Remembering the rebuild

Last month, America remembered the September 11 attacks which left a hole in the architectural fabric of downtown Manhattan.  And, even being eight years after the fact, no structure on the actual World Trade Center site has been rebuilt.  Architecturally speaking, there is nothing to speak of.  This may be  a shocking revelation to many, except maybe those New Yorkers who pass the site on a day-to-day basis.  But to people living outside the city (even architecturally conscious Wisconsinites) the rebuilding process has been largely forgotten.  Sure, everyone remembers what happened on that tragic morning, but it seems like the country as a whole has forgotten what’s happening at Ground Zero right now. 

Many assume the rebuilding process was finished long ago; others assume the site is still a ruble-filled disaster zone.  However, neither of these assumptions are true.  In fact, the process is somewhere in between.  Clean-up crews were finished years ago and construction of a memorial and office space has begun, but it just seems to be taking a little longer than most people would like.  So what’s the hold up? 

Initially, feuds between victim’s families, owners of the former World Trade Center, New Yorkers, architects and the city government delayed the design process; some wanted to restore the site to look as it originally did, others wanted only a memorial to be built, while others were only concerned with replacing the 10-million square feet of office space that was lost when the towers fell.  Donald Trump himself even expressed his own personal plea to rebuild the twin towers exactly as they once stood. 

Fortunately, the feuding has subsided (for the most part), and money, unfortunately, has become the main source of contention.  The question of who is going to pay to rebuild a structure that was never expected to have to be built in the first place is still something of a sticky situation.  Arguments ensue over whether a majority of the cash should come from public funding or the current owners of the site, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Regardless of this red tape, construction has begun, slowly but surely.  A memorial outlining the footprints of the former towers is starting to take shape, along with five new office towers and a transportation hub, designed by Santiago Calatrava of Milwaukee Art Museum fame.  Click on http://www.wtc.com/ to see all of the construction plans. 

It would have been wonderful if construction could have been finished in time for the eighth anniversary; afterall, the Empire State building took only a year to build.  However,  rebuilding the World Trade Center is about more than filling a hole in lower Manhattan; it’s also about filling a hole in the heart of the nation, a hole that only time – and apparently money – will heal.