The Battle For Ground Zero, Part VII

The reviews continue to come in on the newly unveiled redesigned Freedom Tower. The Post has a front page splash that calls it Fort Zero. The associated article touts the security measures included in the new design. The following noted architectural critics chimed in:

Mayor Bloomberg said the tower "will be a spectacular addition to the city's skyline."

"Its construction will climax the greatest comeback in the history of our city," Bloomberg said, before departing the ceremony early to attend another event.

Pataki said he prefers the new look of the tower.

"I really think this is a better design. I'm not an architectural critic, I'm just a citizen, but I like it better," he said.

The NY Daily News suggests that with so many revisions to the building, they're bound to get it right eventually. Actually, the writer, Michael Goodwin, attacks the plan to restore all the office space lost since it appears to squeeze the memorial. He's only partially right. It's rediculous to restore the office space by spreading it out across the entire sight, instead of restoring the space in Twin Towers. That is the only way to rebuild the office space and provide the space necessary for the memorial and museum.
I think we've got a 25% solution or if you prefer, a 50% solution. The 25% solution is that this new tower, although reaching to the same height, only restores 25% of the office space of the Twin Towers, which leads to the 50% solution.

This is only half of the solution, and the designers must realize this by now. If one building at Ground Zero needs to have a fortified base 200+ feet tall, wouldn't the other buildings demand the same kinds of protection. After all, blowing one building on the site could lead to the collapse of others through a domino effect. Thus, other buildings on the site ought to be built with the same 200+ foot tall pedestal, which would raise otherwise ordinary skyscrapers into the heights of the former Twin Towers. The Master Plan envisions at least five other office buildings in the complex, ranging from 40-80 stories tall. The Freedom Tower, for all its height, is only a 82 story skyscraper.

Since the design seems to be aesthetically pleasing as a single tower, build two of them and restore the grandeur of the site and reduce the clutter at the same time.

The New York Times is even less restrained in its criticism:

The effort fails on almost every level. As an urban object, the tower's static form and square base finally brush aside the last remnants of Mr. Libeskind's master plan, whose only real strength was the potential tension it created among the site's structures. In the tower's earlier incarnation, for example, its eastern wall formed part of a pedestrian alley that became a significant entry to the memorial site, leading directly between the proposed International Freedom Center and the memorial's north pool. The alley, flanked on its other side by a performing arts center to be designed by Frank Gehry, was fraught with tension; it is now a formless park littered with trees.

The interior, by comparison, holds a bit more promise for the hopelessly optimistic. Visitors will enter from north and south lobbies, where they will have to slip around an interior partition set just beyond the revolving doors - yet another concession to security concerns. If the configuration of windows could somehow be improved, one could imagine, with some effort, a sealed cathedral-like room with heavenly light spilling down.

But if this is a potentially fascinating work of architecture, it is, sadly, fascinating in the way that Albert Speer's architectural nightmares were fascinating: as expressions of the values of a particular time and era. The Freedom Tower embodies, in its way, a world shaped by fear.

Of course, the Times seems to think that if nothing is built, or a low building is constructed on the site, it would be less of a target.

Absurdly, if the Freedom Tower were reduced by a dozen or so stories and renamed, it would probably no longer be considered such a prime target. Fortifying it, in a sense, is an act of deflection. It announces to terrorists: Don't attack here - we're ready for you. Go next door.

That's right. The same terrorists who considered blowing up the WTC (twice!), the Lincoln Tunnel, GWB, subway tunnels, the UN, and countless other sites in NYC and throughout the country, would suddenly decide that the WTC site isn't worthy of attack. The Pentagon is only five stories tall, yet it was attacked, and will probably be a target into the future as well.

The Times is living in some other reality. We are the target. This city. This nation. Such is the logic of the Times to think that no tower on the site would eliminate the terrorist threat or shift it elsewhere.

UPDATE:
More reviews come in - decidedly mixed, and entirely predictable.

UPDATE II:
Steve Cuozzo digs into the political machinations. Needless to say, everyone isn't one big happy family discussing the new building. Bloomberg is still peeved at Silver for nixing the West Side Stadium (he left as quickly as he showed up). Silverstein and the Port Authority still don't see eye to eye. Pataki forgot to thank Silverstein, who is supposed to build the Freedom Tower. Silver is annoyed that Bloomberg was pushing West Side development over Ground Zero, despite Silver knowing full well that the Governor is the one with the loudest say. Silent in all this? The Port Authority, despite the fact that all roads literally and figuratively run through the bi-state agency:

In fact, a little-known Port Authority engineer named Anthony Cracchiolo, the man in charge of the site, might have a greater say in Ground Zero's destiny than Pataki or Silverstein.

On the last go-around, infrastructure disagreements between Silverstein and the PA cost the project a year, at least.

The Silverstein camp accused the PA of deliberately obstructing him so it could nudge him out and develop the entire site on its own; the PA side accused Silverstein of being a cheapskate out to milk the public till, even though he pays the PA $10 million a month in rent on buildings that no longer exist.

After all that struggle, who was missing from the stage yesterday? Anyone from the Port Authority!

Except for Pataki's thanking the PA honchos in the front row — and with several pointed reminders that PA chairman Anthony Coscia is from New Jersey — yesterday's gathering pretended the agency didn't exist.

Even though the PA wasn't the main player yesterday, couldn't it — shouldn't it — have had something to say?

The saga continues...

UPDATE III:
The Anchoress unloads a whole case of whoopass on the author of the New York Times piece, Nicolai Ouroussoff. I don't think her criticisms are far off the mark. This guy is a critic for the Times, and sees the world through the lens of the Times, which isn't exactly the same way everyone else sees things. And that's a good thing too. Too much pretentioness is not a good thing - and the Times is a perfect object of pretentioness.

And if the author bothered to check out a few other icons of the New York skyline, he'd have noted that both the Empire State Building and Chrysler buildings are obelisks!

UPDATE IV: UPDATE'S REVENGE:
John Derbyshire takes on the PC spirit at the IFC and WTC reconstruction site. Hat Tip: Unconsidered Trifles. Derbyshire is actually closer to fact than fiction on the PC nature of the reconstruction efforts.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, Pataki, LMDC, urban policy.