The Cipher at Ground Zero

I wrote this in August of 2003. Many, if not most, of the details have changed of the "master plan" for the World Trade Center site. "Rebuilding officials" would say it has "evolved." I say the general points of this essay remain the same: that whatever is built at Ground Zero will be a) very expensive and b) unsatisfying to everyone.

Except for one thing. It's more than two years later, and almost nothing has been built at Ground Zero. The "rebuilding officials" say: "Any minute now we'll be ready to start the final preparations for getting ready to build something."

I say: It's worse than I thought. These days I think the Port Authority should have just broken the site up, sold it to private developers for bazillions of dollars, and spared us all the subway fare hike.

As it is, we're stuck with the Cipher at Ground Zero.


One summer day, 10 or 15 years from now, you step off a commuter train into the vast, ultra-modern transit hub under the World Trade Center. As you come up to the concourse, shafts of sunlight pour in through the massive skylights. You stroll past well-appointed, prosperous shops and take an escalator up to Fulton and Greenwich Streets. You walk north, through a glittering piazza where, on the morning of every September 11, the sun shines without shadow. You turn back toward the southwest through the Park of Heroes and walk down a ramp into the site, where -- 75 feet down, surrounded by the bare slurry walls of the original Twin Towers -- you pause and reflect at a soaring, yet tasteful memorial to those lost. After lunch, you take a high-speed elevator to the top of the world's tallest building, the Freedom Tower, and gaze in wonder at the hanging gardens.

That's one fantasy. Here's another:

You step off a bus into a dank underground garage, built right on the spot where 2,792 people were brutally murdered. As you come up from underground, the sunlight is blocked by a "Blade Runner" nightmare of glass and steel office buildings. You think about strolling down to the memorial, but it's always so crowded -- nearly 20,000 people visit every day. You could grab lunch in the neon-lit food court of the Mall of Ground Zero, but that, too, is crowded with tourists. To your left, you see the dust and exhaust rising from the West Street Tunnel Project -- still unfinished after all these years, an urban embarrassment of Big Dig proportions. And atop the world's tallest tower, there are no hanging gardens -- just a very big antenna, so folks in Brooklyn and New Jersey can get the TV reception they deserve.

The first scenario is the one described with great fanfare last January, when Daniel Libeskind's "Memory Foundations" was officially chosen as the design for the Trade Center site. Since then, a chorus of civic groups, Lower Manhattan residents, and victims' families would have you believe we're heading for the second scenario.

Who's right? What will the new World Trade Center really look like?

That's the multi-billion dollar question, and unfortunately it has a five-cent answer: Nobody knows. And no one will until the last construction crane gets hauled away.

But having observed the rebuilding process since September 11, 2001, I can offer two predictions about the new World Trade Center: 1) it will be very expensive, and 2) it will satisfy nobody.

If this sounds pessimistic, don't blame me -- blame the process. It can have no other outcome.

Let me illustrate this by asking you for one more fantasy. Say you own a house, and someone burns it down. Catastrophic, to be sure. But after the initial shock, you take a trip through the court system, collect whatever restitution and insurance you're owed, and build yourself a new home. Perhaps you take the opportunity to build yourself a better home. You have no one to consider but yourself: "What do I need? What will I need ten years from now? In the basement -- carpet or area rug?" And after awhile, if all goes well, you end up satisfied.

Unfortunately, you don't own the World Trade Center. It's owned by a quasi-governmental agency, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. (So maybe you do own the World Trade Center -- you and me and about 28 million other residents of those two states.) The Port Authority is an appointed body, answerable only to the governors of New York and New Jersey -- and Ground Zero ain't in New Jersey. So calling the shots is Governor George Pataki- a man who, as the New York Post likes to point out, has "no known architectural or urban-design credentials."

But for better or for worse, Pataki's in charge, right? Actually, no. Because the WTC is also controlled by developer Larry Silverstein, who -- in the worst imaginable case of bad timing -- signed a 99-year lease just six weeks before the planes hit. Silverstein's lease declares that, should the property be destroyed, he gets to rebuild it as he sees fit, with whatever architect he wants, and with as much office space as before.

Okay, so it's Larry Silverstein's ball game. Only it isn't. Because after the attacks, Governor Pataki and then-Mayor Giuliani got together and created another quasi-governmental agency, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, to oversee the rebuilding. The LMDC is appointed by the Mayor and the Governor. So the Mayor has a say in this too.

Confused yet? It gets worse. The World Trade Center, you'll notice, is in Lower Manhattan, home to nearly 58,000 people. Many are rich. They vote and pay taxes. And they're engaged in the process: poll numbers from Pace University show more than 60 percent of downtown residents follow the rebuilding process most or some of the time, and nearly 70 percent talk about it with their neighbors.

And let's not forget the hordes who commute to Lower Manhattan each day -- 120,000 of them from New Jersey alone, and thousands more from Long Island and the 'burbs. Most of these people work on Wall Street, and it's not too much of a stretch to say the financial sector pays the bills for the city and state of New York. So we gotta keep those commuters happy.

Finally, the World Trade Center isn't just an office complex or a tourist destination. It's the site of the worst terrorist attack in history, with 2,792 victims according to the New York City Medical Examiner's office. Many of those victims' families are vocal, well-organized, and have the media's ear. And let's be fair: the victims' families are just people who, through no fault of their own, have suffered an unimaginable loss. They're trying as well as they can -- as well as you or I would -- to make that loss mean something. They are understandably concerned about preserving the legacy of their loved ones with dignity and respect. That legacy is all they have.

But, as the media are quick to point out, "We all lost something that day." We are all victims. And so the World Trade Center belongs to everyone.

Imagine having to go around to everyone in the world and ask: "In the basement - carpet or area rug?" You can just hear the cacophony that would follow: "Hey, what about berber?" "Have you considered a parquet floor?" "Let's just rebuild the original floor, to show those terrorists we're not afraid!"

This wouldn't work to redecorate your house, and it doesn't work on the biggest and most complex urban construction project in history. No rational decisions can be made in such a climate -- and none are being made.

More office space, says Silverstein. Less office space, say the civic groups. No building on the footprints, say the families. You got it, says Pataki. Wait a minute, we have to build a little on the footprints, says the Port Authority. And let's move the signature tower over here, says Silverstein. But it's my design, says Libeskind. Not anymore, says Silverstein - we're using another architect. Lose the hanging gardens. And lose that sunken memorial, say downtown residents -- who wants to live next to a mausoleum? But we need to remember, say the victims' families. And lose that underground bus terminal. No sweat, says the Port Authority. But what about the millions of tourists? says the LMDC. What about our neighborhood? say downtown residents. Fuck you, what about us? say the lower-income folks on the other side of town. And I haven't even mentioned the firefighters and police officers who want separate-but-equal recognition on the future memorial. Just thinking about it is enough to make you want to lie down in a dark room.

With such a multitude of competing interests, what's happening is that decisions are being made by random chance based on whatever pressure happens to build up at any given moment. And the result will be -- well, as I mentioned, nobody knows. When that last crane drives away, the officials in charge will congratulate themselves on the "compromise" they've built. And all of us will visit the expensive mish-mash they're talking about, but no one will be satisfied.

Until a hundred years from now, when no one will remember it was ever any different. When no one will remember the original Twin Towers -- my kids already don't -- or the tortuous process it took to replace them. This is the third thing we can learn from the so-called "rebuilding process," as we've learned it from the terror attacks themselves: we'll get used to it. Eventually.