By James Cavanaugh
Volume 20, Number 26 | The Newspaper of Lower Manhattan | November 9 – 15, 2007
Above are three of about 500 construction workers now working at the World Trade Center site. At right are two new residential buildings near completion, renderings of the W.T.C. memorial plaza, and a Downtown onlooker surveying all of the work underway.
With fundraising nearly done, we’re building the memorial
Over the past year, significant advances have been made towards the completion of the memorial and museum at the World Trade Center. With the leadership of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who became chairman of our organization in the fall of 2006, and the support of our board members, we have made major progress in fundraising, program planning, and construction of the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum.
W.T.C. Memorial
Progress must proceed safely to avoid fatal errors
The fire at 130 Liberty St. was a tragic reminder of the dangers associated with rebuilding our community six years after Sept. 11, 2001. Two firefighters, Robert Beddia and Joe Graffagnino, needlessly died at a building that has long sparked controversy. This terrible event should never have occurred, and it is of utmost importance to our community that we learn lessons from it that can be applied as we move forward with the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan.
How strange and wonderful, six years after 9/11, to reflect not on where we have been but where we are going and how we are getting there; to stop telling the story of that day and start talking about today and tomorrow; to look out the window and see an extraordinary community rising from the dust and scaffolding — great architecture, a robust and growing corporate citizenry, shopping on Wall St., cafés on Stone St., culture and street life, the lowest commercial vacancy rate in six years and so many residents that two new schools are under construction. For Downtown, it’s déjà vu all over again.
Condos and residential conversions will fill the majority of new residential buildings opening in Lower Manhattan by next year, according to inventory figures from the Downtown Alliance that show about 5,000 new units opening through 2008.
Happily, moving Downtown is more than we bargained for
It has been just over a year since the New York Academy of Sciences left its stately long-time headquarters, the former Woolworth mansion on the Upper East Side, for what has turned out to be an extraordinary adventure 40 stories above ground zero at 7 World Trade Center.
We’re not done building B.P.C.’s green towers
Though the Battery Park City Authority’s last few sites have been designated for construction, there is much work to be done and much for Downtown residents, New Yorkers and visitors to look forward too.
