History and Balance


"What they did to lower Manhattan was an act of vandalism just as complete as September 11th." This is architect David Childs of the firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, as quoted in the May 27th issue of Time. He's talking about the original design and realization of the World Trade Center.

The Time article is called "The Battle for Ground Zero," and it's surprisingly short and rather broadly written. The piece focuses on the progress toward deciding what will be built on the 16 acre site where 7 buildings stood and thousands of people perished. Victim's families were interviewed-they're working to express their feelings and opinions during the run-up to rebuilding. It's noted that the Port Authority, which built the WTC, needs the rental revenue from the millions of square feet of missing office space, and is eager to get under way. Clearly, many opposing forces with powerful needs and wishes are squaring off over the issue.

Woven deeply into many of the positions being taken are views about the Twin Towers themselves. New Yorkers live with big buildings in an intimate, intense way. After Jimmy Breslin called Manhattan "Skyscraper National Park," his insightful characterization was repeated often. But the Twin Towers, in their epic scale and stark Modern style, were in a category of their own, and Childs' comments relate to this. Many people loved other contemporary buildings but hated the design of the WTC. The Towers just plain scared other people; when they were first proposed in the mid-1960s New Yorkers openly questioned the need to build these two huge buildings.

But there was a purpose, a true grand plan behind the WTC that went far beyond gaining rental revenue, and this is where Childs- and the article- really miss the mark. The Trade Center anchored a neighborhood that came into being as a phase of the development of lower Manhattan; Battery Park City was built out into the Hudson River on landfill excavated from the WTC construction. Apartments, stores, restaurants, dry cleaners, schools, delicat essens, candy stores, florists, coffee houses-all the things that make up a neighborhood-were all built nearby after the Towers were completed. A part of lower Manhattan that had been a ghost town in the 1960s became a living community.

In addition to the many thousands of workers and residents, people could come by subway and rail line from every corner of the city, and New Jersey via the PATH (Port Authority Trans Hudson) Lines, to shop and sightsee. Manhattan's best views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are from here, on a spacious walkway used by rollerbladers, bikers, runners and people out for a casual stroll. An entirely new relationship to the Hudson River, in fact, has evolved in part because the Battery Park City development made the Hudson easily accessible. This bit of contemporary history is missing from the Time article.

Childs is one of the architects involved in the redevelopment planning; one suspects there is a vested interest powering his statements. Time Magazine should have balanced his comments with at least a capsule history of the site and what it meant to the life of the city. The meaning of this place has been changed by September 11th-it's history has not.


About the Author

Nancy LeMay is a five-time Emmy winning broadcast designer who has worked both in New York and LA, in network and local. She is a teacher and a painter as well. You can reach her through her website, www.Nancylemay.com and by email at NancyLeMayCo@aol.com