The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 24

The stupidity of the master plan shines forth in what the police have to do to secure Ground Zero against car, truck, and bus bombings. Master architect Daniel Libeskind was told by Governor George Pataki, the LMDC and the Port Authority on the guidance of urban planners to reassert the street grid through the 16 acres at Ground Zero. That means you have to have all those security checkpoints at each step along the way, to say nothing of the buses that will now line Greenwich Street.

So, not only did planners have to reduce the usable space for memorials and office buildings to reintegrate the street grid, but you’ve got to put in all kinds of additional security to reduce the likelihood of car/truck/bus bombings at the site. Even then, you’re going to run into problems since there may be insufficient clearance for 2, 3, and 4 WTC which will run between Greenwich and Broadway.

Meanwhile, the entire security plan and construction remains contingent on getting the Deutsche Bank building disassembled, and that’s still behind schedule because of the fire last year that killed two firefighters.

In other words - the supposedly good intentions of the urban planners have created headaches beyond imagination all because they thought it important to reassert streets that disappeared with the construction of the original World Trade Center complex. The WTC master block was built by consolidating and eliminating streets through the site, and now urban planners think it's a good idea to run streets through the site? It will be a mess, to say nothing of the fact that you'll now have buses idling throughout the day right in the heart of Ground Zero as tourists visit the site. How exactly is that ecologically friendly?

I suspect that the ongoing costs to operate those security checkpoints will get the attention of the bean counters who will turn around and say that the reassertion of the street grid is fine, just as long as there's no traffic on those streets. Police say that the security plan isn't going to be as intrusive as the Daily News reports.

Still, I think it is quite possible that those streets will be utilized as pedestrian boulevards and nothing more. That's a far sight better than a lineup of buses belching exhaust.