The Freedom Tower

The bane of politics is forgetting that history repeats itself.
“The original World Trade Center was an abomination in several respects, not the least of which was the simple fact that its creator, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was never supposed to get into the commercial real estate business — especially not 13.4 million square feet of it,”say writers for the blog called A Stitch in Haste.
“For almost all of the Twin Towers’ existence, its tenants were almost exclusively the Port Authority itself, along with other state and federal government agencies — a boondoggle “government-to-government” welfare program.
“And we have learned absolutely nothing from that:
The federal and New York State governments have tentatively agreed to become anchor tenants in the Freedom Tower[.]
“The agreements, which would cover about 1 million of the 2.6 million square feet in the building, are a significant step forward in the development of the tower, which is seen by Gov. George E. Pataki and others as a symbol of the city’s resilience, but regarded by some critics as folly.”

Here’s another thought from Oh,SnapDaily.com,” a photographer’s blog about everything:
“Wired has this little tour through the renderings of the Freedom Tower complex.
Some things to note: Not surprisingly, the building was designed with security in mind. It will be able to withstand the impact of a fully fueled airliner and all evacuation routes lead directly to the street. That’s smart, and something that should probably be taken into consideration in all the buildings we build from this point forth… but how about cutting down on the kinds of activities that make people want to people fly planes into our buildings in the first place? I dont mean to state the obvious here, but you know…”

This is an interesting idea from Pascal Lardeller of Le Monde diplomatique. “The net is the perfect medium for counter-information, analyzing available data on the 11 September attacks, challenging official findings on the events and exploiting conspiracy theories.
“Media coverage of the events of 11 September 2001 (and the rise of the Freedom Tower and the other buildings going up at Ground Zero) had to deal with an unexpected newcomer: the internet,” Lardellier said. “But is the net a new medium or is it a counter-medium? We have to ask that question because the internet has encouraged circulation of a different type of information, while the conventional media relayed the standard version of the events as gospel, repeatedly showing nightmare images accompanied by a familiar institutional commentary, given by cohorts of pontificating experts.
“Now, information highways are a spaghetti junction of alternative routes easily accessible to anyone who wants to get away from the main routes of the politically correct and ethnocentric, and that egress is often a good thing. Yet the digital counter-information saturating the net seems to be produced by some new version of the old socialist International organizations: internet users who want to spread the word about their findings or feelings, perhaps about 9/11. Their output spreads wide and loud, as the internet’s characteristic viral circulation has amplified the old word of mouth into unprecedented resonance. Electronic mail circulates files continuously, and can reach hundreds of contacts with a single mouse click.”

Reading the Wall Street Jolurnal last spring, Jeff Matthews found this question: “Who Might Fill Freedom Tower?”
This is still the question that looms large over construction of the 1,776 feet building which Matthews called the “obvious reluctance ofmortal human beingsto work where lightening has already struck, to deadly result.”
Matthews had his own plan. “To fill the offices, plans include forcing government employees to put themselves in harm’s way for what would surely be the most tempting terrorist target in the world.”
Matthews had a suggestion, one he said would make the buildings going up on Ground Zero safe for occupants, no matter who they were and the plan did not require forcing government workers or others to go to work fearing for their lives.
“Put the United Nations in the top fifty floors of the Freedom Tower. That would render the entire Freedom Tower impervious to attack … “ and resolve the mid-town parking problem at the same time, he said.

It was one of those quiet, closed door things. Last summer there was a dispute between two Yale School of Architecture alumni over the Freedom Tower design. Thomas Shine, a 2000 graduate of the school took on 1963 grad David Childs, claiming that Childs copied portions of Shine’s design that wound up being part of the design for the Tower awarded to the firm where Childs works. Shine filed suit in 2004 and last summer a judge said his lawsuit could go forward.
Without any comment last summer, the two parties reached a settlement. Shine withdrew his charge and Childs’ firm withdrew a claim for legal fees. This is one of those sticky wickets, these kind of folks talk about with nods and head shakes while the rest of us are left to wonder how the world goes round. The two Yales not only wound up in Elm City as Yalies, they both had Yale architecture professor Alex Garvin, a 1962 grad himself who also met Childs as an undergraduate and was his classmate. Garvin also taught Shine and served as vice president of the infamous Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the folks who mustered the forced that are now building the Freedom Tower. Small world some of us live in, isn’t it.

If it were to happen a third time, the architects who designed the Freedom Tower, say the building could take the impact of a fully-fueled jet.
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill say a vertical core that runs through the length of the building is fortified with a 3-foot.thick steel and concrete wall. The frame of the building is interlaced with beams and columns that distribute the weight. In an attack or explosion, the building will not collapse.
The core of the building was designed to become an escape route from the upper floors to ground level. The core has extra wide stairs. It is pressurized to pump smoke out side and there are specially equipped staircases for firefighters. In addition, there are refuge areas on each floor equipped so occupants can wait safely to be rescued.

The development of lower Manhattan has been hampered for five years now by what a former chairman of the Port Authority called that “16 acre ditch.” Slowly, the revitalization of lower Manhattan was progressing nicely a decade or so ago. Old buildings were reclaimed, remodeled and revitalized. The old Westside Highway was demolished, one-way streets were rerouted and revamped so that cars and pedestrians could move around. New housing went up and the tip of Manhattan saw people making day trips to lower Manhattan to rollerblade, bike or just stroll through the walkways and parks that sprang up. Then 9/11 put a halt to all of that revitalization.
Anthony Cracchiolo, of course, was referring to the WTC work-site. Like it or not, the 9/11 tragedy created the opportunity to rebuild a century-old transit system. It will be replaced by a $2.2 billion commuter hub under ground zero, probably the most expensive memorial in U.S. history and a vehicle security system that is being invented as I write this. When those 16 acres are rebuilt, there is no doubt in my mind it will be the most expensive redevelopment of 16 acres the world has ever seen. In fact, it is beyond our comprehension right now because the ground at Ground Zero is a slippery slope and the costs rise every day and no one, no one is able to calculate what it will eventually cost any of us.

It is one of the ironies of our times. While the developers and the new owners of the World Trade Center properties at Ground Zero scramble to find tenants to fill the millions of square feet of vacant office space, employees of the agency that now own the Freedom Tower say they won’t move in.
The WTC is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. In a series of interviews and press reports, it has become widely known than PA employees are refusing to move into a building on a site where they’ve been attacked, not once, but twice since 1993. “Twice these people were the subject of that attack, and I am not going to ask them to move into that building,” PA chairman Anthony Coscia told reporters for the Bergen County (N.J. ) Record. Federal and state agencies have said they’d move their offices to the World Trade Center site. A PA spokesman said they believe the Freedom Tower will be safe to move into but the building would simply carry too much emotional weight for people who’ve twice been the victims of attacks in that exact location.”
A truck bomb in 1993 killed six people at the trade center, where the Port Authority was based. Hijackers flew airliners into the towers on Sept. 11, 2001, destroying them and killing nearly 3,000 people.

Freedom Tower builder Larry Silverstein can breathe a little easier now. The Port Authority has inked a deal it agreed to more than five months ago to take control of the Tower project. This makes Silverstein the hired hand who will build the Tower, not the owner of the thing anymore. Under the agreement, the PA will own the Tower and Tower Five. One of the key provisions in the agreement concerns a daily fine of $300,000 per day for every day the Tower construction is late going up. The PA will pay the fine and the money goes to Silverstein. What a deal. What a country.

Watching ink dry, believe it or not, is slower than watching paint dry in New York.
All the ink than needs to dry on all and any Freedom Tower deals adds up to a whole lot of waiting and watching.
While the government suits rush to announce the newest benchmark in redevelopment of the World Trade Center, there are deeds and deals that are iffy at best. One of them is whether or not Freedom Tower Larry Silverstein developer believes his partners – the governors of New York and New Jersey will deliver the government tenants they promised this week. If they can’t it is Silverstein who will have to foot the bills of running and maintaining the Freedom Tower. According to press reports, Silverstein wants some assurances that he will be held harmless should he fail to meet some construction deadlines. This is no small thing for a developer and it is an especially significant clause in any contract for a high profile project like the construction of a building that has had more delays and complications than a troubled pregnancy.
Here’s an idea worth pondering: “These details are crucial,” say the folks at City Journal. “But that’s what negotiations are for, and Silverstein, having agreed to renegotiate his long-term lease in the first place, after enduring personal insults and slander from Pataki and Bloomberg, deserves to have his concerns addressed calmly and reasonably.
“Here’s the test. Will the PA accept Silverstein’s concerns in good faith and quietly go back to the table for wrap-up? Or will the PA, accompanied by Bloomberg and Pataki, start railing again for the media’s benefit about how unreasonable Silverstein is?”