The Downtown Express is reporting that Frank’s red-lining of the Memorial plans is, frankly, quite a hatchet job (okay, that’s my take — they are a little more even-handed). He’s talking about eliminating the waterfalls — and not just for winter, but altogether — and moving the victims names from below ground.
And here I was thinking that it was only trees above ground. Where are they going to put the names? On slips of paper? The grove, by the way, is not up for consideration as an expendable item. It’s not clear whether or not it was because removing the trees wouldn’t save much money, or if the new designer just thinks they are really cool. Score one for the conciliatory Peter Walker and score none to everyone’s favorite prune, Michael Arad!
Bloomberg’s off-the-cuff recommendation, moving the Memorial Museum (which has had a checkered history, coming later into the program, and then switching up with the Freedom Center in terms of prominence and programming, and then moving front and center of the entire affair after that nefarious hub of subversion, the Drawing Center was sent packing back to that land of commie rabble rousing, SoHo) to the Freedom Tower, which seemed very sensible to me, is a no go. Why it remains firmly nestled in the subterranean space is unclear, except when you consider the other changes — eliminating the waterfalls, moving the names, and reducing the slurry wall exposure — you may find yourself asking, well, what’s going to be down there (aside from Debra Burlingame in the super-secret family bunker)? Well, there you go: the Museum, the Museum, and the Museum, which may or may not be free, and sure to be a site of unending meddling about exhibition content.
One reason cited by Sciame for removing the falls was noise (also why he recommends keeping the trees). This is an interesting wrinkle, since everyone probably assumed that they would be the understated whisper of water slipping over concrete, not unlike the urinals at the Royalton, but apparently they are rated at 80db, which is the equivalent of an electric razor or lawnmower (they have awfully powerful razors over there in Cape Town). So much for quiet reflection.
So this is a good thing, discussion-wise. No one wants have their solemn observation besieged by overbearing white noise. Unless, of course, you are trying to drown out the inane observations of tourists, the braying of tour guides, and the far off sounds of people hawking 9/11 toilet paper.
Of course, that is playing kind of fast-and-loose with notions such as ‘discussion’ and ‘process’. In reality, it is exactly what it looks like: the latest in a series of putative decision makers, people accustomed to conniving and obstruction to get their way when not in charge and who then morph into tinpot dictators when they are (because, like, they are so much more talented the those other pretenders) but fail miserably because everyone else is being as obstructionist and conniving as they can be, in hopes that they are given a shot to be the biggest idiot in the room.
Since having other people do your job for your is the new black, I invite everyone to take this, or any other WTC posts (hell, grab some from other sites too!), and rearrange everything, mad libs-style, and wait for the real world to catch up.
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Meet Frank Sciame, architect of the WTC Memorial.
The Downtown Express is reporting that Frank’s red-lining of the Memorial plans is, frankly, quite a hatchet job (okay, that’s my take — they are a little more even-handed). He’s talking about eliminating the waterfalls — and not just for winter, but altogether — and moving the victims names from below ground.
And here I was thinking that it was only trees above ground. Where are they going to put the names? On slips of paper? The grove, by the way, is not up for consideration as an expendable item. It’s not clear whether or not it was because removing the trees wouldn’t save much money, or if the new designer just thinks they are really cool. Score one for the conciliatory Peter Walker and score none to everyone’s favorite prune, Michael Arad! Bloomberg’s off-the-cuff recommendation, moving the Memorial Museum (which has had a checkered history, coming later into the program, and then switching up with the Freedom Center in terms of prominence and programming, and then moving front and center of the entire affair after that nefarious hub of subversion, the Drawing Center was sent packing back to that land of commie rabble rousing, SoHo) to the Freedom Tower, which seemed very sensible to me, is a no go. Why it remains firmly nestled in the subterranean space is unclear, except when you consider the other changes — eliminating the waterfalls, moving the names, and reducing the slurry wall exposure — you may find yourself asking, well, what’s going to be down there (aside from Debra Burlingame in the super-secret family bunker)? Well, there you go: the Museum, the Museum, and the Museum, which may or may not be free, and sure to be a site of unending meddling about exhibition content. One reason cited by Sciame for removing the falls was noise (also why he recommends keeping the trees). This is an interesting wrinkle, since everyone probably assumed that they would be the understated whisper of water slipping over concrete, not unlike the urinals at the Royalton, but apparently they are rated at 80db, which is the equivalent of an electric razor or lawnmower (they have awfully powerful razors over there in Cape Town). So much for quiet reflection. So this is a good thing, discussion-wise. No one wants have their solemn observation besieged by overbearing white noise. Unless, of course, you are trying to drown out the inane observations of tourists, the braying of tour guides, and the far off sounds of people hawking 9/11 toilet paper. Of course, that is playing kind of fast-and-loose with notions such as ‘discussion’ and ‘process’. In reality, it is exactly what it looks like: the latest in a series of putative decision makers, people accustomed to conniving and obstruction to get their way when not in charge and who then morph into tinpot dictators when they are (because, like, they are so much more talented the those other pretenders) but fail miserably because everyone else is being as obstructionist and conniving as they can be, in hopes that they are given a shot to be the biggest idiot in the room. Since having other people do your job for your is the new black, I invite everyone to take this, or any other WTC posts (hell, grab some from other sites too!), and rearrange everything, mad libs-style, and wait for the real world to catch up.