16 Acres

16 Acres

I have just finished reading this interesting book on the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site. Watching the soundbites on the local news as the months and years of planning went by the whole venture seemed like a fiasco that would never be resolved. We know it has been now as we look at 1 World Trade Center reaching into the clouds but this book reveals the decisions and colorful process that took place in all its fascinating detail.

I leave you with a quote from the epilogue and the view of 1 WTC in the rain this week from Madison Street and Catherine Street.

“There was only one thing to report at ground zero: the process had done its necessary work, not neatly, not purely, not without selfishness or rancor or vice, but in a manner that was recognizable as essentially New York- fast, vital,vain, and not too hung up on the past.” (Nobel, 2004)

Sixteen Acres                                                                                                                   Architecture and the outrageous struggle for the future of ground Zero                   Philip Nobel