Feuds threaten 9/11 memorial
By James Bone
New Yorkers have ignored pleas to contribute towards the $1 billion World Trade Centre project
ALMOST ten million New Yorkers were given the option on their tax returns this year to donate to the World Trade Centre Memorial. Just 14,707 did so.
Of the seven charities named on the tax form, only the Lake Placid Olympic Training Centre did worse. The public response, which raised $150,085 (£80,000) towards the $1 billion projected cost, showed the depths of the crisis surrounding the project to commemorate the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York.
Delays, a ballooning budget, feuding architects, security concerns and opposition from victims’ families are among the myriad problems now jeopardising the memorial. The result is that, four-and-a-half years after the attack, the site remains just a hole in the ground.
“The memorial project is sagging beneath the weight of competing constituencies, conflicting agendas and unfortunate political exploitation of the memory of 9/11,” James Young and Michael van Valkenburgh, 2 of the 13 jurors who chose the design, wrote in a recent New York Times article. The design, by Michael Arad, a London-born Israeli architect, was selected by a jury two years ago from 5,021 submissions.
The plan, titled “Reflecting Absences”, is for two sunken reflecting pools where the twin towers once stood, each with water cascading down the sides and a square void at the centre. The public would be able to descend beneath the pools and view the waterfalls from below. The memorial is expected to become the biggest tourist attraction in New York. Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York, has called for the price tag to be slashed.
The World Trade Centre Memorial Foundation, the non-profit organisation that is supposed to raise $300 million of the total, has collected $131 million. Gretchen Dykstra, its president, resigned last week, saying: “Perhaps it would help if there was one less player.”
Mr Arad has spoken out about “butting heads” with other architects and bureaucrats on the project. “I have no choice but to fight them every step of the way,” he said.
James Kallstrom, New York state’s top counter-terrorism official, has said that the memorial’s design makes it vulnerable to a terrorist attack. Many of the victims’ families are outraged that it is underground and does not protect the footprints of the twin towers.
Mr van Valkenburgh, a professor of landscape architecture at Harvard, said: “I think the memorial will survive. I cannot imagine it won’t.”
New Yorkers have ignored pleas to contribute towards the $1 billion World Trade Centre project
ALMOST ten million New Yorkers were given the option on their tax returns this year to donate to the World Trade Centre Memorial. Just 14,707 did so.
Of the seven charities named on the tax form, only the Lake Placid Olympic Training Centre did worse. The public response, which raised $150,085 (£80,000) towards the $1 billion projected cost, showed the depths of the crisis surrounding the project to commemorate the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York.
Delays, a ballooning budget, feuding architects, security concerns and opposition from victims’ families are among the myriad problems now jeopardising the memorial. The result is that, four-and-a-half years after the attack, the site remains just a hole in the ground.
“The memorial project is sagging beneath the weight of competing constituencies, conflicting agendas and unfortunate political exploitation of the memory of 9/11,” James Young and Michael van Valkenburgh, 2 of the 13 jurors who chose the design, wrote in a recent New York Times article. The design, by Michael Arad, a London-born Israeli architect, was selected by a jury two years ago from 5,021 submissions.
The plan, titled “Reflecting Absences”, is for two sunken reflecting pools where the twin towers once stood, each with water cascading down the sides and a square void at the centre. The public would be able to descend beneath the pools and view the waterfalls from below. The memorial is expected to become the biggest tourist attraction in New York. Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York, has called for the price tag to be slashed.
The World Trade Centre Memorial Foundation, the non-profit organisation that is supposed to raise $300 million of the total, has collected $131 million. Gretchen Dykstra, its president, resigned last week, saying: “Perhaps it would help if there was one less player.”
Mr Arad has spoken out about “butting heads” with other architects and bureaucrats on the project. “I have no choice but to fight them every step of the way,” he said.
James Kallstrom, New York state’s top counter-terrorism official, has said that the memorial’s design makes it vulnerable to a terrorist attack. Many of the victims’ families are outraged that it is underground and does not protect the footprints of the twin towers.
Mr van Valkenburgh, a professor of landscape architecture at Harvard, said: “I think the memorial will survive. I cannot imagine it won’t.”
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