Journeys of the Questress - WTC
Rebuilding Ground Zero
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The Way it Was - 1
The Way it Was - 2
Sept 19 - When Tomorrow Never Comes
Sept 27 - Oral Interpretation
Oct 5 - A Mile of Tears - Part 1
Oct 5 - A Mile of Tears - Part 2
Oct 5 - A Mile of Tears - Part 3
Oct 11 - Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
Oct 28 - Each Day I Search the Rubble
Nov 12 - When Spires Fall
Nov 19 - 911 The Rape of America
Dec 14 - Just A Thought
Dec 18 - A Sense of Place
Feb 2 - Final Pass to the End Zone
March 3 - Sitting on the Edge
March 14- Do You Still Remember
March 20 - Virtual Walk-Through
March 25 - When Will It End - Part 1
March 25 - When Will It End - Part 2
April 1 - Towers of Light
May 14 - View From Above
May 30 - Tunnel At the End of the Light
May 31 - Seventeen Hundred
Aug 9 - From the Margins Erased
Aug 30 - The Train Doesn't Stop There Anymore
Sept 9 - Ceremonies of Light and Dark
Sept 10 - Just An Anniversary
Sept 12 - September Holds Great Promise
Literary Reflections
Rebirth and Resurrection
The Winter Garden Springs To Life
The Winter Garden Springs To Life - con't
Underpass to the Past
Rebuilding Ground Zero
Under Hallowed Ground
Borders
Yahrzeit
What Will Fill the Void?
I Submit a Design
Footprints in the Dust
My Memorial Design Submission
My Memorial Design - Drawings
New Path Train Station
Path Station Tour
May We Never Forget
That Which Surives
War Without End
4th Anniversary
Footprints in the Dust
Void
I Miss 9/11
Time Comes Between Us
A Thousand Cranes
Fear Factor
Love Letters On The Wall
Empty Chairs
Sitting on the Edge of Forever
Walking the Perimeter of Emptiness
A Counting of Days
For Friends Absent But Not Forgotten
Stigmata
The Memory Keeper's Promise
Unbreak My Heart
Standing On The Edge Of Forever
Both Sides Now
A Memory In Time
The Gravity of Loss
The Survivors Rise Up
Flowers Will Bloom
The Fire Within Us
The Sentinel
Stronger Than The Storm
Between the Candle and the Stars
Ghosts
A Journey Through Remembrance
Canticle of Remembrance
Beyond the Crucible of Chaos
Journey Through Remembrance project
What See We Now
Forever In Our Hearts
Keeping the Flame Alive
The Rebuilding of Ground Zero continues
Does Anyone Care Anymore?
Where Is Our Story Teller of Pain
At Memory's Edge
Dust Thou Art and to Dust Thou Shalt Return
7x7x70
Heroes Never Die
The Flame Inside Our Hearts
The Year of the Heroes of 9/11
Déjà Vu
Remembering 9/11 in the year of COVID-19
Coronavirus Decimates Ailing Sept. 11 Responders
Touching From a Distance
That Which Survives 20 years later
2021 - 20 years later
Memories of Terror Return
Putin's Name Covered Over On Teardrop Memorial
The 9/11 Tribute Museum Closes
When Memories Fade Away
St. Nicholas at Ground Z is rebuilt
The Blue Wall of the Unidentified Victims
When Time Calls Your Name
When Art Gets It All Wrong

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Rebuilding Ground Zero

On February 1 Studio Daniel Libeskind's design for ground Zero  was chosen by the city's rebuilding officials. It had been the front runner for days, ever since the field of 7 had been narrowed down to 2 at the start of the month. The Berlin-based firm's plan for the site centers on the excavated pit to be ringed by glass towers that swirl upward to a 1,776-foot spire. The plan also proposes to leave the footprints of the towers open along with a section of the site's retaining wall, known as the 'bathtub'.
 
We now have a final design, sort of.  The whole process has been fraught with disagreements and disgruntlements on all sides from the very beginning. The first round of plans presented last year met with a roar of disapproval. Packing the Jacob J. Javits Center, NYC residents using computer technology, got a say in what they thought about these plans. A resounding "we don't like any of them" came from that 'town meeting'. Also, all along, relatives and friends of the dead and missing, cried out for a memorial to take precedence over any building on the site. However, it is prime real estate and the property owners would like to see some utilization of it for office space again.
 
But the question that has rattled through my head ever since they started securing designs last year is, will rebuilding Ground Zero be a rebirth and resurrection for that hallowed area or a continuing battlefield? Already we are hearing of things unsettled. To quote the NY Times online story Libeskind Design Chosen for Rebuilding at Ground Zero by Edward Wyatt March 1, 2003, "battle lines are already being drawn over other issues, from the proposed underground parking garages to an enclosed mall and the amount of commercial office space on the site. It is by no means certain, for example, how the memorial will be paid for, when the commercial buildings will go up, whether the towers will look much like the buildings in the design, or whether the city or the Port Authority will ultimately control the site."
 
However, "Mr. Pataki has repeatedly said that his focus in the rebuilding process is on the memorial to the victims of the attack, and from the beginning he has said he was moved by Mr. Libeskind's design. Many family members of victims have also favored Mr. Libeskind's preservation of so much of the site, and Mr. Pataki has sided with the desires of family members several times, as when he proclaimed last summer that nothing would be built on the ground where the two towers had stood." The article goes on to say "Two state officials said last night that they feared the governor could face some negative political fallout from the decision. The development corporation's site committee voted on Tuesday to endorse the Think plan; those board members were appointed by Mr. Pataki, Mr. Bloomberg and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Thus these elected officials overruled their own appointees, appointees who were charged specifically with carrying out the rebuilding."
 
There you have it, everyone's views and desires pitted against everyone else's. An architectural 'war' over what to place on the most valuable (in both money and memories) piece of land in the nation. Even terms of war are being thrown around: battlefield, fallout, control. How sad.
 
In my opinion, the proper direction to take should be to consider the memorial first. What should it look like, how much space and what space should it take up. Ask the input from those to whom it really matters: the survivors and those who lost loved ones. Then start the designs for some office building. Lower Manhattan needs to regain some of its business base, and yes, Ground Zero is sacred but to build nothing on it? To me that is financial irresponsibility. After all, the Towers when they collapsed spread the 'ashes' of the dead all over lower Manhattan not just on the WTC acreage! Should we have not cleaned all those building, bulldozed all the rubble, or done anything but let things lie as was? I think not. What I feel should be built is something that restores our skyline. Something that soars higher than the World Financial buildings but not necessarily try to create the 'tallest building in the world' again. And those new buildings should fit in and complement the existing architecture of those 4 remaining buildings on the skyline. World Financial 1 through 4 are all that is left of that grand era. Poetically, I see them as the 4 sisters standing guard over the cemetery of their dead twins.
 
So, Men, stop your sandbox fighting. Listen to some reason. Because if you continue to let Ground Zero be your battlefield, all you'll wind up with is a multi acre embarrassment: A rebuilt Path Train station and a pit full of swirling dust!
                                                              c2003 Leona M Seufert

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Daniel Libeskind's design concept