On the drawing board

July 16, 2002

The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. has posted six conceptual plans for the WTC site. All these designs are lacking in grandiosity. The thinking behind the trade center seems to have been: "We're going to build the tallest building in the world. Oh, and by the way, we're going to build two of them." While I tend to agree with the critics that we don't need anything so overpowering, it should be something unique, not just bland office towers surrounding a memorial park, but something revolutionary, integrating open space, cultural, residential, commercial and retail space with style. None of these plans approach the potential of how the space should be used.