The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 54

Scratch one more thorn in the side of redevelopment of Ground Zero. Tom Bernstein has resigned from the WTC Memorial Foundation.

Tom Bernstein submitted his letter of resignation to the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation on the eve of today's board meeting, said Lynn Rasic, a spokeswoman for the foundation.

"We're sorry to lose his support for the memorial," Rasic said, declining to discuss the contents of Bernstein's resignation letter to board chairman John Whitehead.

Bernstein, a co-founder of Chelsea Piers, could not be reached for comment last night.

The foundation is in the middle of a campaign to raise $500 million for the memorial and for construction of two cultural buildings. One of the buildings was slated to house the Freedom Center that was Bernstein's brainchild.

Bernstein's resignation comes exactly three weeks after Pataki announced he would not allow the Freedom Center to be housed in a cultural building that would share the same quadrant of Ground Zero with the memorial.

Expect to see an uptick in charitable donations to the Foundation as a result. Another member of the foundation had resigned two weeks ago in protest over the ouster of the IFC from Ground Zero; Agnes Gund, a former Museum of Modern Art president.

The NYT continues to shill for the IFC, and has Bernstein quoted as saying, "It is now clear," Mr. Bernstein said, "that the plan for a 'living memorial' has been abandoned." It's utter bunk, and Bernstein knows it too. He's just pissed that he and his cronies lost out on the mega million dollar project because of their anti-American views. Cry me a river.

The memorial will be built, and it will be a reminder of what happened on 9/11. What will be absent is the need for post modernist interpretation of the events as seen through the prism of anti-Americanism.

The Times piece goes on to talk about the wounding of the LMDC by Pataki's decision to can the IFC. Last time I checked, the LMDC answers to the Governor and if the Governor decided to can the project, that's what gets done. Besides, it's not the first time that the Governor has pushed his view of rebuilding over the objections of the LMDC. The selection of the Libeskind plan was done in a similar fashion.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, Pataki, LMDC, urban policy, Freedom Tower, IFC, International Freedom Center.