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Constructions Begins on WTC Memorial Today
By
Jen Chung
Published Mar 13, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published Mar 13, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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The World Trade Center memorial, Reflecting Absence, will finally gets the chance to change from design to reality as crews prepare the area at Ground Zero for the memorial. However, some families of September 11 victims are still upset with the design and plan to protest today at noon. Their main complaints are that the memorial does not preserve the footprints of the old WTC building, the memorial is submerged in the ground and that the names of victims are listed randomly. The state Historic Preservation Office is looking into whether or not the footprints should be kept, and critics are going to try to have a judge block construction. Mayor Bloomberg said, "That decision was made - now we have to go and build it. The time for expressing yourself has come and gone, and now we should rally behind this design and go ahead ... [and] build this memorial." While redevelopment has not been very smooth, Gothamist has to agree that the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation seems to have tried to use public comment to inform the design - and that some of these issues have been in the news for over two years (the NY Times had an article about the difference between the WTC footprints and the memorial's "voids" two years ago).
The other big deal with Ground Zero development is that tomorrow is the deadline for developer Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority to work things out about control downtown.
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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