Struggle at Ground Zero

Struggle at ground zero
The New York TimesSATURDAY, JULY 30, 2005
Somewhere in the ill-conceived campaign to "take back the memorial" at ground zero, false impressions have managed to triumph over facts. This week, Debra Burlingame, a board member of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, and others called for a boycott of fundraising for the memorial until the International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center have been banished from ground zero. She argues that money for the memorial will be intermingled with funds for the cultural building that is supposed to house the Freedom Center and the Drawing Center. This is both misleading and harmful to the memorial itself. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation has pledged that its first priority is to build the memorial and create an endowment for it. Private donors are free to specify how they choose to have their money spent.
The attacks on the International Freedom Center - and, more broadly, on the cultural component of Daniel Libeskind's master plan - make it all too easy to forget the existence of a Memorial Museum devoted wholly to the events of 9/11. Opponents of the Freedom Center claim that the Memorial Museum will be dwarfed by the cultural center. In fact, they overstate the size of the Snohetta building, and they have exaggerated the floor space allotted there for the International Freedom Center. They also misleadingly make it sound as if the Memorial Museum, which at 50,000 square feet is larger than the public spaces in the Whitney Museum, is somehow a mere afterthought.
But this is not really a campaign about money or space. It is about political purity - about how people remember 9/11 and about how we choose to read its aftermath, including the Iraq war. On their Web site, www.takebackthememorial.org, critics of the cultural plan offer a resolution called Campaign America. It says that ground zero must contain no facilities "that house controversial debate, dialogue, artistic impressions, or exhibits referring to extraneous historical events."
This, to us, sounds un-American.


Somewhere in the ill-conceived campaign to "take back the memorial" at ground zero, false impressions have managed to triumph over facts. This week, Debra Burlingame, a board member of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, and others called for a boycott of fundraising for the memorial until the International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center have been banished from ground zero. She argues that money for the memorial will be intermingled with funds for the cultural building that is supposed to house the Freedom Center and the Drawing Center. This is both misleading and harmful to the memorial itself. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation has pledged that its first priority is to build the memorial and create an endowment for it. Private donors are free to specify how they choose to have their money spent.
The attacks on the International Freedom Center - and, more broadly, on the cultural component of Daniel Libeskind's master plan - make it all too easy to forget the existence of a Memorial Museum devoted wholly to the events of 9/11. Opponents of the Freedom Center claim that the Memorial Museum will be dwarfed by the cultural center. In fact, they overstate the size of the Snohetta building, and they have exaggerated the floor space allotted there for the International Freedom Center. They also misleadingly make it sound as if the Memorial Museum, which at 50,000 square feet is larger than the public spaces in the Whitney Museum, is somehow a mere afterthought.
But this is not really a campaign about money or space. It is about political purity - about how people remember 9/11 and about how we choose to read its aftermath, including the Iraq war. On their Web site, www.takebackthememorial.org, critics of the cultural plan offer a resolution called Campaign America. It says that ground zero must contain no facilities "that house controversial debate, dialogue, artistic impressions, or exhibits referring to extraneous historical events."
This, to us, sounds un-American.

N.C. Theater Consulatnt Tackles Ground Zero Project

N.C. Theater Consultant Tackles Ground Zero Project
Balancing Space, Costs, Noise Among Design Obstacles
POSTED: 4:38 pm EDT July 31, 2005
UPDATED: 5:04 pm EDT July 31, 2005
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- A man who helped consult on several performing arts projects at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and across the country is preparing for one of the most difficult projects of his career.
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Robert Long is consulting on the development of two performing arts centers at the former site of the World Trade Center's twin towers in New York.
"He has dealt with big projects, small projects and difficult projects. He understands what the public needs and what the client needs," said Anita Contini, vice president and director for memorial, cultural and civic programs with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.
The LMDC -- created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to oversee the revitalization and redevelopment of lower Manhattan -- hired Long to help with the conception of the performing arts centers included in the World Trade Center Cultural Arts plan. The plan includes construction of the International Freedom Center museum and the Drawing Center, in addition to the Joyce International Dance Theatre and Signature Theatre.
"It is a site that deserves an international outlook," Long said. "It's not just for New York City but for the world."
Balancing space needs with building costs and acoustically isolating the building from the noise of the city are among the many design obstacles he must conquer.
"These projects are illogical from a financial standpoint," he said. "The payoff comes when the client really believes that they can do it. I spend a lot of time trying to get the components together so that the clients can find a way for it to work."
For the past 35 years, the Chapel Hill resident has guided developments from conception to opening night. That included work on the design and reconstruction of Memorial Hall and the renovation of the Old Playmakers Theatre at UNC-Chapel Hill.
After graduating from UNC, Long earned his master's degree in theater design at Yale. He went on to work on the Geffen Playhouse renovation in Los Angeles, the Jackson Hole Center for the Arts in Jackson, Wyo., and the Theatre for the Performing Arts in Telluride, Colo.
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