by Lionel Bascom — April 21st, 2007 — 1 comment
Plans by New York City officials to downsize the Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center is a cause for concern because of tighter than expected deadlines for new plans.
Catherine McVay Hughes, chair of Community Board One’s World Trade Center Committee, is disturbed by the planned redesign of the PAC building. Port Authority officials say a final structural design must be submitted as soon as possible. If not submitted soon, the PA says, the PAC project will suffer more delays.
It is rumored that the PA wants those plans submitted in eight weeks.
“This is unbelievable, after all this time, that they’ve finally given themselves an eight week deadline,” Hughes has said. “However, there was a master plan that people agreed to and it’s unfair that the costs have been allowed to compromise that plan and make the Performing Arts Center the last priority.”
Some city officials say the eight week deadline is not firm.
Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff says the city will give the Port Authority the time needed to submit plans. With other priorities and delans, he says construction of the PAC building can not even begin until 2011 so there is more than ample time to submit new plans. The real rub here involves the idea of downsizing the PAC at all.
11:34 PM in Uncategorized, The Construction, World Trade Center, Ground Zero, Related Stories, Freedom Tower News, Neighbourhood, Politics
Downsizing the Performing Arts Center does not surprise me at all. For some reason, we live in a society where music and art have less of a priority than sports or other money making pastimes. In a world that desperately needs a little soulful uplift, this kind of oversight becomes an unfortunate circumstance. New York has the greatest number of musicians and performing artists, and to ignore this is a shame.
Jeanne · April 22nd, 2007 at 1:57 am