

All Memorial News
Staten Island Memorial Unveiled - Sep 12, 2004
Rounding out a long and intense day of events marking the third anniversary of 9/11, a memorial to Staten Island victims was dedicated on the borough's waterfront at the ferry terminal across the harbor from the Trade Center site.
(NY1)
Fundraising For Memorial Has Yet to Begin - Sep 11, 2004
Eight months after the World Trade Center memorial design was unveiled, Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg have yet to find a prominent person willing to lead the foundation that's raising the money to build it.
(New York Daily News)
Website Offers "Living Memorial" To 9/11 Victims, Families - Sep 9, 2004
A high-profile 9/11 organization launched an Internet-based memorial yesterday that will serve as a "portal of reflection, remembrance, interaction, education and scholarly research" about the terrorist attacks.
(New York Daily News)
Memorial Planned For Flight 93 Victims - Sep 9, 2004
The 40 innocent passengers and crew who died on hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 should be honored because they played a role in the "only victory" during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said the father of one of the victims. That's what planners hope people remember as they submit designs for a crash site memorial in a national competition announced Wednesday.
(Newsday )
Frederic Schwartz: Designer of Two 9/11 Memorials - Sep 9, 2004
Frederic Schwartz is standing on a peninsula at Liberty State Park where ground is to be broken tomorrow for the 9/11 memorial he has designed for New Jersey, only three-and-a-half hours after ground is broken in Westchester County for the 9/11 memorial he has designed there. But for a moment, his sad eyes are not focused on the empty sky across the Hudson River where the World Trade Center is supposed to be.
(New York Times )
Construction on Staten Island's 9/11 Memorial Begins - Aug 17, 2004
Workers started installing a memorial to the September 11 victims on Staten Island Monday.
(NY1)
Cantor Fitzgerald Finds New Home in Midtown - Jul 27, 2004
Nearly three years after 658 Cantor Fitgerald employees were killed in the attack on the World Trade Center, the stock and bond trading company has found a new home five miles from ground zero, on the East Side of Manhattan. Cantor signed a lease last week to move into space now occupied by Bloomberg L.P., the business information company founded by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, at Park Avenue and 59th Street, where Cantor plans to erect a monument to the co-workers who died in the Sept. 11 attack.
(New York Times)
Benches Become Individual 9/11 Memorials - Jul 16, 2004
Since 1986, the Central Park Conservancy has run a program called "Adopt-a-Bench." For $7,500, one can have a brief message inscribed on a plaque. In return, the conservancy promises to maintain the bench forever. It was inevitable perhaps that, in this form of urban shorthand, some would speak for those who perished on Sept. 11. At least 21 benches reflect that day, though "there could be more," said Linda Blumberg, a conservancy spokeswoman.
(New York Times)
Tribute in Light Gets Funding for Next Five Years - Jul 9, 2004
Intended originally as an ephemeral memorial, the twin-beam "Tribute in Light," which simultaneously marks the presence and absence of the World Trade Center, has been guaranteed a place in the night sky every Sept. 11 for at least the next five years. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation board voted yesterday to give $3.5 million to the Municipal Art Society, which helps produce the memorial.
(New York Times)
New Jersey Picks Its 9/11 Memorial - Jul 1, 2004
A design featuring two stainless-steel walls that look from a certain perspective as if the World Trade Center towers had been neatly felled and had landed in New Jersey has won the competition for New Jersey's Sept. 11 memorial, Gov. James E. McGreevey announced yesterday. The winning proposal came from the Manhattan-based architect Frederic Schwartz.
(New York Times)
The Integration of the Design Team at Ground Zero - Jul 1, 2004
Architect J. Max Bond Jr. has had to build bridges to reach Ground Zero, and now, for the first time in the redevelopment of the trade center site, an African American, is a major player
(Washington Post )
Controversy Rages Over Jersey City's Proposed 9/11 Memorial - Jun 30, 2004
Chances are there would have been some degree of opposition sooner or later had anyone suggested building a 10-story, 175-ton nickel-surfaced teardrop suspended within a bronze-clad tower on a pier across the water from the World Trade Center site as a 9/11 memorial.
(New York Times)
Jersey City Cools to Russian Sculptor's Offer of 9/11 Memorial - Jun 24, 2004
When an internationally known Russian sculptor offered last year to erect a 100-foot-tall Sept. 11 memorial on the waterfront opposite the World Trade Center site, the mayor of Jersey City embraced the idea as befitting a city that lost 40 residents in the attack. But with opposition from the city's new mayor and from community groups who consider the teardrop-themed sculpture simplistic and overly imposing, a resolution to accept the offer has been withheld from Wednesday night's City Council meeting, leaving its future in doubt.
(WNBC)
Plans to Memorialize 9/11 Victims at Fresh Kills Prove Controversial - Jun 14, 2004
Fresh Kills was the world's most colossal dump when the city closed it in early 2001. And now that the Department of City Planning is developing a master plan for turning its 2,200 acres into a vast and innovative new park, it is could become the world's most controversial trash heap. The problem is not how many soccer fields to build or whether to plant oak trees or magnolias. Rather, a battle is looming over a comparatively tiny area of the vast landfill and the city's intention of preserving the painful memories of what happened here.
(New York Times)
Sound Booth at Memorial Center Will Preserve 9/11 Memories - Jun 5, 2004
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation’s board on Wednesday approved a $500,000 payment to StoryCorps and September’s Mission to set up an oral history booth at the World Trade Center site by the three-year anniversary of the attack. The interviews will become part of the archives of the interpretive center that will be located under the W.T.C. memorial, said Anita Contini, vice president of memorial and cultural affairs for the L.M.D.C. The Library of Congress will also keep the records.
(Downtown Express)
Advisory Council Calls for 'Powerful' Artifact to Mark Entrance to Underground Museum - Jun 3, 2004
A "powerful, visible" artifact from Ground Zero should mark the entrance to the World Trade Center Memorial Center, an advisory panel said yesterday.
That recommendation was one of several made by the Memorial Center Advisory Committee in a draft released yesterday by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. The memorial center will be located underground at the southwest corner of the memorial site.
(New York Daily News)
Ground Zero Museum Should Honor Each Victim: Advisory Council - Jun 3, 2004
The Ground Zero memorial museum should include touching tributes to each victim, including their personal effects and images, an advisory panel recommended yesterday. Such personal and moving memorials would be in addition to a "factual" account of the terrorists who killed the nearly 3,000 victims.
(New York Post)
Westchester Picks 9/11 Memorial - Apr 30, 2004
Westchester County unveiled the winning design on Thursday for its own Sept. 11 memorial, a soaring sculpture with 109 intersecting steel rods, each representing a victim who lived in the county. The memorial, named "The Rising," was designed by Frederic Schwartz, an acclaimed Manhattan architect and a founder of the Think team. Think's entry in the master plan competition for ground zero was the runner-up in that contest. The Westchester memorial will be built at Kensico Dam Plaza, a county-owned park in Valhalla. Unveiling is scheduled for Sept. 11, 2005.
(New York Times)
British Minister of Parliament Back NY 9/11 Memorial for British Victims - Apr 27, 2004
British Minister of Parliament Gisela Stuart is supporting a campaign to construct a permanent memorial to the 67 British citizens who died in terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
(Evening Mail)
Memorial Designer Joins NY Architecture Firm - Apr 25, 2004
Girding for the commission of a lifetime - translating an evocative idea into the reality of a permanent World Trade Center site memorial - New York's best-known unknown architect, Michael Arad, has joined a 50-person firm in Manhattan. On Monday, Mr. Arad was named a partner in Handel Architects, a 10-year-old firm that reshaped the Lincoln Center area in the 1990's with mixed-use projects for Millennium Partners.
(New York Times)
Associate Architect Chosen for Ground Zero Memorial - Apr 14, 2004
A decade after preparing a sweeping plan to revitalize the public spaces at the World Trade Center, the firm of Davis Brody Bond was designated yesterday as associate architect for the memorial that is to be built on the trade center site. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation also approved a $45 million contract with the Gilbane Building Company of Providence, R.I., to dismantle 130 Liberty Street, a 40-story building near ground zero.
(New York Times)
Top Architecture Firms Eye Collaborating Role on Ground Zero Memorial - Apr 7, 2004
Some of the best-known, largest and most prolific design firms in New York are vying to be named associate architect for the World Trade Center site memorial. Technically, the associate's role would be to help Michael Arad and Peter Walker realize their competition-winning plan, "Reflecting Absence," with two voids where the twin towers stood. But the caliber of the firms being considered by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation suggests that they might also play an influential role in refining the evolving design.
(New York Times)
Memorial to British 9/11 Victims Planned for Hanover Square - Apr 5, 2004
Sculptor Anish Kapoor is to create a memorial in New York to the British victims of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre. The 19.5ft (6m) sculpture, Unity, will form the centrepiece of a memorial garden in Hanover Square, near the twin towers site.
(BBC News)
9/11 Families Criticize Staten Island Memorial - Mar 24, 2004
Many unhappy families of World Trade Center victims are refusing to articipate in Staten Island's 9/11 memorial after hearing that some preliminary sketches of the victims don't look like their loved ones. The $2 million waterfront memorial, entitled "Postcards," will be covered with 9-by-11-inch tablets featuring facial profiles of Staten Island's 268 victims etched in granite. To create the initial paper and pencil sketches, families have been asked to submit pictures of the victims by April 1. But about 15 families have said the sketches are inaccurate or unflattering, said Dennis McKeon, who runs St. Clare's WTC Outreach Committee, a group that includes most Staten Island victims' families.
(New York Post)
Design Approved For 1993 Trade Center Memorial - Mar 17, 2004
A design for a temporary memorial to the six victims killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing will include a piece of the original memorial destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, authorities said. The Port Authority received final approval for the design last week from victims' relatives, PA spokesman Steve Coleman said yesterday.
(New York Post)
President Dedicates Long Island 9/11 Memorial - Mar 12, 2004
President Bush wept with 9/11 families yesterday as he helped break ground on Long Island for a memorial to honor those killed in the Twin Tower attacks. Anti-Bush protesters marched outside Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, but the flap over the brief shots of Ground Zero in Bush's recent TV ads seemed far away as hundreds of family members lined up, each with a single white rose pinned to a lapel.
(New York Post)
Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Claiming That Firefighters Had Faulty Radios On 9/11 - Mar 11, 2004
A judge dismissed a lawsuit yesterday that alleged firefighters who responded to the World Trade Center on 9/11 were equipped with faulty radios.
(New York Daily News)
Brooklyn Unveils 9/11 Memorial - Mar 9, 2004
It'll be a tribute in light and a warning in bronze. The winning design for Brooklyn's official Sept. 11 memorial, unveiled yesterday, is a 25-foot-tall pillar that was inspired by the trumpets blown by turn-of-the-century firefighters as they rushed to burning buildings. A spotlight on top will shine every night from 9 to 11 p.m.
(New York Post)
Brothers Become Firefighters To Honor Friend Killed On 9/11 - Mar 9, 2004
Brothers Salvatore and Randy Ranieri grew up admiring their friend Kenny Watson, a firefighter who died Sept. 11. And yesterday, they made good on their vow to honor his memory when they became the newest members of New York's Bravest.
(New York Post)
Brooklyn's 9/11 Memorial To Be Unveiled Today - Mar 8, 2004
The winning design for Brooklyn's official Sept. 11 memorial will do more than honor the hundreds of residents who died on that awful day - it will provide a spiritual connection to one of America's greatest triumphs. Artist Robert Ressler's winning design will be forged at the same Greenpoint foundry that produced the famous statue in Arlington, Va., of six Marines planting the American flag at Iwo Jima. Ressler's design will be unveiled this morning at the 69th Street Pier in Bay Ridge, where it will be installed this summer.
The group backing the memorial still must raise $35,000 to maintain it. Checks can be sent to: Brooklyn Remembers, 9201 4th Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11209.
(New York Post)
- Mar 5, 2004
On Thursday, the Hoboken Sept. 11 Memorial Fund, which the mayor organized three months after the attack, announced that four designs had been selected as finalists in the competition for a memorial. A final design for a memorial that will be erected at Pier A Park along the waterfront will be chosen by May, Mayor David Roberts said.
(New York Times)
4 Finalists Picked In Competition To DesignHoboken's 9/11 Memorial - Mar 5, 2004
On Thursday, the Hoboken Sept. 11 Memorial Fund, which the mayor organized three months after the attack, announced that four designs had been selected as finalists in the competition for a memorial. A final design for a memorial that will be erected at Pier A Park along the waterfront will be chosen by May, Mayor David Roberts said.
(New York Times)
Arad Demands Full Control Of Memorial, Creating Tension With Officials - Mar 4, 2004
Ground Zero memorial designer Michael Arad is pushing to gain total control of the project’s $350 million budget, as well as the power to personally hire construction and engineering firms, determine the treatment of the western slurry wall that was a feature of architect Daniel Libeskind’s plan for the site, and make all long-term scheduling decisions, according to several sources close to the rebuilding effort.
(New York Observer)
Arad: Dispute Over Control Threatens Memorial - Mar 3, 2004
Ground Zero memorial designer Michael Arad has warned development officials in a letter that an escalating dispute over how to run the $350 million project could "prevent" his design from being built, sources told The Post.
(New York Post)
Survivors, Relatives Of Victims Mark 1993 Bombing - Feb 27, 2004
Survivors and relatives of victims of the 1993 bombing on the World Trade Center Thursday marked the anniversary with a Mass, a moment of silence at Ground Zero and a preview of the temporary memorial planned to honor the six people killed in that earlier attack.
(Newsday )
On Anniversary Of 1993 Attack, A Proposal For A Temporary Shrine - Feb 26, 2004
The memorial for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center was destroyed on 9/11. Come the 12th anniversary of the attack, its survivors may once again have a spot. Today, at their annual breakfast, the survivors and relatives will be shown a proposal by the Port Authority for an interim marker that would stand until the permanent memorial, "Reflecting Absence," is built. No definite location for the marker has been chosen yet.
(New York Times)
5,201 Memorial Designs Displayed On Internet - Feb 20, 2004
All 5,201 of the entries that the jury sifted through went on display at www.wtcsitememorial.org yesterday. Visitors to the site who signed on to second-guess the jury — "How could they have overlooked that?" — probably left with a new respect for the jurors' devotion and patience in going through the entire lot without pay. Visitors may also have left with a sense that the world cared, no matter how clumsy or inartful the expression.
(New York Times)
New Spat Over Names On Memorial - Feb 20, 2004
Thomas Johnson, a member of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.'s board of directors, said yesterday at the organization's monthly meeting that he is "working hard" with "lots of people" to alter the plan to present names on the 9/11 memorial. He wants to remove the special designation given to rescue workers.
(New York Daily News)
Some Families Still Not Happy With Order Of Names On Memorial - Feb 19, 2004
It matters how large the voids will be that mark the twin towers. And it matters how the grounds will be landscaped and how the horror will be evoked by crushed fire trucks and twisted steel columns. But no issue at the World Trade Center memorial will be so vexing - perhaps even irreconcilable - as the smallest and most personal. The names.
(New York Times)
Memorial Contestant Accuses Jury Of Fraud - Feb 19, 2004
One of the 5,200 losing competitors in the World Trade Center memorial design competition has filed a complaint with the state Ethics Commission alleging fraud and impropriety in the selection process, the Daily News has learned.
(New York Daily News)
A 9/11 Memorial For Hoboken - Feb 16, 2004
Two Downtown designers who have made their mark in Lower Manhattan are among the four finalists to design a memorial to the 57 Hoboken residents who died in the Sept. 11 attack.
(Downtown Express)
All 5,200 Rejected Memorial Designs To Be Displayed Online - Feb 12, 2004
The 5,200 Ground Zero memorial-design entries eliminated by a jury in favor of "Reflecting Absence" will be displayed on the Internet as early as next week.
(New York Post)
New Proposal Would Move 9/11 Remains To Ellis Island - Feb 10, 2004
Some 9/11 victims' families are exploring a proposal to move the incinerated remains of their loved ones from a Staten Island garbage dump to a permanent burial site that would be created on Ellis Island.
(Star Ledger)
Interview With Michael Arad, Memorial Designer - Feb 10, 2004
Michael Arad was helping design one of the world's tallest buildings when the September 11, 2001 attacks hit New York. An Israeli who grew up in Jerusalem, London, the US and Mexico, Arad watched firsthand as the Twin Towers collapsed and nearly 3,000 people perished. Soon after, before a design competition was announced, he began formulating a plan for memorializing the dead with a set of inaccessible, empty spaces on the Hudson River.
(Jerusalem Post)
The Unchosen Memorials - Feb 1, 2004
5,201 designs were submitted in the 9/11 memorial competition, from 63 countries and 49 states, from individuals of all ages, many without any design experience. An unscientific survey revealed everything from scaled-down twin towers to classical references to sources at which observers can only guess. Here is a sampling of 10, culled from Web sites, blind submissions to The New York Times and word-of-mouth recommendations.
(New York Times)
Poet Criticizes Memorial, In Verse - Jan 27, 2004
Opinions about the plans for a World Trade Center memorial are easy to find. Precious few qualify as poetry, though. Eugene Schlanger's thoughts carry no more weight than anyone else's. But their lyricism is unmistakable, agree with them or not.
(New York Times)
On Memorial, Great Minds Think Alike? - Jan 26, 2004
A memorial for Ground Zero designed by Stuvyestant High School students last June contains several now-familiar features: A series of ramps leading to two reflecting pools at the Twin Tower footprints. A wall of names around the pools honoring those people killed on 9/11. A handful of trees surrounding the pools on a street-level plaza. A cultural building nearby on Greenwich St.
(Downtown Express)
The New PATH Station - Jan 23, 2004
In aesthetics and logistics, Mr. Calatrava's design aspires to be far more than a commuter rail station, vital as that is to Lower Manhattan. Its admirers are already mentioning it in the same breath as the old Pennsylvania Station, which was torn down in the early 1960's, and Grand Central Terminal, which Mr. Calatrava claimed as his "deepest inspirational object."
(New York Times)
Michael Arad: Memorial Designer - Jan 21, 2004
What made Michael Arad stop feeling like an outsider and start feeling like a bona fide New Yorker was, he says, the horror of Sept. 11: he watched the second plane hit from his rooftop, raced downtown to find his wife and, from Fulton Street, experienced the collapse of the first tower. Even before the memorial contest, he began work on a memorial.
(New York Times)
A New Contract For Memorial Designers - Jan 21, 2004
In approving a contract renewal Tuesday with the winning designers of the World Trade Center memorial, the board of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation established, for the first time, the consulting fees the two men will be paid.
(Newsday)
At Ground Zero, Rebuilding With Nature In Mind - Jan 20, 2004
While most of the anguished debate about ground zero has focused on recreating and remembering what was once there, another effort has been moving forward to create on the site something that never existed, an environmentally sensitive city within a city that is attuned to nature as well as the real estate market.
(New York Times)
Stories of the Memorial Jury - Jan 19, 2004
Above all else, it was a jury. It was sequestered, for six months, from those who would intrude. Its members were trapped in deliberation until consensus could be established. It called for expert testimony, then called for it again. It quarreled. It soul-searched. It schmoozed and, yes, it laughed.
(New York Times)
Police Commissioner's Security Measures - Jan 18, 2004
Interview: Police Commissioner Ray Kelly Discusses His Department's Work At Fighting Terrorism And General Crime
(WNBC)
Bloomberg Would Have Preferred Ground Zero School To A Memorial - Jan 17, 2004
Mayor Bloomberg disclosed that he would have built new schools where the World Trade Center once stood - instead of a memorial commemorating the dead. Talking on his weekly radio show yesterday, Bloomberg was careful not to criticize the winning design for the memorial, titled Reflecting Absence. But he suggested that a better approach would have been building new schools.
(New York Daily News)
The Juror Who Gave Birth While Considering Memorials - Jan 17, 2004
She was pregnant in the spring when she and her fellow jurors attended combative public meetings about the World Trade Center memorial. She gave birth in June, and then worked with her colleagues considering 5,201 ideas before selecting the revised plan by Michael Arad and Peter Walker that was unveiled to the public on Wednesday.
(Downtown Express)
An Abundance Of New Ideas In Revised Memorial - Jan 15, 2004
It seemed unlikely that there could be more surprises yesterday when the tweaked, updated, reconciled - and leaked - World Trade Center memorial was unveiled by Gov. George E. Pataki, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. After all, the name of the dark-horse winning design - Reflecting Absence, by Michael Arad, 34, and Peter Walker, 71 - was trumpeted last week, and artists' renderings and many of its signature features had been revealed on Tuesday. But though no curtain was parted to reveal the latest model at yesterday's much-anticipated ceremony, a wealth of new details was presented.
(New York Times)
Memorial Will Cost Over $350 Million - Jan 15, 2004
It will cost more than $350 million to build the "Reflecting Absence" memorial at Ground Zero, a top development official said yesterday. The preliminary estimate includes the cost of building the tribute's signature reflecting pools and waterfalls, the park, and an underground museum that will contain 9/11 artifacts, such as a crushed fire engine or the last steel column to be removed from Ground Zero.
(New York Post)
Public Introduced To Memorial Designer - Jan 15, 2004
Michael Arad is not accustomed to the public arena. That much is clear. In presenting his winning World Trade Center memorial model Wednesday in the glare of the international press and New York's political honchos, Arad seemed barely able to breathe. He spoke softly. His emotions seemed scarcely restrained. He seemed intimidated by the stage he now commands -- or perhaps it was that rarest of public qualities: an awestruck humility.
(Washington Post)
Victims' Families Renew Request For 9/11 Records - Jan 15, 2004
Families of victims of the World Trade Center terrorist attack said Wednesday they will go back to court to find out more about the final hours of their relatives' lives on September 11, 2001.
(CNN)
Artifacts, Bedrock of Footprints Included In Revised Design - Jan 14, 2004
Here is the long-awaited final design of the Ground Zero memorial called "Reflecting Absence" - a tranquil urban forest surrounding two cascading pools sunk into the footprints of the Twin Towers.
(New York Post)
Order Of Names In Memorial Draws Criticism From Firefighters - Jan 14, 2004
The controversy over how to list the names of rescue workers in the Ground Zero memorial heated up yesterday, with firefighters voicing disapproval of a plan to list all the 9/11 victims together in random order.
(New York Post)
Starting Over: A Firm Rebuilds After Being Hit Hard On 9/11 - Jan 14, 2004
When the planes slammed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, few companies were as hard-hit as a small, close-knit firm called Sandler O'Neill. Of the 83 people in the office that morning, only 17 got out alive. Employees lost mentors, assistants lost bosses, friends lost friends. This is the story of what happened next.
(Fortune)
Families Of 9/11 Victims Start Fundraising Drive For Cultural Events - Jan 13, 2004
Relatives of Sept. 11 victims said yesterday they hope to raise $9.11 million by the third anniversary of the terror attack for educational and cultural programs tied to the Ground Zero memorial. Monica Iken, a World Trade Center widow who heads a family group called September's Mission, said money raised through the "9/11 Campaign" will pay for things like museum displays or workshops. Money for the construction of the memorial will be raised through a separate foundation being organized by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.
(New York Post)
Firefighters Renew Effort For Memorial Name Distinction - Jan 13, 2004
Firefighters who want the names of 9/11 rescue workers listed separately in the Ground Zero memorial renewed calls yesterday for Gov. Pataki to back their demands.
(Firehouse.com)
Turning Three Visions Into One Memorial Design - Jan 12, 2004
Now that Michael Arad and Peter Walker have been chosen as the designers of the World Trade Center memorial site, they are working intently to design it. They met last week at Mr. Walker's office in Berkeley, Calif., and this weekend at Studio Daniel Libeskind on Rector Street, three blocks from ground zero. They are trying to mesh Mr. Arad's arrestingly stark vision for the site with Mr. Walker's distinctive landscaping and Mr. Libeskind's master plan for the entire trade center site.
(New York Times)
As Complaints Mount, Memorial Is Revised - Jan 12, 2004
The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the agency in charge of rebuilding the trade center site, and the selection jury it appointed have been trying to strike a delicate balance between artistic independence and responding to public concerns while considering revisions to Reflecting Absence, recently selected as the 9/11 memorial for Ground Zero.
(Associated Press)
About Michael Arad, Memorial Designer - Jan 12, 2004
Upon being notified of the decision, Michael Arad called his parents in Jerusalem to tell them the news. "I'm very proud, happy, and emotionally moved," Moshe Arad told The Jerusalem Post. "I hope that the significance of this will be appreciated by both Israelis and Americans." Arad has been living in the U.S. since finishing his military service in the Israeli Defense Force in 1991. He received a BA from Dartmouth College, and a MA from Georgia Tech's College of Architecture.
(Israel 21c)
Culture To Return To Memorial - Jan 10, 2004
Michael Arad wanted to take out almost all of the cultural buildings adjacent to the World Trade Center memorial in his original Reflecting Absence design, but his revised plan selected by the jury this week will restore most if not all of the museum and performance spaces, according to planning officials.
(Downtown Express)
Childs Takes Freedom Tower Design to Community Board 1 - Jan 10, 2004
Freedom Tower architect David Childs offered more details Wednesday on security and public access for his building, a collaboration with site planner Daniel Liebskind that could restore Downtown’s skyline as early as 2006. At a Community Board 1 meeting, Childs stressed that much about the design for the 1,776-foot tower remained subject to change. But he presented one certainty along with the “fluid” plans: The building would be among the safest in the world.
(Downtown Express)
Israeli Architect Chosen As Memorial Designer - Jan 10, 2004
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has chosen Israeli architect Michael Arad, a resident of New York, to design the monument at the devastated World Trade Center site in Manhattan. Arad, 34, was born in London. He lives in Manhattan and is an architect at the New York City Engineering Department.
(Haaretz)
Memorial To Preserve World Trade Tower Columns - Jan 9, 2004
The 9/11 memorial will preserve traces of the north tower's steel columns and the building's bedrock footprint, which visitors will be able to view in an underground room, sources said yesterday. The revised memorial design, which is being fleshed out this week, would respond to groups of 9/11 family members who have demanded the footprints of both World Trade Center towers be preserved at bedrock.
(New York Post)
How Memorial Acquired A Second Designer - Jan 8, 2004
When a proposal called Reflecting Absence was submitted last year to the World Trade Center memorial site competition, there was one name on it: that of Michael Arad, a young architect for the New York City Housing Authority. When Reflecting Absence was announced on Tuesday as the winner of the six-month competition, there was another name: Peter Walker of Berkeley, California, who has 45 years of experience in the teaching and practice of landscape architecture.
(New York Times)
Memorial Design Wins Fans - Jan 8, 2004
Visitors to Ground Zero yesterday voiced approval of the minimalist memorial design chosen for the tragic site. "They went out of their way to make sure that the right memorial was chosen," said Gary Scarder, of Brooklyn. "It's definitely a compliment to those who we've lost."
(New York Post)
Memorial Design Faces Revisions - Jan 8, 2004
The design of two pools standing in the World Trade Center's footprints was among the most minimal of entries in the Sept. 11 memorial competition. Its simplicity conveyed both profound loss and rebirth, a jury found in choosing it. But a day after hearing that designer Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker would present a significantly revised version of their ``Reflecting Absence'' design next week, some wondered how much of the original plan would be left.
(Associated Press)
Reconciling The Site Plan And The Memorial Design - Jan 8, 2004
The two designers of the winning entry for the World Trade Center memorial are to meet today with Ground Zero master planner Daniel Libeskind in Berkeley, Calif., to begin the prickly task of making their disparate schemes fit together, sources said.
(New York Daily News)
'Reflecting Absence' Picked As Memorial - Jan 7, 2004
The memorial at ground zero will be a teeming grove of trees above two deep reflecting pools within the outlines of the twin towers. At least that was the initial concept. For though the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation yesterday announced the winner of the competition to memorialize those slain at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and Feb. 26, 1993, it delayed a complete description of the design and its image, as well as access to its creators, until a high-profile unveiling planned for next week.
(New York Times)
Experienced Architect Added To 'Reflecting Absence' Team - Jan 7, 2004
Yesterday, in announcing that Reflecting Absence had beaten two other designs that were informal semifinalists last week, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation said "significant" changes had been made in Mr. Arad's original design. The corporation also said Mr. Arad was collaborating with the landscape architect Peter Walker. Mr. Arad was virtually unheard of until the finalists were selected, while Mr. Walker has worked with some of the biggest names in architecture, including I. M. Pei, Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster and Yoshio Taniguchi.
(New York Times)
To Jury, Less Was More - Jan 7, 2004
In the end, the jury seemed to see the same thing so many people have seen at the World Trade Center site since Sept. 11, 2001: what is not there. Faced with many possible additions to the site, jurors in the memorial competition chose subtraction instead. As conceived by Michael Arad, Reflecting Absence would evoke the outlines of the twin towers as pool-filled voids in the earth, 30 feet deep and almost an acre each in extent. Perhaps more than any finalist, this design expresses loss in stark, unambiguous visual terms.
(New York Times)
With Changes, 'Reflecting Absence' Is The One - Jan 7, 2004
A minimalist design that marks the World Trade Center footprints with two cascading pools of water is the surprise winner for the Ground Zero memorial, officials announced yesterday. A statement from the jury said the winning design "has evolved significantly" since it was first shown as one of eight finalists last November.
(New York Post)
Cop Caught Videotaping Girl In Shower Blames 9/11 - Jan 7, 2004
A Port Authority cop who admitted to videotaping an 11-year-old Queens girl while she showered blames the horrors of 9/11 for his candid-camera work, his lawyer said yesterday.
(New York Post)
- Nov 30, 1999
()
Memorial Design is Chosen - Jan 6, 2004
After six weeks of deliberation, the jury assembled to choose a memorial for the site of the World Trade Center has made its decision, which it will announce today. The full description of the winning design will not be made until next week, said Matthew Higgins, the corporation's chief operating officer.
(New York Times)
Jury May Decide On Memorial Today - Jan 5, 2004
The Ground Zero memorial jury will meet today and may pick a winning design, sources familiar with the competition said. The 13-member jury has narrowed its choices down to three designs and will focus on them in their discussions today.
(New York Post)
Jury Is Said To Have Narrowed Its Choices - Dec 31, 2003
The jury that is to choose a design for the memorial at the World Trade Center site has narrowed its choices to two favorites, Garden of Lights and Passages of Light: the Memorial Cloud, people involved in the process said yesterday. Another design, Reflecting Absence, is also expected to be under consideration when the jurors reconvene early next week to judge the substantive changes that have been made, both at their request and by the artists themselves.
(New York Times)
Tourists Return to New York - Dec 29, 2003
The tourists are back. Official statistics are hard to come by. But for the last week, more than 1,000 tourists a day have been dropping by NYC & Company's Visitor Information Center, a level not reached since before Sept. 11, 2001, a spokeswoman said.
(New York Times)
PATH Traffic Down Significantly Since 9/11 - Dec 28, 2003
The new World Trade Center PATH station is moving just over 1/3 of the riders it did before 9/11 -- a dramatic indication of the job and economic losses in Lower Manhattan, Port Authority data show.
(New York Post)
A Few Families Reject Compensation Fund - Dec 24, 2003
A handful of families have eschewed the money available to victims of the terrorist attacks, filing neither a lawsuit nor a claim through the federal Victims Compensation Fund. The exact number of families who filed is not yet known, because claims that were postmarked by the Monday deadline are still trickling in. As of yesterday, though, the Justice Department said that the families of 2,833 victims - more than 95 percent of the 2,976 killed on Sept. 11 - had filed claims.
(Newsday)
Silverstein, Port Authority, Close Deal for $229 Million - Dec 24, 2003
Developer Larry Silverstein got more than $229 million in cash - all wrapped up in time for the holidays - when he closed a deal yesterday with the Port Authority to restructure the finances of his World Trade Center lease. The holiday bundle includes the return of the $98.5 million that Silverstein and his partners plunked down as equity when they leased the trade center from the Port Authority in July 2001, just weeks before the terror attacks.
(New York Post)
Slow Down! says Giuiliani - Dec 22, 2003
STOP. Start over. It is not too late to get it right. So argues Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has studied the eight designs being considered for a World Trade Center memorial and does not like what he sees.
(New York Times)
Deadline For Federal Victims Compensation Fund Looming - Dec 21, 2003
People who lost loved ones or were injured in the 9/11 terrorist attacks have until midnight tomorrow to file with the federal Victims Compensation Fund.
Officials expect nearly 90% of those eligible to file, depite a slow start and months of controversy.
(New York Daily News)
9/11 Relics Rust in Hangar - Dec 19, 2003
There are no planes behind the mammoth locked doors of Hangar 17 at Kennedy International Airport. Instead, it hides history. This is where a 100-foot-tall by 100-foot-wide section of the lower facade of the north tower — the infamous Gothic arches — is kept, disassembled into 25 pieces weighing 80,000 pounds apiece. Laid out on the floor are the crumpled remains of the north tower antenna. Parked in one corner is an assortment of crushed fire trucks. Here rests the last column removed from ground zero, complete with the graffiti from firefighters and ironworkers who recovered victims and cleaned the site.
(New York Times)
Childs Reduced Height of Tower to Reach Agreement with Libeskind - Dec 17, 2003
In the end, the magic number for resolving the design impasse over the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site turned out to be 276 feet. That was how much the architect David M. Childs reduced the height of the tower he is designing for the developer Larry A. Silverstein, one of several gestures that allowed Mr. Childs's counterpart, Daniel Libeskind, to certify that the Freedom Tower would fit in with his overall master plan for the site.
(New York Times)
Feelings on Memorials Vary, Two Separate Studies of Public Opinion Indicate - Dec 17, 2003
A report released Tuesday by Imagine New York concludes that many people view the jagged wreckage and other relics from the attack more favorably than the final eight memorial designs. Negative comments on the memorials outweighed positive comments for all eight finalists, the report said. A Pace University exit poll taken at the Winter Garden where the designs are on display offered another take on public reaction. Sixty-two percent of people backed the selection process, which has been controversial in some quarters. Two designs, Votives in Suspension and Suspending Memory, got the most positive reviews.
(Newsday)
Decision on Memorial Design Delayed 'At Least A Month' - Dec 17, 2003
The panel mulling the permanent memorial for Ground Zero has ordered up changes in some designs and is delaying its decision at least a month, sources said yesterday. The 13-member jury, made up of architects, artists, historians and others appointed by Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg, had been expected topick a design by the end of the year.
(New York Daily News)
9/11 Rugs Not Big Sellers on New York Streets - Dec 15, 2003
With an appraiser's scrutiny, Ed Cutting, a New York City firefighter, stared at a fine Afghan rug painstakingly hand woven in a style centuries old. Its handiwork depicted an epic scene. He stood Saturday in a weekend flea market at Avenue A and 11th Street in the East Village, at a booth displaying rugs. Several of the rugs, in a style usually reserved for depicting landscapes or abstract tribal patterns, showed a crudely rendered interpretation of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.
(New York Times)
Trade Center Fireproofing Tests Suggest A Wider Problem - Dec 14, 2003
Hundreds of buildings nationwide with fireproofing similar to that used in the World Trade Center could be far more prone to structural damage during major fires than previously thought, according to preliminary calculations by federal investigators. The investigators are studying the precise causes of the World Trade Center collapse. Their work includes calculations of how heat moves through steel building components with small gaps or imperfections in fireproofing insulation. Their inquiry, which is still in its early stages, shows that during a fire such flaws can act as sluice gates for heat, allowing it to enter the steel, where it becomes trapped, weakening the structure.
(New York Times)
Democrats Protest Use of Liberty Bonds for Queens Power Plant - Dec 13, 2003
A group of Democratic lawmakers yesterday denounced New York State's offer to a Massachusetts-based energy company of $400 million in tax-exempt Liberty Bonds, which are intended to revive Lower Manhattan after the attack on the World Trade Center. A state-run agency administering the Liberty Bond program announced on Thursday that it had awarded the bonds to Astoria Energy to help finance the 1,000-megawatt power plant it seeks to build in Astoria, Queens.
(New York Times)
EPA Releases Downtown Lead Tests - Dec 11, 2003
Lead was the most common contaminant found among the 263 Lower Manhattan apartments the Environmental Protection Agency tested for a range of possible 9/11-related toxins, according to results released on Monday.
Of the 222 apartments E.P.A. contractors tested before and after cleaning, 70, or 31.5 percent, had lead levels before cleaning that exceeded the agency’s conservative benchmark of 25 micrograms per square foot. After cleaning, 16 apartments still had levels of lead above the E.P.A. standard. E.P.A. spokesperson Mary Mears cautioned that urban environments often have background lead, making it hard to tell whether the lead detected in wipe tests came from the World Trade Center collapse.
(Downtown Express)
Memorial Needs Vision, says Libeskind - Dec 10, 2003
Any memorial chosen for the World Trade Center site should link the city to the past yet move New Yorkers toward the future, architect Daniel Libeskind said Tuesday. Libeskind, who submitted the winning design for the redevelopment of the site, said he would work to integrate the vision of the winner of the memorial competition into his guidelines for the site.
(Associated Press)
Libeskind Won With Smear Campaign, Says A Member of His Team - Dec 9, 2003
Architect Daniel Libeskind launched a political-style name-calling campaign against a rival design team to undermine its chances of being chosen as Ground Zero master planner, according to one of Libeskind's partners. In a lecture at SUNY Buffalo on Oct. 8, urban planner Gary Hack described the competition for the job - which Libeskind eventually won - as "the architectural equivalent of nuclear war."
(New York Post)
Assemblyman Doesn't Want Liberty Bonds Used for Queens Power Plant - Dec 7, 2003
A Queens assemblyman is threatening legal action to stop the backers of a proposed power plant from using New York Liberty Bonds to fund the troubled project. "This is a continuing pattern of preferential treatment over more worthy projects," said Assemblyman Mike Gianaris, a Democrat from Astoria, who's weighing a lawsuit to block the bond issue.
(New York Post)
A Look At Some Of The Other Memorial Designs - Dec 7, 2003
The eight design finalists for a Ground Zero memorial have been met with fierce criticism and a call for the jury to take a second look at some of the 5,193 submissions that didn't make the cut - but a review of dozens of these also-rans helps to underscore how difficult the judge's job has been.
(New York Post )
Non-Finalists Discuss Their Memorial Designs - Dec 7, 2003
Some 60 people, including a 6-year-old boy, who were among the 5,000 entrants who submitted Ground Zero memorial designs, and lost, met in lower Manhattan yesterday to protest the closed-door judging process that produced the eight finalist proposals. The group ranged from a New York heart surgeon to a first-grader.
(New York Post)
Corporate Incentive Program Being Rewritten to Focus on Lower Manhattan - Dec 6, 2003
A deal has been struck to renew a major corporate incentive program that will help lure jobs to lower Manhattan from outside the city, The Post has learned.
The Relocation and Employment Assistance Program, known as REAP, will provide companies with $3,000 per job for 12 years if they come to downtown from outside the city.
(New York Post)
Judge Rules Against Forcing Disqualified Memorial Design into Contest - Dec 5, 2003
A Manhattan judge yesterday sank the Twin Piers proposal for a Ground Zero memorial, refusing to order development officials to include it among the finalists being judged by the 9/11 jury. State Supreme Court Justice William Wetzel ruled that Twin Piers designer Fred Bernstein tried to get around the rules of the memorial competition, which barred a person from submitting more than one proposal.
(New York Post)
Memorial Jury Wanted to Avoid Public Pressure With Single Stage Contest - Dec 4, 2003
Anticipating a frenzy of public criticism, the Ground Zero memorial jury pushed to keep all the designs secret until a winner was picked - but officials running the competition insisted on putting the eight finalists on display, sources told The Post. Numerous jury members, including Vietnam Veterans Memorial designer Maya Lin, warned that unveiling the finalists before a second stage of judging would make it difficult for them to do their job without coming under intense public pressure, said the sources, who are familiar with the panel's concerns.
(New York Post)
Jury Can Change Memorial Plans - Dec 3, 2003
The 13-member jury deciding on the final design of the World Trade Center memorial will have the flexibility to make changes, Kevin Rampe, president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., said Tuesday.
"There's a high chance the selected design will be different from any of the eight you see out there now," Rampe told more than 500 attendees at a breakfast sponsored by Crain's NY Business, where he also discussed his vision for transportation and bond financing for lower Manhattan. "What was seen in the press was more of a first draft."
(Newsday)
Community Board One Rejects One Memorial Design, Criticizes the Rest - Dec 3, 2003
Community Board 1’s World Trade Center redevelopment committee quickly ruled out one of the eight proposals for the ground zero memorial then spent most of the rest of Monday night lamenting at the lack of vision in the other seven.
The board’s executive committee is expected to vote on a memorial resolution at its next meeting on Dec. 10, 49 Chambers St., room 709 at 6 p.m. in the hopes the 13-member memorial jury put together by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. will listen to the board’s recommendations.
(Downtown Express)
Nadler Criticizes Maloney's Memorial Bill - Dec 3, 2003
A proposed bill by U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney about the World Trade Center memorial has angered Downtown leaders and reignited her rivalry with U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who accused his fellow Democrat of “invading my district.”
The bill would authorize a study to see whether it is feasible to preserve the bedrock area where the Twin Towers once stood. If the area was subsequently landmarked before construction on the memorial began, the bill’s detractors say it would lead to delays, particularly since none of the eight possible designs announced in November preserve the entire footprint bedrock area.
(Downtown Express)
Port Authority Pays Silverstein's Debt - Dec 2, 2003
The Port Authority agreed yesterday to use $710 million in World Trade Center insurance proceeds as part of a reordering of the project's tangled finances - buying back the rebuilding rights to the WTC mall and paying off the mortgage of Twin Towers leaseholder Larry Silverstein.
(New York Post)
How Poorly Did the Environmental Protection Agency React to 9/11? - Nov 30, 2003
From the first days after Sept. 11, 2001, the fears and unknowns about health and air quality in Lower Manhattan were compounded by the politics that swirl, as always, around the Environmental Protection Agency. An arm of the federal government that is second-guessed and distrusted as perhaps no other had been put in charge of the environmental response. What was in the air and what people in Washington and New York believed about the E.P.A. were immediately intertwined.
(New York Times)
Some Firefighters Have Left Spouses for 9/11 Widows - Dec 1, 2003
At least a dozen of New York's Bravest - some of them assigned to look after Sept. 11 widows - have left their wives for the spouses of their comrades killed in the terror attacks, sources told The Post.
(New York Post)
Practical Problems Arise With Memorial Designs - Nov 29, 2003
It may be early in the process to worry about the designs' details, which will be refined and revised. But interviews with people who worry about such things for a living — an arborist, an urban planner, a civil engineer, a structural engineer and others — suggest that some problems are already apparent.
(New York Times)
Ground Zero Workers Dropping Lawsuits Against City - Nov 29, 2003
Hundreds of workers who got sick after working on the World Trade Center recovery and cleanup are dropping their lawsuits against the city, officials said yesterday.
(New York Daily News)
An Old Sign, Touting Marvels Of World Trade Center, Still Up On Church Street - Nov 28, 2003
hile "World Trade Center" signs around the new PATH station startled commuters and visitors this week, a smaller but even more poignant graphic remnant of the past was hiding in plain sight across Church Street.
"What has 200 elevators, 1,200 restrooms, 40,000 doorknobs, 200,000 lighting fixtures, 7 million square feet of acoustical tile ceilings, more structural steel than the Verrazano Narrows Bridge — and was built for a final cost of over one billion 1970s dollars?" asks the colorful sign between seven-foot cast-iron posts, outside Century 21, near the corner of Cortlandt Street.
"That's right, the World Trade Center."
...the sign would stay in place at least a year
(New York Times)
Senate Rejects Extension of 9/11 Compensation Program - Nov 26, 2003
Congressional officials from the New York area conceded yesterday that their last-gasp attempt to extend the deadline for the federal government's extraordinary program to compensate the relatives of Sept. 11 victims had all but failed.
(New York Times)
Memorial Cloud, Dual Memory Lead in Memorial Poll - Nov 26, 2003
Two designs - one featuring a light-infused glass cloud, the other incorporating pictures of victims - are emerging as the most popular Ground Zero memorial proposals.
The civic group Imagine New York, in partnership with other organizations, including the Daily News, has been conducting an online survey to measure public reaction to the eight World Trade Center memorial designs unveiled last week.
(New York Daily News)
Young Designers Dominate Memorial Competition - Nov 25, 2003
The unveiling last week of eight competing designs for a World Trade Center memorial has provoked an inevitable debate about whether any of the projects can properly honor those who died on Sept. 11, 2001. But nearly everyone has been struck by how many of these projects, plucked as they were from a pool of more than 5,000 anonymous submissions, are the work of young artists and not the architectural elite.
(New York Times)
The Last Train Out on 9/11 - Nov 25, 2003
Noel Roman is haunted by the solitary figure of an older, well-dressed man who plodded up stairs toward the World Trade Center in the final moments of a world that ended on Sept. 11, 2001. "I'm not sure if he was limping or moving with a cane," says Roman, 44, who was at the controls of the last PATH train to leave the trade center before the towers collapsed. "I think he died, you know. What upsets me is that if we knew what was going on, that man never would have gone up those stairs."
(Newsday)
Street in Queens Renamed for Firefighter - Nov 24, 2003
Hundreds of people gathered at a street corner in Queens yesterday to rename a street after firefighter Carl F. Asaro, who was killed at the World Trade Center.
The intersection of 147th Street and Willets Point Boulevard in Whitestone, where Asaro was born and raised, now bears his name.
(New York Post)
Silverstein To Get Cash Back in 9/11 Deal - Nov 22, 2003
The developer Larry A. Silverstein and his investors are getting back most of the cash they put up for their winning bid more than two years ago to take control of the World Trade Center in the largest real estate deal in New York history.
Even so, Mr. Silverstein will remain in control of rebuilding the 10 million square feet of office space that is planned for the trade center site in the next 10 or 15 years. In the end, according to people who have been briefed on the deal, he will have little of his own money at risk for one of the most important corners of the Manhattan landscape.
(New York Times)
On World Trade Center Memorial, Criticism Outstrips Praise - Nov 22, 2003
The experts having already weighed in voluminously on the subject, the Municipal Art Society asked ordinary people to give their perspectives on the eight finalists in LMDC's memorial competition for Ground Zero, in a handful of small sessions that seemed to blend the give-and-take of a creative writing workshop with the raw emotions of a 12-step meeting.
(New York Times)
Memorial Favorites Chosen in Online NY Post Poll - Nov 21, 2003
Two Ground Zero memorial designs - a cloud-like canopy filled with light and another with sunken reflecting pools in the footprints - have emerged as the favorites, according to several Web polls yesterday.
A survey on The Post's Web site the day after the eight final designs were released to the public showed "Reflecting Absence," by New York Housing Authority architect Michael Arad, as the lead proposal, garnering 26 percent of support from Post readers.
(New York Post)
New Yorkers Split on Memorial Designs - Nov 21, 2003
Some memorials console, some teach. And the Sept. 11 memorial proposed for the World Trade Center site may eventually do both. But after the announcement on Wednesday of the eight final designs in the competition, New Yorkers remain deeply split over the memorial's most basic outlines: What is its purpose? Whom is it for? And when should it be done?
(New York Times)
9/11 Memorial Jury Confronts Conflicting Agendas - Nov 20, 2003
The jurors of the 9/11 memorial competition had many constituencies to please. And many were unhappy, although there was nowhere near the vehemence as when the initial plans to rebuild the site were announced last year. The chorus of conflicting voices ranged from the outraged to those who found inspiration in the proposals' creativity, but many also expressed the need for further contemplation.
(New York Times)
Several Versions of Recollection and Grief - Nov 20, 2003
Eight possible memorials at the World Trade Center site, each deferring in some way to the ghosts of the twin towers, were shown to the nation yesterday.
The plans, chosen by a 13-member jury for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, did not come from the hands of celebrated architects but rather a diverse group of designers, many of them young, who live in and work in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Chicago, Houston, Paris, Ithaca, N.Y., and Oakland, Calif.
(New York Times)
Families of 9/11 Victims Get Preview of Memorial Finalists - Nov 19, 2003
After seeing the eight finalists in the 9/11 memorial competition, family members of those killed in the attack used words like "reverential" and "respectful" to describe the designs. And "overwhelmed" when speaking of their own feelings. But some expressed disappointment that the plans did not set aside more of the twin towers' foundations as a setting for the memorial.
(New York Times)
Competition's Confidentiality Pact Raises Questions - Nov 19, 2003
Don't talk about it. Don't criticize us. We own all of the information (including your notes).
That's the message in the open-ended confidentiality agreements that Lower Manhattan Development Corp. officials required memorial competition finalists to sign, according to a blank copy obtained by Newsday.
(Newsday)
Families of 9/11 Victims Ask Park Service to Take Over - Nov 18, 2003
Families of 9/11 victims made a last-minute plea yesterday for the National Park Service to intervene at Ground Zero and preserve the area where the majority of the dead were found. The families asked that the "historical ruins" where the twin towers once stood be saved and included in a memorial to the terrorist attacks' 2,752 victims.
(New York Daily News)
Disqualified Designer Sues LMDC - Nov 18, 2003
A Ground Zero memorial designer who was disqualified as a finalist went to court yesterday to force officials to put his plan back in the running - but redevelopment officials accused him of a "shell game." The judge in the case said he may force the LMDC to reinstate the design.
(New York Times)
Officials Oppose Plan to Put Park Service in Charge of Memorial - Nov 17, 2003
Just days before eight Ground Zero memorial designs are made public, development officials yesterday criticized a proposed federal study aimed at putting the National Park Service in charge of the tribute. They said a bill introduced in Congress by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) that authorizes the study could cause delays in rebuilding if it is passed But Maloney and 9/11 family members said the study is needed to determine whether the Twin Towers' "footprints" should be given landmark status - which could keep anything but the memorial from being built on them.
(New York Post)
Extra Security at NYC Landmarks After Bombing in Turkey - Nov 17, 2003
Police have stepped up security at synagogues and major public places in New York in response to the terrorist bombings of Jewish temples in Turkey, officials said yesterday. The measures include posting police cars outside some synagogues and ordering patrol cars or beat cops to pass by others more frequently. Increased police presence was also ordered for city landmarks like Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, the East River bridges and other high-profile spots, sources said.
(New York Post)
Wife of Police Officer Who Died on 9/11 Won't Get His Pension - Nov 12, 2003
Less than three weeks before his death in the World Trade Center, NYPD Officer Santos Valentin and his wife signed a separation agreement.
Now a Manhattan judge has ruled that although the agreement did not specifically remove her as his beneficiary, Selena Valentin will not get her husband's pension, which is worth an estimated $2 million.
(New York Post)
Queens Museum of Art to Replace WTC Model With Miniature Tribute in Light - Nov 11, 2003
Twin pale-blue laser beams will replace the miniature replica World Trade Center towers that still stand in the Panorama of the City of New York at the Queens Museum of Art.
The Tribute in Light, named in honor of the WTC victims of the terrorist acts of Sept. 11, is scheduled to be complete within the next three months. The Panorama, a scale-model of the entire city, is a permanent exhibit at the museum, where currently a red, white and blue ribbon is intertwined around the model towers.
(Newsday)
- Nov 11, 2003
(Select one or type in another)
Possible Memorial Finalist Disqualified - Nov 7, 2003
An unusual proposal for a World Trade Center memorial was initially selected by judges as a potential finalist - but then got bounced when it was discovered the author broke contest rules, The New York Post has learned.
The proposal, dubbed Twin Piers, called for two enormous jetties, the size of the Twin Towers, extending into the harbor from Battery Park - bypassing entirely what was supposed to be the main memorial site inside the Ground Zero pit.
(New York Post)
Memorial Designs To Be Unveiled By Nov. 17 - Oct 31, 2003
New Yorkers next month will get their first look at eight designs chosen as the finalists for a Ground Zero memorial, Gov. Pataki said yesterday, as he announced steps to move forward with the rebuilding of lower Manhattan. The eight designs will be unveiled the week of Nov. 17 in an exhibit at the Winter Garden, the governor said.
(New York Post)
De Niro Investing In TriBeCa Hotel - Oct 31, 2003
Actor Robert De Niro is an investor in a deal to build a new luxury hotel in TriBeCa, to be funded with $38 million in tax-free Liberty Bonds, Gov. Pataki said yesterday. The actor - who last week revealed that he is fighting prostate cancer - wants to break ground on the six-story, 83-room hotel at Greenwich and North Moore streets before the end of the year.
(New York Post)
Some Say WTC Health Survey Is Poorly Run - Oct 30, 2003
The city’s World Trade Center Health Registry has not asked enough questions of enough people, downtowners criticized at an environmental forum last week. At the event, sponsored by New York University School of Medicine and held in the landmark Woolworth Building, scientists presented 9/11-related research to an overflow crowd of more than 120 people. Some said that the forum failed to provide the practical health information they were seeking.
(Downtown Express)
65,000 call for special 9/11 honors - Oct 22, 2003
A group pushing for special recognition for rescue workers at the Ground Zero memorial brought petitions signed by 65,000 people to Gov. Pataki's midtown office yesterday. Leaders of the group, Advocates for a 9/11 Fallen Heroes Memorial, said they hope that the governor will influence the 13-member panel choosing the memorial design to include separate recognition for firefighters and police officers.
(New York Daily News)
Community Board Postpones Decision on 9/11 Street Names - Oct 22, 2003
Faced with a heart-wrenching request from family members, Community Board 1 officials decided last week to postpone any decisions on renaming area streets for Sept. 11 victims until plans for the World Trade Center memorial are announced.
(Downtown Express)
Winter Garden Visitors Confused Over Plans - Oct 15, 2003
Although tourists continue to view the World Trade Center site from the Winter Garden’s expansive second-floor picture windows, many do not know that the memorial has not been selected yet, thinking it was already part of the selected site plan of Daniel Libeskind.
(Downtown Express)
Memorial Finalists Selected, But Not Revealed - Oct 10, 2003
The jury picking a memorial for the World Trade Center site has selected a group of finalists from among 5,200 submissions, and the designers have been asked to begin refining their ideas. Development officials yesterday refused to discuss details of the competition and would say only that the public will see a number of designs in the "coming weeks."
(New York Post)
Rudy: New WTC All About Greed - Sep 11, 2003
Rudolph Giuliani, reflecting on the second anniversary of the terror attacks that capped his mayoralty, said a 1,776-foot office tower planned for Ground Zero is more a tribute to "greed" than to World Trade Center victims. Giuliani, who was grayer at the temples and heavier of frame than when he left City Hall at the end of 2001, called for the creation of a 70-foot deep memorial on the site where the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. plans to erect the world's tallest tower.
(Newsday)
Families Want Names on 9/11 Wall - Sep 9, 2003
The families of three retired firefighters who died at the World Trade Center want them included on the list of firefighters who died in the line of duty. The families plan a news conference tonight at Ground Zero to call on the Fire Department to inscribe the names of Capt. James Corrigan and firefighters Phillip Hayes and William Wren on the wall at the department's Brooklyn headquarters that lists firefighters who died in the line of duty.
(Newsday)
Personal Tributes to 9/11 Victims - Sep 7, 2003
A grand memorial for all 2,792 who died when the twin towers were destroyed is to be built someday at the former site of the World Trade Center. But as a bitter feud brews over exactly what the memorial should be, the loved ones of the lost have quietly created personal tributes.
(New York Daily News)
The 9/11 Memorial: There's Nothing So Closed as an Open Competition - Aug 31, 2003
Ever since the effort to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial made a star of a 21-year-old architecture student named Maya Lin, the open competition -- one that invites all comers to submit proposals -- has been the gold standard in selecting a design for a public memorial. So when officials overseeing the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan began to consider how to erect a homage to the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, there was little question how they would structure the contest. Now, however, as the jury that will pick the winning design for the World Trade Center memorial trudges through 5,200 entries -- three times the number submitted for the Vietnam memorial in 1981 -- it might seem that the purpose of the exercise has been turned on its head. For while an open, anonymous competition is intended to make sure that every entry receives a fair viewing, the flood of proposals ensures that hundreds or even thousands of entries are likely to get no more than a moment's glance from jurors. On the other end of the spectrum, many of the world's most esteemed artists and architects avoid such competitions altogether, given the cost of their time and the extremely long odds against winning.
(New York Times)
Honoring the Dead in the City That Never Weeps - Aug 31, 2003
From the very start of serious planning, it was clear that the Sept. 11 memorial at ground zero would face a host of obvious and largely unprecedented challenges. As the design effort has proceeded, however, a less obvious challenge has begun to make itself felt. It arises from the fact that the commemorative ground sits right in the heart of Lower Manhattan, amid the busy streets and soaring towers of the downtown business district. It is the challenge of creating a memorial in a city that, for most of its history, has abhorred the very idea of memorials.
(New York Times)
The 9/11 Memorial: Finding Comfort in the Safety of Names - Aug 31, 2003
The competition guidelines for the memorial at ground zero require that the design "recognize each individual who was a victim" on Sept. 11, 2001, and on Feb. 26, 1993, when the World Trade Center was first attacked. It's a safe bet that many of the 5,200 submissions interpret that as some kind of list of names. By aesthetic and social consensus, names are today a kind of reflexive memorial impulse, lists of names having come almost automatically to connote "memorial," just as minimalism has come to be the presumptive sculptural style for memorial design, the monumental blank slate onto which the names can be inscribed.
(New York Times)
Memorial Space at Ground Zero Will Hold Unidentified Remains - Aug 25, 2003
The remains of more than a thousand people who died in the attack on the World Trade Center will be preserved in a memorial space built at ground zero, in the hope that science will advance to the point that they can be identified, according to city and state officials. Many relatives of victims killed in the attack have asked that unidentified remains be interred at the former World Trade Center site. The challenge was to accommodate that wish in a way that did not complicate the project design but did preserve the remains for future scientific study.
(New York Times)
$100G Each for WTC Finalists - Aug 19, 2003
When finalists for the World Trade Center memorial competition are chosen sometime this fall, each team will receive more than $100,000 to further develop its ideas, redevelopment officials have decided. The board of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation authorized $937,300 Thursday for as many as eight memorial finalists to develop models and three-dimensional computerized designs. Finalists will be chosen this fall from the 5,200 designs submitted to the agency.
(Newsday)
Families Want 9/11 to be Day of Giving - Aug 13, 2003
A group of Sept. 11 victims' families and a nonprofit organization want to turn the bleakness of the anniversary of terror into a yearly push for good works and kindness to others. Soon after the 2001 attacks, the group One Day's Pay began planning to ask communities to honor those who died by volunteering their energy or money for good causes. "It's a simple idea," said David Paine, a public relations executive who is president of One Day's Pay. "All we're saying to people is, observe Sept. 11 by doing something good for someone else."
(New York Daily News)
Jones Beach 9/11 Memorial Dedicated - Aug 10, 2003
Approximately 150 relatives, friends and dignitaries gathered Friday at the entrance to Field 4 at Jones Beach to unveil and dedicate a 5-foot-high memorial honoring the seven 9/11 victims who either worked at Jones Beach or Robert Moses State Park or was a relative of someone who did.
(Newsday)
WTC Families Angry At Giuliani's Call for Special Recognition for Rescue Workers - Aug 9, 2003
Relatives of civilians killed in the terror attacks yesterday were pained and dismayed by former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's call for a Ground Zero memorial with special recognition for rescue workers.
(New York Daily News)
Giuliani: Special Memorial Recognition for Rescue Workers - Aug 8, 2003
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani declared yesterday that the hundreds of rescue workers in the terror attacks should get special recognition at the Ground Zero memorial. Giuliani addressed the controversial issue after meeting with the panel responsible with shaping the tribute to those who were killed on Sept. 11, 2001.
(New York Daily News)
Poll Backs Single 9/11 Memorial - Jul 29, 2003
Half of New Yorkers living downtown believe there should be a single memorial at Ground Zero - with no special distinction for slain firefighters and rescue workers, a new poll shows. About 25% favor a memorial that honors everyone who died and "especially identifies the firefighters and rescue workers," according to the survey tobe released today by Pace University. An even smaller group, 21%, says there should be two memorials at the disaster site - one for the rescue workers and one for everyone else who died.
(New York Daily News)
Trade Center Is on Track, Downtown Residents Say - Jul 29, 2003
Residents of Lower Manhattan say the effort to rebuild downtown and the World Trade Center is moving in the right direction, and they are generally satisfied with the new design for the World Trade Center site, according to a poll by Pace University released yesterday. But many downtown residents say that some of the power to make decisions about the rebuilding should be in different hands.
(New York Times)
Bus Parking Garage Proposed Near Trade Center - Jul 23, 2003
Hoping to settle a dispute with the families of Sept. 11 victims, officials involved in the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan said yesterday that they had found an alternative site to park the buses that will bring tourists to the World Trade Center memorial. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said they had begun discussions with the Battery Park City Authority about building an underground parking garage on an undeveloped parcel of land along West Street between Vesey and Murray Streets. Officials had originally suggested building the garage underneath the memorial, but many of the victims' families objected.
(New York Times)
A Waterfall at the WTC? - Jul 21, 2003
Far from some quixotic idea, a 150-foot waterfall facing the WTC memorial area is part of the approved site plan by architect DanielLibeskind. It is without a doubt the largest, least-talked-about aspect of the Libeskind scheme.
(Downtown Express)
5,200 Have Designs on WTC Memorial - Jul 17, 2003
The competition for the World Trade Center memorial attracted 5,200 submissions from 62 nations and every state except Alaska, making it the largest design competition in history, development officials said today.
(Newsday)
Why Top Architects Skipped 9/11 Memorial Contest - Jul 17, 2003
Many of the people most qualified to design a memorial at ground zero — eminent architects — didn’t even bother to try out for the opportunity to commemorate the September 11 victims. Renowned architects from Frank Gehry, who created the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, to Bernard Tschumi, who designed Paris’ Parc de la Villette and Columbia University’s Alfred Lerner Hall, to Richard Meier, who designed the Getty Center, didn’t submit plans in the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation’s ongoing memorial contest. Architects say they avoided the biggest memorial design contest ever because Daniel Libeskind’s master plan proved constraining to people used to leading creative efforts.
(New York Sun)
Officials Favor Larger Site for Trade Center Complex - Jul 15, 2003
ruggling to solve an urban-planning Rubik's Cube, the Port Authority is now inclined to expand the World Trade Center redevelopment site to the south by acquiring the property on which the doomed Deutsche Bank tower stands. Since planning began last year, it has never been clear how the trade center superblock alone could comfortably accommodate 10 million square feet of commercial space — roughly what used to be there — and also provide room for a memorial, transportation and cultural centers, new streets, shops and the space and infrastructure below ground needed to make it work.
(New York Times)
Coalition Urges Memorial Panel to Ignore the Rules - Jul 9, 2003
Some relatives of World Trade Center victims want the panel choosing plans for a permanent Ground Zero memorial to think a little outside the boxes. The Coalition of 9/11 Families mailed letters to all 13 jurors on the committee, asking them to allow for a tribute that exceeds the guidelines set out for judging ideas submitted for the tribute.
(New York Daily News)
WTC Family Members Debate Where To Put Bus Depot - Jul 3, 2003
A memorial at the World Trade Center site is expected to attract millions of visitors from all over the world each year, and the question of where to house tourist buses they'll use to get there has some family members offering alternatives.
(NY1)
Trade center beam begins journey to North Carolina - Jul 3, 2003
Firefighters dedicated a 3,000-pound beam from the World Trade Center on Thursday and sent it by convoy to Camp Lejeune, N.C., where it will become the centerpiece of a Sept. 11 memorial in a July Fourth ceremony.
(Newsday)
Graffiti WTC Memorial Site - Jul 2, 2003
Underneath the names listed on memorial plaques at the World Trade Center site, visitors can view six information panels featuring illustrations and descriptions of the towers _ now covered with graffiti.
(Newsday)
Plans Pour In for Memorial at 9/11 Site - Jul 1, 2003
For months the talk about the World Trade Center site has concerned office space, building designs, street grids, transit hubs and financing, but yesterday attention turned to what many people first thought of immediately after Sept. 11 — a memorial to the dead.
(New York Times)
Monday Is Deadline To Submit Ideas For WTC Memorial - Jun 29, 2003
Monday is the final day for participants to submit an idea for the World Trade Center memorial. The competition was open to any adult in the world, but registration is already closed. Nearly 14,000 people from 94 countries have signed up.
(NY1)
Giuliani Wants to Nearly Double Size of Memorial - Jun 26, 2003
Rudy Giuliani wants to nearly double the size of the planned Ground Zero memorial - and believes federal intervention might be necessary to guarantee a fitting tribute. The ex-mayor said the "sacred ground" within the site's retaining walls - about 9 acres - should be preserved to honor those killed on Sept. 11, 2001. Doing so would roughly double the area now proposed for the memorial by rebuilding officials, including Gov. Pataki.
(New York Daily News)
Audacity, Democracy, Grief: Memorializing Ground Zero - Jun 25, 2003
For $25 each, more than 13,000 people from 94 countries and all 50 states have signed up to submit a design for the World Trade Center site memorial competition. They're due by next Monday. Then a jury of 13 architects, artists, and family and community members will wade through the submissions and hold public hearings to come up with a final design. The process is as big and audacious as New York itself, while its democratic character is as American as the town meeting. Coming so close to the event, which is unusual in the history of memorial building, the process is also marked by unusually raw emotions.
(Christian Science Monitor)
Bloomberg's Comments Anger 9/11 Families - Jun 22, 2003
Mayor Bloomberg told a New Jersey couple who want to reclaim WTC ashes from a city dump that he had difficulty supporting their cause because "I intend to leave my body to science." His new comments have angered families of 9/11 victims, who describe them as "cold," "heartless" and "dismissive" of their grief.
(New York Post)
9/11 Injury Claims Go Federal - Jun 23, 2003
A Manhattan federal court judge has ruled that plaintiffs claiming they were injured during recovery efforts at the World Trade Center site between Sept. 11 and Sept. 29, 2001, should have their cases handled in federal court. The judge also ruled that those injured during cleanup efforts at other sites after that date should bring their cases in state court.
(Newsday)
Pentagon 9/11 Memorial Design Winner To Be Displayed - Jun 21, 2003
The winning memorial design for the Pentagon victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and five other finalists will be displayed at the Municipal Art Society starting June 30. The winners, Manhattan-based Julie Beckman and Keith Kaseman, had never entered a competition before creating their design to honor the 184 victims who died at the Pentagon.
(Newsday)
Garage at WTC Isn't Ruled Out - Jun 18, 2003
Even though Gov. Pataki told Sept. 11 victims' families that he opposes putting a bus garage at Ground Zero, the idea remains on the table. Environmental and rebuilding documents released yesterday by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. repeatedly refer to using the site's underbelly as a potential bus depot.
(New York Daily News)
Conflicts Over Memorial, West St. Tunnel - Jun 18, 2003
The issues of whether or not to bring the World Trade Center memorial to street level, build a parking garage underneath and an adjacent vehicular tunnel along West St. headed on a collision course last week. Disputes on all three interrelated issues intensified at various meetings.
(Downtown Express)
Telemarketer Admits WTC Fraud - Jun 17, 2003
The president of a Long Island City telemarketing firm pleaded guilty Monday to pocketing tens of thousands of dollars he falsely claimed he was collecting for the families of police officers killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.
(Newsday)
Whitehead: Placement of 9/11 Memorial Up to the Jury - Jun 13, 2003
The head of the agency overseeing Ground Zero reconstruction said yesterday the placement of the Sept. 11 memorial is up to the panel that will select the design. "The door is slightly ajar, but not very far ajar" on a proposal to raise to street level the sunken memorial in architect Daniel Libeskind's plan, said John Whitehead, chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.
(New York Daily News)
Environmental Review Ahead for LMDC - Jun 13, 2003
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's project plan for the World Trade Center site is about to go through a rigorous environmental review process, and by law, the public gets its say. The agency is also facing pressure from government officials and advocacy groups to distribute the remaining $1.3 billion allocated by Congress for downtown's redevelopment.
(Newsday)
Memorial Jury Hears Residents, Families Clash - Jun 11, 2003
The tensions between relatives of the 9/11victims and Lower Manhattan residents played out last Thursday at an invitation-only meeting before 12 of the 13 jurors who will decide on the memorial to those who died in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11 2001 and the six who died in 1993 when the Twin Towers were bombed.
(Downtown Express)
Bloomberg Stirs Memorial Feud - Jun 8, 2003
Wading into an emotionally charged debate, Mayor Bloomberg said police, fire and other emergency service personnel deserve special recognition on the memorial that will be erected at Ground Zero. "I personally believe that that memorial at the World Trade Center site must provide recognition to the firefighters, police officers and EMTs who, like Michael, fell saving the lives of others," Bloomberg said at yesterday's funeral Mass for Michael Cammarata, 22, the youngest member of the Fire Department to die in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
(New York Daily News)
9/11 Volunteers Denied Millions for Wages, Medical Bills - Jun 9, 2003
Hundreds of volunteers who gave all they could to New York after the Sept. 11 attacks are being shut out of state programs designed to cover medical bills and lost wages of those hurt at Ground Zero. Although Congress gave New York $150 million in emergency aid to pay for workers' compensation, the state has used only $44 million of the money.
(New York Daily News)
9/11 Relatives, Residents Call for Fitting Memorial Plan - Jun 6, 2003
Relatives of World Trade Center victims made emotional pleas last night about the permanent memorial at the site during the final public hearing by the panel that will pick the design. The family members squared off with people living near the 16-acre site, many of whom don't like the current proposal for a sunken memorial up to 30 feet below street level.
(New York Daily News)
Thousands Vie to Design W.T.C. Memorial - Jun 4, 2003
Thirteen thousand six hundred and eighty-three people have four weeks to submit their idea of how best to memorialize the victims of the 9/11 attacks and the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
(Downtown Express)
Interview: Architect Daniel Liebeskind Discusses His Plan For Memorializing The World Trade Center - Jun 4, 2003
Interview: Architect Daniel Liebeskind Discusses His Plan For Memorializing The World Trade Center, Post-9/11.
(wnbc.com)
13,000 Register For WTC Memorial Contest - May 31, 2003
Some 13,683 people registered for the trade center memorial competition, coming from all 50 states and 94 countries, redevelopment officials said Friday. The competition has attracted the largest number of registrants for a design competition in history, although it remains to be seen how many people submit designs for a memorial, said Kevin Rampe, interim president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.
(Newsday)
Memorial Jury to Decide How to List 9/11 Rescuers - May 31, 2003
A Top rebuilding official said yesterday that the guidelines for the World Trade Center memorial were flexible enough to allow the professional affiliations of firefighters and other rescue workers to be listed on it with their names, if the memorial jury chose a design that did so. The issue has been the subject of aggressive lobbying and demonstrations by firefighters and other rescue workers in recent weeks. While some firefighters have campaigned for a separate memorial for rescue workers, a larger number have asked that "F.D.N.Y." or other such affiliations be listed with the names of rescue workers who were killed at the trade center.
(New York Times)
Panel to Decide on a 9/11 Separate Memorial - May 31, 2003
Firefighters battling to have fallen rescue workers singled out in a Ground Zero memorial to victims of the Sept. 11 attacks got a glimmer of hope yesterday when a key official said the decision will be left to a "memorial jury." Lower Manhattan Development Corp. interim President Kevin Rampe said a 13-member panel, not the LMDC, will decide whether firefighters, cops and ambulance workers who died Sept. 11 are distinguished from others.
(New York Daily News)
Jury for Sept. 11 Memorial Is Facing Spirited Lobbying - May 30, 2003
An intense lobbying effort is under way, both in public and behind the scenes, to influence the jury that will choose the design for a memorial at the World Trade Center site. A group of family members of victims of the Sept. 11 attack that serves as an advisory council to rebuilding officials met with the jury this week. Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has been promised a similar private session. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Gov. George E. Pataki and board members of the lead rebuilding agency will also be offered meetings with the jury. Publicly, firefighters, downtown residents and business leaders have begun to push to have their desires represented in the memorial.
(New York Times)
Firefighters Insist WTC Memorial List Uniform Affiliations - May 29, 2003
Hundreds of firefighters and their relatives packed a public hearing last night in Manhattan to demand special recognition for firefighters and other uniformed personnel in any World Trade Center site memorial. Their pleas for listing the affiliation of each of the more than 400 uniformed services members who died on Sept. 11 dominated the hearing at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center.
(Newsday)
At Public Hearing, 150 Rally for Special 9/11 Memorial - May 29, 2003
Chanting "Never Forget," nearly 150 firefighters rallied outside a public hearing in Tribeca last night where officials met to take suggestions for a permanent Ground Zero memorial. The firefighters' anger centers on a decision by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. that the memorial not distinguish between civilians and rescuers.
(New York Daily News)
Chinatown Businesses Battle SARS Fears and Rumors - Apr 30, 2003
As rumor played tug-of-war with reality last week in Chinatown, community members voiced concern that an outbreak of the SARS virus—actual or perceived—could bring further economic damage to an area already struggling with fears of the illness.
(Downtown Express)
In 9/11 Memorial Competition, Rules Are Set to Be Broken - Apr 29, 2003
Officials overseeing the competition to design a memorial to the victims of the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, and the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center promised yesterday that all entries would be considered, even those that stray from the official guidelines for the placement and content of the memorial.
(New York Times)
WTC Memorial Design Contest Begins - Apr 28, 2003
Anyone anywhere in the world can register for the competition to select a World Trade Center memorial, starting Monday. While the guidelines require designers to be at least age 18, teens and children can participate, provided an adult registers for them and serves as designer of record -- no design, architecture expertise or experience needed.
(Newsday)
Push for Second 9/11 Memorial - Apr 27, 2003
A disturbing photo of a firefighter walking to his death on Sept. 11, 2001, is being used in a public relations blitz by a group that wants special honors at the Ground Zero memorial for uniformed workers. Posters of the photo are going up around the city today, a day before officials launch the international competition for the permanent tribute to the nearly 3,000 people who died in the World Trade Center attacks.
(New York Daily News)
Angry 9/11 Families Seek Federal Role In Memorial Plan - Apr 24, 2003
A coalition of victims? families groups is pushing the federal government to take a larger role in the September 11 memorial, driven by anger and mistrust toward the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and a desire to create a national monument. The "federal outreach" has begun already and will climax with a mid-May trip to Washington.
(New York Sun)
Kids Can Submit WTC Memorial Plans - Apr 18, 2003
Children and teens with memorial designs for the World Trade Center can submit them, even though the competition requires would-be entrants to be 18 or older, redevelopment officials said. Anyone under 18 can enter, provided they work with an adult willing to register with the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. for the young person or group of people, and serve as the designer of record.
(Newsday)
Development Corporation Announces Memorial Jury, Calls for Victims to Be Honored Equally - Apr 11, 2003
Officials overseeing the creation of a memorial to victims of the World Trade Center attack rebuffed a request yesterday from a group of New York City firefighters for separate recognition of uniformed rescue workers on the memorial. The development corporation also announced the selection yesterday of a 13-member jury to judge the competition. The jury, which includes prominent artists, architects, scholars, a woman whose husband was killed and a downtown resident and business owner, will choose a design in late October or early November, officials said.
(New York Times)
Governor's Pals On Memorial Jury - Apr 11, 2003
A former top aide to Gov. Pataki and a contributor to the governor's re-election campaign were appointed yesterday to the panel that will choose a design for a Ground Zero memorial. Neither Mike McKeon, a former Pataki spokesman who recently joined a private consulting and lobbying firm, nor downtown businesswoman Julie Menin, who gave the governor $11,000 last year, has the sort of arts or design background that officials have repeatedly said would be needed as jury members judge what could be thousands of design submissions.
(New York Post)
Vietnam Memorial Architect May Sit on Jury - Apr 10, 2003
Maya Lin, the architect who designed the famed Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, is expected to sit on the jury that selects the final tribute to the World Trade Center victims, sources told the Daily News yesterday. Lin's participation on the jury would preclude her from submitting her own ideas for the Ground Zero memorial — something that many architects and victims' families had hoped she would do.
(New York Daily News)
Britain to Bury WTC Girder in Memorial - Apr 10, 2003
A section of steel girder from the World Trade Center will be buried in a planned memorial garden to prevent distress to victims' relatives, officials said Wednesday. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport, which is overseeing the memorial's construction, said the intention was to make the garden a place where people could look forward to the future. The blackened, twisted piece of metal from Tower One was given to Britain by the New York Mayor's Office for a memorial in London's Grosvenor Square, opposite the U.S. Embassy.
(Associated Press)
New York to Extend Deadline for WTC Families to Sue - Apr 10, 2003
Families of World Trade Center victims would have until March 2004 to file wrongful death lawsuits under an agreement Wednesday by New York officials to extend the deadline by six months.
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