Waterfalls, galleries slashed from 9/11 Memorial Plan

BY RON MARSICOStar-Ledger Staff

Seeking to slash the 9/11 Memorial's skyrocketing costs, an architect yesterday recommended expansive waterfalls and subterranean galleries be removed from the design, according to officials familiar with the revisions.

Victims' names would be brought to the top of two reflecting pools marking the Twin Towers' voids in that redesign, the officials said.

The changes were outlined by architect Frank Sciame, who met privately yesterday with New York Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg to outline changes to bring the cost of the memorial below $500 million, with infrastructure work slated to add another $175 million to the price, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the changes were not supposed to be made public until next week.

After the memorial and infrastructure costs were estimated to have ballooned to nearly $1 billion last month, Bloomberg, Pataki and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine demanded revisions that would cap the memorial's price at $500 million.

"Reflecting Absence," the name of architect Michael Arad's design for the memorial's two pools marking the outlines of the destroyed Twin Towers, has undergone revisions since before it was selected as the winner of an international competition in January 2004. The original starkness of Arad's design was first softened with trees landscape architect Peter Walker added.

The officials said the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, along with the six people who died in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, would be moved to low walls surrounding the top of reflecting pools under Sciame's recommendation. Previously, they were going to be located on low walls in the subterranean galleries.

One of the officials said there would still be some type of access to the World Trade Center's bedrock foundations, some 70 feet below street level, which had been a prime request of various family members.

Earlier this week, officials with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said they expected Sciame also would recommend the agency take over construction of the memorial. The agency owns the Ground Zero site and already is constructing a permanent PATH station there and has agreed to build the proposed 1,776-foot Freedom Tower if it is financially viable.
On Tuesday, Port Authority Chairman Anthony Coscia said the agency would take on the memorial project, provided it was not responsible for design revisions or cost overruns.
The agency had previously committed $100 million to the memorial. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation is attempting to raise $500 million.

Left unclear yesterday was which agency would pay the extra $75 million for infrastructure costs and how much of the surviving slurry wall surrounding the site would remain exposed.
Architect Daniel Libeskind, the site's master planner, made the slurry wall a focal point of his tribute to 9/11's loss and the site's renewal. But the cost estimates of stabilizing the wall in order to leave it exposed are high.

Lynn Rasic, a spokeswoman for the memorial foundation, said the group had no comment yesterday because Sciame's recommendations were not yet public.

Ron Marsico covers the World Trade Center site redevelopment. He may be reached at rmarsico@starledger.com or (973) 392-7860.