The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 149

David Dunlap at the Times writes:

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington is the most frequently invoked precedent for displaying names outdoors. That memorial is not on a street, however, but is sheltered from the city around it by the National Mall.

The World Trade Center memorial, by contrast, is bordered by a state highway and three busy city streets. The north edge of the north tower's footprint is only 15 feet from Fulton Street.

Surrounding the memorial are eight construction sites where projects will be under way, simultaneously, well into the next decade. Think of the backup beepers alone, never mind jackhammers and riveting guns. Or passers-by yelling into cellphones.

Can the heart of the memorial — the contemplative space that allows one to confront both the vastness of the 2,979 dead and the poignancy of each individual loss — be sheltered from the tumult into which it has now been thrust?

Well, there is a solution to that problem. Eliminate the through streets that would have been reestablished under the master plan. Those through streets were eliminated when the WTC was originally constructed. The Libeskind master plan restored the streets, despite the fact that it poses a security nightmare and eliminates space that could otherwise go to the memorial or contemplative spaces.

Therefore, eliminating the through streets (Greenwich and Fulton) would solve multiple problems.

Also, the questions raised about how people are supposed to interact with the memorial are valid - are we supposed to lean over the parapets with the names inscribed upon them to view the waterfalls? That isn't clear, but then again, no one knew how people would interact with the Vietnam Memorial either. It turns out that making rubbings of the names has become a large part of visiting that memorial.

The Post, meanwhile, lambasts the still high costs for the memorial, and suggests the planning behind the memorial quadrant was dubious at best. Considering how much of the mess can be heaped upon a master plan that was foisted upon the site, that blame should lay at the feet of Gov. Pataki who pushed for the Libeskind plan over the Foster and THINK plans.

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