The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 137

Kevin Rampe is back and why he would be up for this job after spending two years dealing with the same problems that haven't been addressed til now is puzzling. Is there no one better that Pataki can find to head up the LMDC? The former president of the LMDC has been tapped to replace outgoing chairman John Whitehead.

Eager to show progress after months of squabbling over the memorial and commercial development at ground zero, Gov. George E. Pataki moved quickly yesterday to replace John C. Whitehead, the former banker who headed the state authority in charge of rebuilding downtown.

The governor said he had appointed Kevin M. Rampe as the chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the same organization he once served as president, to complete the design guidelines for the 16-acre World Trade Center site and to coordinate the redesign and construction of the memorial by Sept. 9, 2009. Last week, Mr. Whitehead, 84, announced that he was stepping down at the end of the month.

Mr. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg also said yesterday that they had asked Frank Sciame, a builder and developer, to convene yet another downtown committee, to ensure that a proper memorial is built within the $500 million budget recently imposed by the state and the city. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation's latest estimate had put the cost at nearly $1 billion.

The committee, which includes the architects Michael Arad, Peter Walker, J. Max Bond Jr. and Daniel Libeskind, will work on refining a budget and a design by June 15 with the development corporation, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the memorial foundation. This formally takes the design out of the foundation's hands, a move that drew some criticism yesterday.

The announcements came a day before Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was to convene a state hearing at 7 World Trade Center to look into the lack of progress and coordination in rebuilding Lower Manhattan, more than four years after 9/11.

At the same time that hearing begins, the governor and the mayor are scheduled to hold a 10:30 a.m. news conference at 1 Hudson Street to announce that Sears, Roebuck & Company has moved 80 product designers there from Chelsea. The employees moved in last week.

Mr. Silver said yesterday that it was unclear exactly how much progress had been made in rebuilding at ground zero.

The New York Post editorial board welcomes Silver's hearings on the matter as it should shed some light on the whole process and why there has been such inaction at the site.

Meanwhile one of Mayor Giuliani's former aides who has a Ground Zero-related illness will be getting medical benefits from the City as Bloomberg reversed course.

UPDATE:
New York Magazine has a spread on Michael Arad, the designer of the Reflecting Absense memorial. The picture painted isn't a pretty one.

Another good source of Ground Zero news is Project Rebirth, which includes multimedia displays, webcams, and other technical information.

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