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January 27, 2002
NEW YORK -- The man charged with rebuilding Lower Manhattan envisions a permanent World Trade Center memorial similar in size and emotional impact to the Lincoln and Jefferson monuments in Washington.
But John Whitehead, chairman of the newly created Lower Manhattan Development Corp., cautioned that the 16-acre site must leave room for economic development, including new office buildings.
"Sixteen acres is a huge area," Whitehead said. "The Lincoln Memorial is on a site of 5.6 acres. The Jefferson Memorial is on 3.4 acres."
Whitehead noted that tens of thousands of tourists now wait hours to get a glimpse of workers removing World Trade Center debris. For now, he would like to install benches and flowers.
But he said a permanent memorial must be designed to accommodate the masses of visitors. "I believe it will become as (popular as) the Statue of Liberty is," he said. "We have to provide far more facilities for those crowds."
Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani had urged turning the entire wreckage site into a sacred space and memorial. But his successor, Michael Bloomberg, and now Whitehead have made clear that this will not happen. The city is too vibrant and the real estate too valuable, they say.
Whitehead, 79, shared his ideas in a news conference before a monthly private meeting with his 11 board members. New York Gov. George Pataki appointed Whitehead, a former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs and Co. and a D-day veteran, as head of the commission in November.
Whitehead is moving quickly because the cleanup has gone much faster than anticipated. Construction supervisors expect to finish removing the rubble by May 31, at least three months ahead of schedule. The city's Transit Authority also expects to have subway lines restored before the end of the year.
"I am first to admit," Whitehead said, "this puts some pressure on all of us."
Whitehead said he has talked informally with business leaders during the past two months, listening to their ideas about the future of the site. He recently appointed chairmen of four advisory councils, representing the respective views of victims' families, residents, restaurants and retailers, and arts and educational groups.
Each council is to forward its redevelopment proposals by March 15.
The challenge for Whitehead is to balance often competing plans. And the redevelopment faces another complication: The World Trade Center was no mere office tower.
Its bottom floors and the adjoining streets constituted one of the largest shopping centers in the nation. Residents of Battery Park City, the 20,000-resident apartment complex to the west of the World Trade Center, lost most of their stores in the collapse of the towers.
In an effort to arrive at the proper mix of memorial and commerce, Whitehead dispatched two staffers to Oklahoma City this week to study what the city built to commemorate the tragedy of April 19, 1995, when a terrorist's bomb killed 168 people.
One, board member Deborah Wright, told reporters that designers of the Oklahoma City memorial regret not having involved survivors and victims' families more in their planning.