The World Trade Center Site

WORLD TRADE CENTER SITE
Bounded by Church, Liberty, West & Barclay Sts. www.renewnyc.com and www.lowermanhattan.info.

The world's largest commercial complex stood here from 1970 until the morning of September 11,2001, when two hijacked planes were flown into the Twin Towers, killing 2,768 people and bringing the 110-story structures—in which 50,000 people had worked—to the ground. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in US history, a catastrophe that, as New Yorker writer Hendrik Hertzberg described it, "turned the foot of Manhattan into the mouth of hell." Fires burned for weeks, sending acrid smoke across the city. In all, eight buildings were destroyed. Workers carted off 1.5 million tons of steel and debris until the site was cleared in May 2002, well ahead of schedule. Rebuilding the site has proved far more difficult, thanks to the vast size of the project and the number of parties (politicians, developers, victims' families, architects and the police) with strong and often conflicting visions of its future.

The Master Plan - Ultimately, the site will contain an assortment of office buildings, memorials, parks and cultural venues, arranged roughly according to Memory Foundations, a master plan created by Polish-born architect Daniel Libeskind and revised by David Childs of the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The centerpiece of the plan is a 1,776ft-tall structure (half building, half sculpture) called the Freedom Tower, surrounded by a cluster of shorter, angular glass office buildings. The cornerstone for the tower was put in place in the fall of 2004, but construction has been slowed by security concerns.

The Memorial - The design that beat 5,000 other entries in the World Trade Center memorial design competition honors the request by some victims' families that the footprints of the towers not be built upon. "Reflecting Absence," by architects Michael Arad and Peter Walker, features a one-and-a-half-acre grove of oak trees and preserves, as multilevel reflecting pools, the two square voids where the towers once stood.

The Cultural Center - In October 2004, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. announced the selection of renowned architect Frank Gehry and the Norwegian firm Snohetta to design a cultural center on the site. Gehry will design a performing arts building, and Snohetta will design a museum complex and visitor center. The projected date of completion is 2009.

The Transportation Hub - The Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava has been given the green light to build a soaring $2 billion transport hub at the World Trade Center site. The station will consist of two curved, intersecting planes of glass and steel, a design that was inspired by the image of a child opening her hand to let a bird free, Calatrava has said. The hub is expected to open in late 2006.

Visiting the Site
Shortly after the debris was cleared in 2002, city officials opened a viewing platform on Church Street so that visitors could see where the World Trade Center stood, pay respects to the dead and watch the progress of rebuilding. Mounted high on a sturdy metal fence, text and photo panels trace the history of the World Trade Center, with particularly dramatic coverage of the events of September 11, 2001. Nearby, at the corner of Church and Vesey streets, stands a staffed information center (open year-round daily 10am-6pm) where you can pick up more information on this or other sites or ask travel-related questions. The Winter Garden provides a more complete view of the World Trade Center site and an exhibit charting the future of downtown Manhattan.