After glossing over the promotion of Max Bond in the press release regarding the appointment of Gretchen Dykstra to chair the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, The New York Times made up for lost time, having sussed out from the mice type that the Performing Arts facility is being left out of the only announced capital campaign.
The Foundation, which is looking like it should be renamed the George Pataki Presidential PAC, has set a target of $500 million to fund the WTC Memorial and one of the two ‘cultural facilities’ slated to house the International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center. The Times alludes to the belief of some that perhaps even the Drawing Center is extraneous.
The Times covered this territory a few weeks back (I’ve given up trying to find the link — if anyone has it, I’d appreciate it: a Sunday Arts section piece on the fundraising challenges, and some snarky commentary on the potential cost overruns and delays of the Gehry building, something you can imagine I’m very pleased about), but at the time, the thrust of the article was that other arts organizations might be in a position to muscle their way in, if, say, the Drawing Center, which doesn’t quite have the same fund-raising ability as MoMA, couldn’t find the $200 million it needs. Given that every Podunk museum in this country has announced a Renzo Piano addition, that seems unlikely, but given the complexity and uncertainty of the site, it may be a taller challenge than everyone thought — a fact that might scare off other potential candidates, particularly in light of the short shrift implicit in Friday’s announcement.
There are couple really broad generalizations one can make about this latest turn. The obvious one: it continues to be a struggle to create several complex and very expensive structures — that must knit together formally and logistically, on a site that would be a tremendous challenge even if it weren’t the most emotionally fraught landscape in the history of the city — absent a functioning master plan. This would certainly be disputed by the LMDC, but the drastic revisions of the latest iteration of the Memorial are indicative of the indeterminacy. Decisions about security, access, and integration are still unresolved. Looming over it all is the commercial viability of the office properties, still untested as Larry Silverstein carpets the town with slick promotional materials to no avail.
Another is the precarious situation, physically, of the Performing Arts Center. Occupying the site most physically proximate to the Freedom Center, it is situated astride the tower’s loading docks, the main entrance, or turning circle, depending on which day of the week (or Yale student ideas he’s riffing on) you talk to David Childs. As a result, there will be no plans presented until next year at the earliest. This delay helps, since Gehry isn’t even out of schematics (hell, they probably aren’t finished with programming) yet, and he’s already asking for more money. Given his seemingly craven comments about fees during the competition for the master plan, any discussion involving budgets and Gehry is going to ruffle feathers.
But it is a discussion that is crucial, since no one knows how much any of this will cost, or who is paying. With the numbers currently available, the best estimate for the total cost of the PATH terminal, Freedom Tower, Freedom Center, Memorial, and Performing Arts center is over $5 billion, and it has never been made clear if these costs include site improvements (such as the security infrastructure, truck access, and bus garage). Some large sums are currently committed, but given a standard contingency for these projects in toto runs a half-billion dollars, the details count considerably.
The LMDC has about $850 million left. The Memorial committee is starting at $500 million, but it’s not clear if they are counting on additional monies from the LMDC over and above that, or if that will fully fund the Memorial and Museum building. Even though there are a number of constituents making requests, you can be sure that a goodly sum will be allocated to the Memorial. Conjoining the Freedom Center — an institution that still lacks a clearly articulated mission statement, but is helpfully helmed by an enthusiastic support of President Bush, and, very importantly for the governor, an avid fundraiser for Republicans with national aspirations — and the Memorial itself ensures Pataki will be able to use the various events (fundraising, groundbreaking ceremonies, and the like) that come up as a sort of proxy patronage for his would-be donors.
It’s interesting that this is happening more or less in plain sight. Now that community interest has been attenuated by both time and frustration, and likely by the misperception that subtle changes in language aren’t enough to drastically alter the final form of the master plan, not to mention its discrete elements, everyone has been lulled into an exhausted stupor.
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Enormous Changes at the Last Minute.
After glossing over the promotion of Max Bond in the press release regarding the appointment of Gretchen Dykstra to chair the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, The New York Times made up for lost time, having sussed out from the mice type that the Performing Arts facility is being left out of the only announced capital campaign.
The Foundation, which is looking like it should be renamed the George Pataki Presidential PAC, has set a target of $500 million to fund the WTC Memorial and one of the two ‘cultural facilities’ slated to house the International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center. The Times alludes to the belief of some that perhaps even the Drawing Center is extraneous. The Times covered this territory a few weeks back (I’ve given up trying to find the link — if anyone has it, I’d appreciate it: a Sunday Arts section piece on the fundraising challenges, and some snarky commentary on the potential cost overruns and delays of the Gehry building, something you can imagine I’m very pleased about), but at the time, the thrust of the article was that other arts organizations might be in a position to muscle their way in, if, say, the Drawing Center, which doesn’t quite have the same fund-raising ability as MoMA, couldn’t find the $200 million it needs. Given that every Podunk museum in this country has announced a Renzo Piano addition, that seems unlikely, but given the complexity and uncertainty of the site, it may be a taller challenge than everyone thought — a fact that might scare off other potential candidates, particularly in light of the short shrift implicit in Friday’s announcement. There are couple really broad generalizations one can make about this latest turn. The obvious one: it continues to be a struggle to create several complex and very expensive structures — that must knit together formally and logistically, on a site that would be a tremendous challenge even if it weren’t the most emotionally fraught landscape in the history of the city — absent a functioning master plan. This would certainly be disputed by the LMDC, but the drastic revisions of the latest iteration of the Memorial are indicative of the indeterminacy. Decisions about security, access, and integration are still unresolved. Looming over it all is the commercial viability of the office properties, still untested as Larry Silverstein carpets the town with slick promotional materials to no avail. Another is the precarious situation, physically, of the Performing Arts Center. Occupying the site most physically proximate to the Freedom Center, it is situated astride the tower’s loading docks, the main entrance, or turning circle, depending on which day of the week (or Yale student ideas he’s riffing on) you talk to David Childs. As a result, there will be no plans presented until next year at the earliest. This delay helps, since Gehry isn’t even out of schematics (hell, they probably aren’t finished with programming) yet, and he’s already asking for more money. Given his seemingly craven comments about fees during the competition for the master plan, any discussion involving budgets and Gehry is going to ruffle feathers. But it is a discussion that is crucial, since no one knows how much any of this will cost, or who is paying. With the numbers currently available, the best estimate for the total cost of the PATH terminal, Freedom Tower, Freedom Center, Memorial, and Performing Arts center is over $5 billion, and it has never been made clear if these costs include site improvements (such as the security infrastructure, truck access, and bus garage). Some large sums are currently committed, but given a standard contingency for these projects in toto runs a half-billion dollars, the details count considerably. The LMDC has about $850 million left. The Memorial committee is starting at $500 million, but it’s not clear if they are counting on additional monies from the LMDC over and above that, or if that will fully fund the Memorial and Museum building. Even though there are a number of constituents making requests, you can be sure that a goodly sum will be allocated to the Memorial. Conjoining the Freedom Center — an institution that still lacks a clearly articulated mission statement, but is helpfully helmed by an enthusiastic support of President Bush, and, very importantly for the governor, an avid fundraiser for Republicans with national aspirations — and the Memorial itself ensures Pataki will be able to use the various events (fundraising, groundbreaking ceremonies, and the like) that come up as a sort of proxy patronage for his would-be donors. It’s interesting that this is happening more or less in plain sight. Now that community interest has been attenuated by both time and frustration, and likely by the misperception that subtle changes in language aren’t enough to drastically alter the final form of the master plan, not to mention its discrete elements, everyone has been lulled into an exhausted stupor.