By: Karen Matthews Associated Press
site were released Tuesday to a decidedly mixed reaction, with critics
saying they included too much office space on hallowed ground and
had too little imagination.
Others however, said the plans included the two most important needs:
a strong transportation hub and a powerful memorial to the 2,813 people
who died in the rubble.
"They represent not initial ideas or wild visions, but how much has been
done and that we are very close to consensus," said Kathryn Wylde, head
of the New York City Partnership, an organization of local business leaders.
Each proposal calls for a memorial covering from four to 10 acres of the
16-acre site. Two proposals would redevelop the so-called "footprints"
of the fallen twin towers and put the memorial elsewhere.
All plans call for replacing the 11 million square feet of commercial office space
and the 600,000 square feet of retail space lost in the Sept. 11 attack.
They also call for a 600,000-square-foot hotel to replace the hotel and mall
that were destroyed.
While no plan includes buildings as tall as the 110-story twin towers, each
evokes the lost towers with at least one needle-like structure perched atop
a building. The tallest structure in any of the plans is 85 stories.
Each plan includes the word "Memorial."
John Whitehead, the head of the agency charged with rebuilding the site,
said the proposals are works in progress and are subject to change before
the final choice is made in December.
"The six plans are not final blueprints," said Whitehead, chairman of the Lower
Manhattan Development Corp. "Each represents a package of proposed ideas.
These ideas can be mixed and matched and reconstituted based on public input."
Design professionals said they were disappointed that there was so little variety
in the ideas presented.
"These plans aren't broad enough, bold enough or big enough," said Mitchell Moss,
director of the New York University's Taub Urban Research Center.
Alfredo Andia, an architecture professor who ran a monthslong workshop among
architecture schools on trade center planning, said he would have liked to see
more variety.
Bolder, more extreme concepts - such as reconstructing huge towers, or devoting
the site to a large memorial - went unexplored, said Andia, a professor at Florida
International University in Miami.
Monica Iken, whose husband died in the attacks, said she was disappointed the
plans called for so much office and retail space and were not definitive about the
acreage for a memorial.
"If we build a beautiful memorial, I guarantee they will come. If we build office and
retail space, I just don't know," said Iken, founder of the survivors' group
September's Mission.
She also said that building on the footprints of the twin towers is unacceptable
to many victims' families.
"The footprints are non-negotiable. They are sacred and hallowed space," she said.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. George Pataki both insisted that the proposals
are works in progress. Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said he thought a
"very substantial portion" of the site should become a memorial.
All plans call for a transportation hub connecting PATH trains, ferries and all the
subway lines that serve lower Manhattan, with the possibility of later connecting
to commuter railroad lines. Although no housing is included on the site itself,
the plans call for converting nearby properties into apartments.
The plans were prepared by the architectural firm of Beyer Blinder Belle, consultants
to the development corporation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey,
which owns the land.
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