A Leader is chosen for the 9/11 Museum

By ROBIN POGREBIN, The New York Times, February 8, 2006

Seeking a leader to guide a much-disputed 9/11 museum into existence at ground zero, officials announced yesterday that they had settled on Alice M. Greenwald, an associate director for museum programs at the Holocaust Museum in Washington. In Ms. Greenwald, the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation sought someone seasoned in addressing a highly charged chapter of history to plan the museum. The museum's future has been uncertain for months. Part of Daniel Libeskind's original master plan for ground zero, the building was originally to be shared by the International Freedom Center, a nascent organization dedicated to human rights, and the Drawing Center, a SoHo-based exhibition spaced devoted to works on paper. Both organizations were forced off the site under pressure from relatives of 9/11 victims who questioned whether their programming would be sufficiently patriotic. In a telephone interview yesterday from Washington, Ms. Greenwald, 54, said she was not daunted by the potent influence of the family members but welcomed their input in conceiving the museum. "They have to have a privileged voice in the process," Ms. Greenwald said. "By the same token, you have to create a narrative that allows your visitor to come in and understand what happened. It's a partnership." At the Holocaust Museum, "we deeply value the authentic voice of the survivor," Ms. Greenwald added. "The way you integrate those voices is part of the challenge." Because the two cultural institutions originally chosen for the museum were eliminated, many of those involved in the downtown rebuilding effort have expected that the institution would become primarily a visitor center with some 9/11-specific exhibits. Ms. Greenwald dismissed that idea. "If it is, I'm the wrong person for the job," she said. "I don't think of museums as places that just hold artifacts." Ms. Greenwald began working at the Holocaust Museum as a consultant in 1986, serving as a member of the original design team for the museum's permanent exhibition. "I don't think I would have considered leaving had I not had the fundamental belief that this museum has the potential to have the same level of moral significance," she said of what is to be called the World Trade Center Memorial Museum. "We need to say, what's our goal, who's our audience, what's the big message we want people to take away, what do they need to know?" Ms. Greenwald said. She added that she hoped to build a "programmatic consensus" although there would inevitably be some "creative tension." "We're going to focus on memorialization, we're going to focus on loss," she added. "I don't know what the meaning is going to be." Initial reaction seemed positive. Monica Iken, founder of September's Mission, whose husband, Michael, died in the south tower of the World Trade Center, said yesterday that Ms. Greenwald "has done an exemplary job at the Holocaust Museum." "She has told a very painful story and memorialized those millions who were killed in a horrific way," she said. "We hope that she tells the difficult story of Sept. 11 just as well." Gretchen Dykstra, the president and chief executive of the memorial foundation, said that Ms. Greenwald seemed ideally suited to the post, for which Ms. Dykstra said some 35 people applied and 8 were interviewed. "She is a woman of real depth and thoughtfulness," Ms. Dykstra said. "It's a challenging set of circumstances because people died here." Ms. Dykstra defined the museum's purview as "anything that has to do with the telling of the story and the interpretation of 9/11." Both she and Ms. Greenwald said it was too soon to specify an operating budget or to discuss the specific content of the museum, which will devote 65,000 square feet to exhibition space, compared with the Holocaust Museum's 36,000 square feet. Ms. Greenwald will be paid $300,000 a year, officials said. Of the $500 million budget for the memorial and museum, $100 million has been raised so far, Ms. Dykstra said, and another $200 million is to be transferred to the foundation from the development corporation. The foundation is not yet raising money for a planned performing arts center at ground zero that is being designed by Frank Gehry, Ms. Dykstra said. Still, the development corporation is interviewing candidates for a director's position for the institution, said Stefan Pryor, president of the corporation. The building is to be shared by the Joyce Theater, which presents dance, and the Signature Theater Company, an Off Broadway Theater Company. Asked about the fate of the Freedom Center, which did not survive at ground zero, Ms. Greenwald said, "My gut reaction is that it may have been an incredibly creative idea that was woefully premature." Might the 9/11 museum then also qualify as premature? "This is a museum of memory," Ms. Greenwald said. "And when you're talking about memory, it is never too soon."