by Eric Miller
Six new ideas for the World Trade Center were unveiled in New York this
week, none of them cause for applause. President Clinton thinks that a high
school should be put on the site, and Governor Pataki says no building should
be built where the twin towers were.
The plans suggest ways to use space on the site for a memorial, commercial and retail space, cultural facilities and other neighborhood amenities, a hotel, and a new transportation hub serving New York and New Jersey. Some plans also call for residential development in areas adjacent to the site.
While the plans seek to put something in place of the 11 million square feet of office space lost on Sept. 11, none soars to the height of the original towers.
One of the plans allows for a permanent footprint of the towers, and another permanently, if not transparently, memorializes them with beams of light. The public reaction to the plans has been so weak, the Port Authority of New York has agreed to consider going back to the drawing board.
Memorial Plaza, featuring an eight-acre open space bordered by extensions of Fulton and Greenwich streets, and by Liberty and West streets, which would include a memorial and cultural facilities such as a museum. A tall, freestanding tower would be located at the northwest corner of the site as a dramatic addition to the Lower Manhattan skyline. The plan includes 18 acres of new public open space and five office towers. The plan does not build on the footprints of the Twin Towers, and no property would be acquired or demolished. A traffic tunnel would be created below West Street, allowing creation of a Memorial Promenade linking Battery Park, and, via ferry, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.
Memorial Square, featuring a 10-acre open square that accommodates a range of cultural and memorial spaces, including a tower that would serve as a focal point along key view corridors, and a multi-level cultural and memorial walkway that would extend to Battery Park, Liberty Island and Ellis Island. This plan includes four office towers and 24.1 acres of public space, including parks, streets, sidewalks and walkways. Greenwich Street would be extended through the site. Thirteen acres of new property would be created or acquired to create a cultural district or new park space. West Street would run underground, allowing creation of a Memorial Promenade linking the site to Battery Park, and, via ferry, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. This plan does not build on the footprints of the WTC towers.
Memorial Triangle, featuring a five-acre triangular open space surrounded by memorial buildings on the block between Liberty, Vesey, West, and Greenwich streets. Greenwich Street would extend through the site from north to south. The plan includes memorial, cultural, and commercial facilities, six towers, and 13.2 acres of public space to contain a promenade, streets, squares, walkways, and an enclosed galleria. A broad elevated pedestrian deck spans West St. to reach the upper level of the Winter Garden, leading to the waterfront. This plan does not build on the footprint of the south tower, includes a public pavilion on the footprint of the north tower, and would require no land acquisition beyond the WTC site.
Memorial Garden, featuring a four-acre open space bordered by extensions of Greenwich, and West streets. The southwest section of the site will house memorial and cultural facilities. The plan also extends Fulton St. The plan includes five office towers and 6.8 acres of new public space.
Memorial Park, featuring memorial sites included in a six-acre park, partially situated on a deck that would cross from West St. to the World Financial Center. The plan includes five office towers, a 1,500-foot-high beacon at Church and Liberty streets, and extensions of Fulton, Cortlandt and Greenwich streets. The plan creates 14.4 acres of new public space. The plan suggests the acquisition of parts of the Deutsche Bank Plaza and the parking lot at Cedar and West streets.
Memorial Promenade, featuring a large oval park on a deck above West Street, as well as new public squares, memorial sites, museum sites, and cultural buildings. A grand 18-acre promenade would connect a museum to be built on the site, to Battery Park lined by trees to remember the victims of Sept. 11. The plan includes six towers and 27.7 acres of public space.
See the six designs here.
Each of the recently proposed designs leaves the skyline of the world's greatest city without one of its most visible features--two identical towering objects at its southern tip. No other modern city has had to endure the annihilation of such a central tenant. Yet the plans proposed seek to create a permanent reminder of New York's loss, rather than a monument to its ability to rebound and endure.
"The age of the skyscraper is gone. This is the age of the housing project. Which is always a prelude to the age of the cave." So said Gail Wynand in Ayn Rand's classic architecture novel The Fountainhead. And Weekly Standard architecture critic David Gelernter seemed to agree when he wrote that where the U.S. once boasted of the Empire State or the Sears Tower as the tallest building in the world, now "we find the exuberance of the skyscraper builders incomprehensible and damned annoying."
"Tall buildings do not reflect brazen, adolescent cultures on-the-make," Gelernter wrote. "They emerge in fact out of eminently mature cultures flaunting their wealth, technology, design genius, and sheer radiant self-confidence." When Gelernter wrote that, he concluded that America no longer wants skyscrapers. Those who proposed the replacements for the WTC seem to agree. We hope the lackluster response has them reconsidering.
Any proposal that doesn't include the replacement of the Twin Towers won't be embraced enthusiastically.
"I like to see man standing at the foot of a skyscraper," a character, Newspaper Magnate Wynand, said in the Rand novel. "It makes him no bigger than an ant--isn't that the correct bromide for the occasion? The God-damn fools! It's man who made it--the whole incredible mass of stone and steel. It doesn't dwarf him, it makes him greater than the structure. It reveals his true dimensions to the world."
That isn't to say that improvements couldn't be made on at least the situation of the towers. The towers, like many other large projects of the '60s and '70s, were single-use structures--offices only--and this kept the area from reaching its full Potential, and left it quiet at night. Adding residential components and even reconnecting some of the street grid broken when the towers were constructed could improve the energy and life in lower Manhattan.
But the magnitude and institutionalization into the minds of New Yorkers and the world that Yamasaki accomplished with the original design can't be matched in terms of impact with almost any conceivable design for a replacement. Plus, the idea of having the World Trade Center will continue to focus New York as a city both encompassing and open to the world.
When Yamasaki designed the center, he said "World trade means world peace, and consequently the World Trade Center buildings in New York...had a bigger purpose than just to provide room for tenants. The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace...beyond the compelling need to make this a monument to world peace, the World Trade Center should, because of its importance, become a representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and through cooperation, his ability to find greatness.
"I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline," Rand wrote in The Fountainhead, "the sky over New York and the will of man made visible."
Another memorable line from the story has maverick architect Howard Roark listening to a committee of architects tell him he can't expect them to stick their necks out. Roark responds, "No, I certainly can't."
No one expects New Yorkers to stick their necks out by creating a building many worry will be a target for future attacks. But the real target on September 11 wasn't the buildings, it was the idea that any man can have individual dignity and enduring purpose. If New York is to be targeted again by terrorists, it will be targeted regardless of the existence of two tall towers at its tip.
Make no mistake--New Yorkers are looking for greatness. What is rebuilt at ground zero will show them if America still has the will to look for and find it.
Photo from Wirepix
Other New Colonist articles pertaining to the Twin Towers:
In the Face of Tragedy
Q&A: WTC Attacks and the Smart Growth Movement
Chicago's Ego
City of Life: Ayn Rand's new York
I Am a New Yorker
Rebuilding the World Trade Center
