Malling Downtown
November 23rd, 2005
Reviews of the Port Authority’s possible plans for retail development near the World Trade Center site are trickling in, and they are not favorable.
“One of the more striking features of the retail component is its mallness, which isn’t quite suburban though it is certainly second-rate Californian,” writes theboxtank, a blog about “big-box urbanism.” Theboxtank seems particularly dismayed about the Cortland Street atrium, which “looks as though it will be a pleasant perch from which to look out on the tourists in the memorial, without ever having to leave the comforts of shopping.
“Does the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey really want to put a retail shopping center on the Church Street side of the World Trade Center memorial site?” asks Howard Sherman in his Nuggets blog. Sherman wonders how many people will want to “Spend some time taking in one of the greatest disasters in U.S. history and then buy a snow globe?”
Others are more dismayed at what the development would apparently replace. “According to the rendering , Century 21 …has simply ceased to exist! All that is left in its place is a patch of brown — one might almost say scorched — earth,” laments
Meme First. And 911memorials.org notes that the “Freedom Center and Performing Arts Center are also missing” from the authority’s drawings.
In category: Gotham City, Land Use
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November 28th, 2005 at 9:33 am
Thanks for the link.