WTC Site: What Should Be Preserved?

by Carl Glassman

Photos courtesy of Coalition of 9/11 Families

Hardly anyone gives it a glance. Even the steady stream of tourists, dead set on seeing the 16 acres of emptiness, walk right by. It is, after all, only a nondescript wall of broken concrete, containing stairs that lead nowhere and a big boarded-up entryway to nothing.

		Once this seemingly unremarkable hulk on Vesey Street, near West Broadway, was an entrance to the World Trade Center’s subway station and a stairway and escalator to its plaza. Now it is a ruin—all that is left standing, above ground, on the World Trade Center site. How significant is this homely piece of history, where a skyscraper is envisioned to rise? Should it be preserved? And what of other remnants—the slurry walls, the remains of the parking garage, the embedded beams at bedrock that form ghostlike outlines of the towers? Last month representatives from 65 consulting parties, as disparate as Community Board 1, Verizon and the Cayuga Nation, met to begin the task of defining what features are important and make the site worthy of consideration for the National Register of Historic Places. The process is triggered by Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Because federal funds are
being used for the rebuilding—the permanent PATH terminal, the memorial, the redevelopment plan, and the reconstruction of Route 9A—the government agencies involved in those projects are required to identify possible historic features that could contribute to the site’s eligibility for the National Register. If a project could harm those features, the agency must find ways to avoid or mitigate the damage. Normally, sites must be at least 50 years old to be eligible for the National Register. But the events of Sept. 11 make the World Trade Center site a exceptional case. “It’s almost like an archaeological site, far outside the usual process” said Peg Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, one of the consulting organizations in the process. “So what do you do here? Do you take pictures [of historic features] and say the new building will obliterate it, or can you change your design around the element so that the public can still see it?” Unlike landmarking in New York City, a National Register listing does not assure protection from the wrecker’s ball. Officials involved in the process would not speculate on how the site’s special status might affect development plans. “It can mean anything,” said Don Klima, director of the Office of Federal Agency Programs, which administers the Section 106 process. “There are a wide range of options and generally they are all on the table for consideration. Obviously, with this site no one is suggesting these discussions are going to be particularly easy.” A draft report, released last month to the consulting parties for comment, lists an inventory of more than a dozen surviving features on the trade center site, from truck ramps and an emergency PATH tunnel egress to sump pumps and “smoke scars” on the remains of the subterranean garage. Not included in the draft are potentially significant objects removed from the site that are now stored in a hanger at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Some say that they should be considered as well. Breen of the Landmarks Conservancy compared the site to the African Burial Ground, where remains were reinterred. She favors bringing some of those objects back to the site. “You’re looking at what is left after the attack. These other elements were left, too. Do you leave them in some warehouse? We believe they are historic, so the question becomes: what do you do with them?” “To me the most sacred pieces are the facade and the globe,” said Mary Fetchet, president of the Coalition of 9/11 Families, referring to the trade center’s steel skin that remained standing, and the damaged sculpture, Sphere, now located in Battery Park. Fetchet, who lost her son Bradley in the attack, would like to see both returned to the site. The Coalition of 9/11 Families has long insisted on preserving the tower footprints. As consultants in the preservation review process, they are calling for keeping the footings or “box beams,” cut off at bedrock, that form the outlines of the north tower’s footprint and part of the south tower’s. “They are so compelling,” said Anthony Gardner, who represents the Coalition in the Section 106 process and whose brother, Harvey, was killed in Tower One. Gardner said that he has been told that the design for the planned memorial would preserve nearly all of the north tower footprint and, due to the PATH line, half of the south tower footprint. “But there is no commitment to preserve the box beams,” he said. In the past, conflicts over the “sanctity” of the footprints have pitted family members against local residents who wanted to see an underground garage on the site, relieving the streets of tour buses. At the first meeting of consultants, held early last month and closed to the public and the press, participants said those tensions were absent. But the potential remains. “I’m representing the living community of residents and workers in the area and some family members have different interests,” said Bruce Ehrmann, who represents Community Board 1 in the consulting process. “There may be some things that meet the criteria of eligibility that conflict with the needs of the community to live and work and prosper.” As the process moves forward, with a final memorandum of understanding to be completed by the summer, it seems likely that many groups will voice the need to preserve more on the site than might be intended for the memorial alone. “To have some living document that says, ‘Look what these buildings were reduced to,’ has a lot of power,” said Hal Bromm, a Tribeca resident and preservationist on the board of the Historic Districts Council. “Not just for us, but for future generations who weren’t here when it happened.”