Posted 9:38 AM by Robert

Starting Points and Premature Dead Ends

Preliminary plans are out for use of the World Trade Center site ("Ground Zero"). The chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, John C. Whitehead, said the six designs are simply a starting point, a means for Americans to demonstrate their resilience and determination after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. He also suggested a seventh possible design, without some of the requirements for office and retail space imposed on the original six.

But if the plans are "simply a starting point, a means for Americans to demonstrate their resilience and determination," and a seventh proposal that would almost completely ignore the economics of the site is also to be considered, why is there no plan to build something really comparable to the destroyed World Trade Center presented.

Former Mayor Koch, for example, suggested rebuilding the exact same buildings from the exact same plans.

One might also consider building at least one 125-story building on the site in addition to whatever else goes up (if anything).

I'm not advocating really big buildings at this point. But since we're in the "concept' stage - why has that rather obvious "means for Americans to demonstrate their resilience and determination" been already eliminated from the concepts without any public debate.

It can't be the admittedly dubious economics of very big buildings that ended their consideration at this point, since the seventh proposal is suppose to throw economics largely to the wind.