday)
Proposals Pouring In For WTC Site - Aug 29, 2002
More than 2,000 ordinary citizens, artists and great architects have been inspired to put their ideas for the World Trade Center site on paper. The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the Port Authority, and other government officials have received a wide range of proposals. Anita Contini, the corporation's memorial director, asked people to stop sending any more plans until criteria for the memorial are announced early next year. The agency won't consider any proposals already sent, said Contini, responding to questions at a GothamGazette.com online interview.
(Newsday)
Council Proposes Public Market on Site of Towers - Aug 16, 2002
If the City Council has its way, the World Trade Center site will become home to a public market, like Pike Place in Seattle, with organic produce vendors, fishmongers, artisans and performers.The market idea was part of the Council's report on recommendations for redeveloping Lower Manhattan, released yesterday.
(New York Times)
Top Architects May Submit Resumes - Aug 16, 2002
Rem Koolhaas, Robert A.M. Stern and several other top architects told The Post yesterday they'd like a chance at designing the future of Ground Zero, and may answer a call to submit their résumés to development officials.
(New York Post)
Worldwide Competition Launched to Redesign Downtown - Aug 15, 2002
The agency overseeing the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan announced yesterday that it would conduct "a worldwide design competition" to hire as many as five licensed architecture or planning firms to offer new ideas for the site of the World Trade Center. To incorporate the new ideas as well as expected changes in how much office, retail, residential and cultural space will be included on the site, the officials extended the schedule for the process, allowing three new designs to be completed by the end of the year and a final design selected in the first half of 2003.
(New York Times)
Seeking Firms to Pitch New WTC ideas - Aug 14, 2002
The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. is launching a worldwide search for five more firms to produce new designs for rebuilding at Ground Zero, sources said last night. Each of the new firms picked will be given specific criteria to meet, but many of the rigid constraints put on the first six designs will be gone.
(New York Daily News)
Proposals Could Expand Memorial Site - Aug 11, 2002
Officials are discussing options that would reduce by nearly one-third the amount of office space that would have to be built at ground zero.
Among the possibilities being considered is the purchase of the severely damaged Deutsche Bank building by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.
(New York Times)
Federal Hall Exhibit Opens - Jul 25, 2002
They didn't like most of what they saw, but hundreds of people opted for an up-front look yesterday at the six Ground Zero land-use options that went on display at Federal Hall.
(New York Post)
Fresh Visions of Ground Zero Could Delay Lower Manhattan's Recovery - Jul 22, 2002
Officials charged with overseeing the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan said this weekend that the public's call for a slower planning process and less commercial space on the World Trade Center site could delay plans for an expanded transportation center connecting the subway and commuter rail lines downtown.
(New York Times)
Forum on WTC Designs: Try Again - Jul 21, 2002
If there was an overarching message sent by an estimated 5,000 people attending the ambitious town hall meeting yesterday on the future of the World Trade Center site, it was this: Get back to the drawing board.
(Newsday)
Six Plans for Ground Zero, All Seen as a Starting Point - Jul 17, 2002
On the day that six proposals for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site were unveiled, the chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation said yesterday that the public could consider a seventh possibility, a new design without some of the requirements for office and retail space that shaped the initial proposals.
(New York Times)
Plans for WTC Site Include Memorial, Offices, Hotel and Retail Space - Jul 17, 2002
The plans show the skyline of lower Manhattan restored, spires higher than the Twin Towers, parks and memorials -- and many office buildings of varying sizes and shapes. They envision transportation improvements and include new housing, but they ignore surrounding neighborhoods.
(Newsday)
WTC Site: Mayor Has Own Ideas - Jul 14, 2002
After reviewing the six preliminary plans for the World Trade Center site, Mayor Bloomberg declined to embrace any of them, and pledged yesterday to submit his own redevelopment ideas.
(New York Daily News)
6 Plans for Ground Zero Share Striking Similarities - Jul 11, 2002
The six official proposals for rebuilding the World Trade Center site, which will be released next Tuesday, all took as a given the need for office space, a hotel, and retail shopping. None of the plans, which will be released to the public next Tuesday, include residential apartments. Although all of the designs set aside space for a memorial, four of them call for construction on the site of the south tower, which goes against the wishes of many family victims groups and Governor George Pataki.
(New York Times)
Critics Say "Different" WTC Plans All Alike - Jul 10, 2002
A week before officials unveil a series of design proposals for a rebuilt World Trade Center, the plans are already drawing heat from critics who complain they're too much alike: with each restoring all of the office and retail space lost Sept. 11.
(New York Post)
Federal Hall to Show Exhibit of Plans for Trade Center Site - Jul 7, 2002
As many as six preliminary land-use plans for the World Trade Center site are to be announced in a news conference at Federal Hall early next week. The plans will be shown in the Federal Hall National Memorial at Wall and Nassau Streets, a crossroads of history since the 18th century and no stranger to the devastation of Sept. 11., from July 22 through the first week of September.
(New York Times)
Executive to Handle 9/11 Memorial Construction - Jul 2, 2002
A Merrill Lynch executive long involved in downtown cultural events will oversee the building of a memorial to the victims of Sept. 11. Anita Contini, 58, will be named vice president and director for memorial cultural and civic programs today by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.
(New York Daily News)
Schumer Proposes Lower Manhattan Park - Jun 29, 2002
Senator Charles E. Schumer called yesterday for a waterfront park to be built with some of the money set aside by the federal government for the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan. He proposed an apron of parkland that would stretch from Canal Street on the West Side to Pier 42 on the East Side, where it would meet East River Park.
(New York Times)
Families Show Vision for Large Memorial - Jun 28, 2002
Victims' families advising the developers of the World Trade Center site unveiled their vision for a large memorial complex yesterday. They called for an indoor/outdoor complex that encompasses roughly 9 acres, about half the available land.
(New York Daily News)
Report Shows Ground Zero Visions - Jun 25, 2002
A series of site plans drawn up by the civic group New York New Visions provides a preview of what New Yorkers may see next month when public officials unveil development options for Ground Zero
(New York Post)
Housing Seen in WTC Plans - Jun 20, 2002
Apartment buildings may be included in redevelopment plans for Lower Manhattan. The Port Authority, which owns the Trade Center parcel, cannot legally build housing. But that would not prevent buildings around the Ground Zero area from being converted into apartments, officials said yesterday.
(New York Daily News)
At Tower Site Vast Top Seen As Memorial - Jun 13, 2002
For months now, Larry Silverstein and his house architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, have been quietly drafting plans for a massive office building on the World Trade Center site that would equal the former Twin Towers in height, but with one significant difference: The top would be an uninhabited "memorial" structure that would fade into the clouds, suggesting a height beyond conventional measure.
(New York Observer)
Idea For Transit Hub Downtown Could Mean Tearing Down A Block Of Buildings - Jun 10, 2002
Officials planning a new downtown transit hub are considering a radical proposal to raze a square block off lower Broadway for an ambitious aboveground terminal topped by office towers. The Port Authority, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority have discussed various versions of the plan - and it is now being explored by Parsons Brinckerhoff, the engineering firm hired to rethink the downtown transit map, said sources familiar with the proposal. The buildings on the block bordered by Fulton and John streets and Broadway and Nassau Street would be condemned and razed and the confusing maze of subway connections at the station would be "rationalized," the sources said. A new terminal - akin to a downtown Grand Central - would be built over the site.
(New York Post)
Hundreds Attend Public Hearing On Future of World Trade Center Site - May 24, 2002
A crowd of more than 800 people packed a downtown auditorium last night to sound off and listen to a multitude of plans and ideas for rebuilding the World Trade Center site and its surroundings. Many complained that the LMDC, which is charged with overseeing the redevelopment of downtown, had not given enough consideration to the revitalization of Chinatown and the Lower East Side, affordable housing and assistance for displaced workers. Many speakers called for constructing buildings as high or higher than the Twin Towers, while some described ideas for memorial designs and held up drawings of their designs.
(Newsday)
Mapping Ground Zero's Future - Apr 10, 2002
The Daily News presents a visual representation of the ideas presented yesterday in the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's blueprint and principles for rebuilding.
(New York Daily News)
Twin Towers in the Harbor - One Memorial Plan - Feb 14, 2002
Timothy Noah of Slate.com highlights today a memorial idea proposed by Fred Bernstein. The memorial would consist of two tower-length piers jutting out into the harbor, both piers inscribed with the names of those who died in the towers on September 11. The piers would also serve as docks for boats back and forth between Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
(Slate.com)
Gallery Shows WTC Design Proposals - Jan 18, 2002
At an exhibition in a Chelsea art gallery, about 50 architects and artists are
showcasing their proposed designs for what to build on the site of the World
Trade Center. "This is what I could do to help," said Max Protech, the owner of
the gallery. The designs vary in size, shape, and range. A few called for
making the entire 16-acre space into a memorial, and others focused more on the
conceptual and abstract. There were also proposals for smaller-scale buildings
and mixed development of residential and office buildings, including an
interactive display where people could create up to 81 potential designs for
the area. The show will likely run for about a month, after which it will tour
the country.
(Associated Press)
From parks to twisted towers, designs for WTC memorial multiply - Jan 11, 2002
There is no shortage of design ideas for the World Trade Center site, from a 70-story sundial to two towers spiraling down to a 35-foot deep pit. One firm has contemplated a design consisting of 440 evergreens and a below-street waterfall. This initial burst of ideas has been described as therapeutic by some but banal and overly sentimental by others.
(Wall Street Journal)
Mike: Hold Contest For Tribute At Ground Zero - Jan 11, 2002
Mayor Bloomberg supports holding a competition to choose the designer of the memorial tribute to the World Trade Center victims that will be built at ground zero, officials said yesterday.
(New York Post)
What To Build
- November 11, 2001
Moderated by TERENCE RILEY
Two architects, an urban planner, a structural engineer and a landscape
designer consider the future of ground zero.
(New York Times)
Designs for the Trade Center site spawn hopes for a new urbanism - October 7, 2001
(Boston Globe)
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