|
Sept. 17, 2002--It took about two hours for the twin towers of the World Trade Center to fall on Sept. 11, 2001, but it may take at least a quarter of a century to replace them.
That was the opinion expressed Sept. 12 by Craig Whitaker, a New York City architect and adjunct professor at New York University, in the first lecture in the fall colloquium series sponsored by the School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy.
In his talk, “Next Steps, Hard Choices: Rebuilding the World Trade Center,” Whitaker told the audience of about 20 persons in Graham Hall that the task, made more difficult by the strong emotional issues surrounding any plans for the site of the former World Trade Center, is daunting.
Based on materials in an accompanying document, “Next Steps: Hard Choices—A Proposal for Lower Manhattan,” Whitaker addressed several major objectives that must be incorporated into any finalized plans for the18-acre site.
These objectives include restoring the former street system, creating a mixed-use development, rebuilding the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) station and strengthening mass transportation in the area.
Then, he said, there is the issue of designing a memorial that meets the needs and recommendations of the survivors of those killed in the terrorist attacks.
 |
| Design concepts developed by architect Craig Whitaker and New York University graduate students highlight the problems and possibilities inherent in any rebuilding effort at the World Trade Center site.
Photo credit Craig Whitaker Architects
|
“We need to spend a lot of time thinking about the memorial,” Whitaker said. “It will be at least a year or two emotionally, before we can start talking about this.”
Whitaker said other emotionally charged projects, such as the Vietnam War Memorial and the U.S. Arizona memorial site at Pearl Harbor, were not completed until well over a decade after the events and sacrifices they commemorated.
While special concerns associated with remembering the victims of 9/11 need to be addressed, Whitaker said it also is important that the memorial be part of a larger entity that reflects New York City’s cultural and economic vitality.
“You need to have life and activity in the site surrounding the memorial,” Whitaker said.
The complexity of the task is reflected in the number of “stakeholders” in any future plans for the site, including relatives of the victims, civic groups and a wide range of city and state agencies.
“Whatever kind of memorial is agreed upon will be much more dramatic if it is at the center of an outdoor room that also maintains a human scale to it,” Whitaker said. “And public dialog is very important if we are going to manage this thing and bring this to a constructive conclusion.”
Article by Jerry Rhodes
|
