After rumblings over the past few weeks (minor rumblings, to be sure — it was mostly us bloggers, until the doyenne got into the act), it finally broke big: the master planning at the WTC site is a fiasco. Not just as deemed by amateurs, cranks who were just paying attention and noticing how unlikely and imprudent it all seemed, but after the NYPD sniffed at the Freedom Center plans and gave an arch thumbs down, we can now say it loud and proud.
It is a pyrrhic victory, no doubt. I don’t enjoy gloating over the fact that no one is publicly willing to step up and defend the past four years and billions of dollars invested, to arrive at a point where it’s easier to simply argue for what is still right, since so much of it is wrong. Even given my predisposition — that much, if not all, of the building plans should be abandoned — it does not read as unreasonable to say that what is right is nothing.
Some have offered piecemeal alternatives, and that’s fine, but it plays into the myopic bureaucracy of the Port Authority (absolutely at fault, along with their patron, Curious George) that at this point incremental changes will be ‘considered’ indefinitely while the majority of the ill-conceived plans trudge along inevitably. And nothing can stop them. Though there is some public hand wringing about the recent report by the NYPD that the current plan is not as secure as they would like, as a quasi-governmental entity, there is next to nothing to prevent the PANYNJ from moving forward with either the plans as they stand, or even worse permutations to come. Some speculate that much of this finger pointing and delay is engineered to bankrupt Larry Silverstein, so he is forced to back out and then the process can be reopened for consideration. That is giving far too much credit to the organization that was responsible for the WTC in the first place.
The divide and conquer strategy that Ouroussoff outlined in the Times yesterday — preventing the designers, who are all under contract to the LMDC/Port Authority, from speaking to each other or publicly, is an extension of the same logic. Issues are presented, but never with enough time or opportunity to consider the whole. This enables the LMDC to speak with complete authority, dismissing challenges by asserting that they are certainly considering any particular issue, but the inference is that only they can speak with authority, since the overall program is too complex, and somewhere in the bowels of the organization, the best and brightest minds are working to resolve it. But they aren’t. The center is a void, a curious phenomenon, since it mirrors the void of the site itself, which creates a symbolic symmetry. One — which I would argue — should be considered more rigorously as a response. But that is not in the plans, and this temporary interruption, regardless of the air of failure and incompetence that now looms, does not stop ham-fisted urban planning. It only adds to the certainty that the inevitable will be even less palatable.
So what does the leadership do? Well, the inestimable Kevin Rampe looks around, brushes his hands together and says “My work here is done.” Off to fund raise for the memorial and the mysterious Freedom Center, perhaps his last official act will be writing the check for $750 million to himself. It will certainly make him popular at his new job.
Curious George is playing coy with his re-election plans, which is politico speak for approval numbers that are only slightly worse than the Yankees current record. He has no national office chances, but he still has the funds to pay handlers to convince him he does. The sweet Guiliani-style money will likely be too attractive. He’s probably angling for some cosmetic position he can milk, like head of the Freedom Center, to burnish his fixer — er, consulting — gig.
Mike-Mike at least had the gumption to say the Larry Silverstein got his cake, and now he better eat it. But that’s only because every dime you can find in the carpeting at City Hall has to go towards the suddenly, strangely quiet dispute over on the west side. With less than 70 days to a decision for the Olympics (one can imagine Mike-Mike in Union Square, staring at the high-jacked art counting down, and imploring bystanders to assert their support for subsidizing powerful New Jersey families), and no real power in this struggle, he can shine as the voice of reason, something he is unable to muster further uptown.
Larry Silverstein, master of the largest unrented block of space in Manhattan, wants more money. How quaint. After investing a whopping $15 million of his own money, he has the temerity to suggest that his plans, which have proceeded without any real resistance, even as no one has endorsed them as the preferred solution (except for the soon to be departed Kevin Rampe, and a handful of downtown real estate guys who missed the train to midtown), should be publicly underwritten. Well that’s great. I’ve got a bunch of plans for affordable housing in my closet — you think I can get a cut Larry?
Ouroussoff sees in all this opportunity: a drastic intervention into the planning process, so we can then get to the design flaws (some of which are explicitly the result of the poor planning). Unfortunately the figurehead who would best be in a position to turn the ship, Curious George, is the same captain who steered us into the rapids.
Just as I was trying to find some sensible way to conclude this, the news broke that Curious George is going to try and paper over his failure by taking control of the situation via eminent domain. Who is he going to serve papers to – himself? If anyone falls for this gambit, we absolutely deserve the resulting embarassement he is sure to foist on us.
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Now that the Times said it, it must be true.
After rumblings over the past few weeks (minor rumblings, to be sure — it was mostly us bloggers, until the doyenne got into the act), it finally broke big: the master planning at the WTC site is a fiasco. Not just as deemed by amateurs, cranks who were just paying attention and noticing how unlikely and imprudent it all seemed, but after the NYPD sniffed at the Freedom Center plans and gave an arch thumbs down, we can now say it loud and proud.
It is a pyrrhic victory, no doubt. I don’t enjoy gloating over the fact that no one is publicly willing to step up and defend the past four years and billions of dollars invested, to arrive at a point where it’s easier to simply argue for what is still right, since so much of it is wrong. Even given my predisposition — that much, if not all, of the building plans should be abandoned — it does not read as unreasonable to say that what is right is nothing. Some have offered piecemeal alternatives, and that’s fine, but it plays into the myopic bureaucracy of the Port Authority (absolutely at fault, along with their patron, Curious George) that at this point incremental changes will be ‘considered’ indefinitely while the majority of the ill-conceived plans trudge along inevitably. And nothing can stop them. Though there is some public hand wringing about the recent report by the NYPD that the current plan is not as secure as they would like, as a quasi-governmental entity, there is next to nothing to prevent the PANYNJ from moving forward with either the plans as they stand, or even worse permutations to come. Some speculate that much of this finger pointing and delay is engineered to bankrupt Larry Silverstein, so he is forced to back out and then the process can be reopened for consideration. That is giving far too much credit to the organization that was responsible for the WTC in the first place. The divide and conquer strategy that Ouroussoff outlined in the Times yesterday — preventing the designers, who are all under contract to the LMDC/Port Authority, from speaking to each other or publicly, is an extension of the same logic. Issues are presented, but never with enough time or opportunity to consider the whole. This enables the LMDC to speak with complete authority, dismissing challenges by asserting that they are certainly considering any particular issue, but the inference is that only they can speak with authority, since the overall program is too complex, and somewhere in the bowels of the organization, the best and brightest minds are working to resolve it. But they aren’t. The center is a void, a curious phenomenon, since it mirrors the void of the site itself, which creates a symbolic symmetry. One — which I would argue — should be considered more rigorously as a response. But that is not in the plans, and this temporary interruption, regardless of the air of failure and incompetence that now looms, does not stop ham-fisted urban planning. It only adds to the certainty that the inevitable will be even less palatable. So what does the leadership do? Well, the inestimable Kevin Rampe looks around, brushes his hands together and says “My work here is done.” Off to fund raise for the memorial and the mysterious Freedom Center, perhaps his last official act will be writing the check for $750 million to himself. It will certainly make him popular at his new job. Curious George is playing coy with his re-election plans, which is politico speak for approval numbers that are only slightly worse than the Yankees current record. He has no national office chances, but he still has the funds to pay handlers to convince him he does. The sweet Guiliani-style money will likely be too attractive. He’s probably angling for some cosmetic position he can milk, like head of the Freedom Center, to burnish his fixer — er, consulting — gig. Mike-Mike at least had the gumption to say the Larry Silverstein got his cake, and now he better eat it. But that’s only because every dime you can find in the carpeting at City Hall has to go towards the suddenly, strangely quiet dispute over on the west side. With less than 70 days to a decision for the Olympics (one can imagine Mike-Mike in Union Square, staring at the high-jacked art counting down, and imploring bystanders to assert their support for subsidizing powerful New Jersey families), and no real power in this struggle, he can shine as the voice of reason, something he is unable to muster further uptown. Larry Silverstein, master of the largest unrented block of space in Manhattan, wants more money. How quaint. After investing a whopping $15 million of his own money, he has the temerity to suggest that his plans, which have proceeded without any real resistance, even as no one has endorsed them as the preferred solution (except for the soon to be departed Kevin Rampe, and a handful of downtown real estate guys who missed the train to midtown), should be publicly underwritten. Well that’s great. I’ve got a bunch of plans for affordable housing in my closet — you think I can get a cut Larry? Ouroussoff sees in all this opportunity: a drastic intervention into the planning process, so we can then get to the design flaws (some of which are explicitly the result of the poor planning). Unfortunately the figurehead who would best be in a position to turn the ship, Curious George, is the same captain who steered us into the rapids. Just as I was trying to find some sensible way to conclude this, the news broke that Curious George is going to try and paper over his failure by taking control of the situation via eminent domain. Who is he going to serve papers to – himself? If anyone falls for this gambit, we absolutely deserve the resulting embarassement he is sure to foist on us.