Pataki Solution on Museum Flies in Face of Planning
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: September 29, 2005
OBVIOUSLY, Gov. George E. Pataki got more than he bargained for 15 months ago when he announced that the Freedom Center museum would be one of four cultural tenants at the World Trade Center site.
But in another sense, he and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg got exactly what they bargained for. The Freedom Center that Mr. Pataki evicted from its site yesterday emerged from a planning process going back three years.
A growing number of critics - whom Mr. Pataki was trying to mollify - contended that the center would take away space that could be used for a museum devoted solely to 9/11 and that it would detract from the solemnity of the memorial by focusing on geopolitics and on national and international social history. But the notion of a freedom museum was one of the earliest elements considered for ground zero.
And it was one the governor endorsed.
In an April 2002 blueprint for downtown, the development corporation said one possibility was "a new museum dedicated to American freedom, tolerance and the values that the World Trade Center represented," referring to a proposal by Tom A. Bernstein, the president of Chelsea Piers, and Peter W. Kunhardt, a documentary filmmaker.
Three months later, the development corporation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey noted the plan for the Museum of Freedom and Remembrance in their preliminary urban design study for the trade center site.
In June 2003, the corporation invited cultural proposals for ground zero. It encouraged those who had already come up with ideas - like a museum that would interpret the terrorist attacks "within the context of freedom, democracy and the history of New York" - to submit them formally. Mr. Bernstein and Mr. Kunhardt did so.
As it evaluated these submissions, in February 2004, the corporation listed some "possible and desirable" uses of the cultural buildings adjacent to the memorial site:
"Civic organizations that would create humanities programs and conduct forums drawing from cultural and academic resources in the region, building an identity for the World Trade Center site as a place for inquiry and discussion."
"International programming allowing for the exploration of issues and traditions around the world, both secular and religious" that "could highlight the values of tolerance, diversity and understanding among nations."
A committee drawn from the corporation, the city's Department of Cultural Affairs and the state's Council on the Arts reached a consensus in June 2004 on the prospective tenants: the Freedom Center, as the museum was then called; the Drawing Center; the Signature Theater Company; and the Joyce Theater Foundation.
AT the time, the Freedom Center said it would feature exhibits in collaboration with the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience - including the Gulag Museum at Perm-36 in Perm, Russia, and the District Six Museum in Cape Town - among others. It also said it would develop lectures, films and other programs "in partnership with leading arts, cultural, media and academic institutions."
Governor Pataki himself described the center in a Nov. 22, 2004, speech.
"The Freedom Center has formed a committee of outstanding individuals to create vibrant content on the global quest for what our own Declaration of Independence deems the inalienable rights of humanity," the governor said.
Linking the opening of the Freedom Center in 2009 to the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth and the 80th anniversary of the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the governor said: "The Freedom Center will unveil a major exhibit that explores the birth, rearing and maturation of liberty in America.
"The Freedom Center will also convey stories of courage and inspiration like those of Amchok Thubten, a Tibetan monk, and Yousif Hasan, a Sudanese citizen, two brave men who fled to America after peaceful political protest subjected them to years of brutal imprisonment in their own countries."
Of the four cultural institutions chosen for ground zero, only the Freedom Center secured seats on the board of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, which will build and own the memorial and cultural buildings. Paula Grant Berry, the center's vice chairwoman, was named to the board in December 2004 and Mr. Bernstein in April 2005.
The point of this timeline is to suggest that Mr. Pataki's decision to evict the Freedom Center flies in the face of a long planning process, a point that the mayor has acknowledged.
Perhaps the result will be salutary. It is not hard to imagine the cultural building in the memorial quadrant, now emptied of the Freedom Center and the Drawing Center (which is looking for alternative space), serving usefully as an extension of the underground memorial museum devoted to 9/11.
Now the question is what else in the master plan is open for revision. If ground zero is too hallowed for a freedom museum, how much longer will a performing arts center be considered appropriate? Or a million square feet of retail space? Or four office towers? Especially if one of them is named Freedom.
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By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: September 29, 2005
OBVIOUSLY, Gov. George E. Pataki got more than he bargained for 15 months ago when he announced that the Freedom Center museum would be one of four cultural tenants at the World Trade Center site.
But in another sense, he and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg got exactly what they bargained for. The Freedom Center that Mr. Pataki evicted from its site yesterday emerged from a planning process going back three years.
A growing number of critics - whom Mr. Pataki was trying to mollify - contended that the center would take away space that could be used for a museum devoted solely to 9/11 and that it would detract from the solemnity of the memorial by focusing on geopolitics and on national and international social history. But the notion of a freedom museum was one of the earliest elements considered for ground zero.
And it was one the governor endorsed.
In an April 2002 blueprint for downtown, the development corporation said one possibility was "a new museum dedicated to American freedom, tolerance and the values that the World Trade Center represented," referring to a proposal by Tom A. Bernstein, the president of Chelsea Piers, and Peter W. Kunhardt, a documentary filmmaker.
Three months later, the development corporation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey noted the plan for the Museum of Freedom and Remembrance in their preliminary urban design study for the trade center site.
In June 2003, the corporation invited cultural proposals for ground zero. It encouraged those who had already come up with ideas - like a museum that would interpret the terrorist attacks "within the context of freedom, democracy and the history of New York" - to submit them formally. Mr. Bernstein and Mr. Kunhardt did so.
As it evaluated these submissions, in February 2004, the corporation listed some "possible and desirable" uses of the cultural buildings adjacent to the memorial site:
"Civic organizations that would create humanities programs and conduct forums drawing from cultural and academic resources in the region, building an identity for the World Trade Center site as a place for inquiry and discussion."
"International programming allowing for the exploration of issues and traditions around the world, both secular and religious" that "could highlight the values of tolerance, diversity and understanding among nations."
A committee drawn from the corporation, the city's Department of Cultural Affairs and the state's Council on the Arts reached a consensus in June 2004 on the prospective tenants: the Freedom Center, as the museum was then called; the Drawing Center; the Signature Theater Company; and the Joyce Theater Foundation.
AT the time, the Freedom Center said it would feature exhibits in collaboration with the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience - including the Gulag Museum at Perm-36 in Perm, Russia, and the District Six Museum in Cape Town - among others. It also said it would develop lectures, films and other programs "in partnership with leading arts, cultural, media and academic institutions."
Governor Pataki himself described the center in a Nov. 22, 2004, speech.
"The Freedom Center has formed a committee of outstanding individuals to create vibrant content on the global quest for what our own Declaration of Independence deems the inalienable rights of humanity," the governor said.
Linking the opening of the Freedom Center in 2009 to the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth and the 80th anniversary of the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the governor said: "The Freedom Center will unveil a major exhibit that explores the birth, rearing and maturation of liberty in America.
"The Freedom Center will also convey stories of courage and inspiration like those of Amchok Thubten, a Tibetan monk, and Yousif Hasan, a Sudanese citizen, two brave men who fled to America after peaceful political protest subjected them to years of brutal imprisonment in their own countries."
Of the four cultural institutions chosen for ground zero, only the Freedom Center secured seats on the board of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, which will build and own the memorial and cultural buildings. Paula Grant Berry, the center's vice chairwoman, was named to the board in December 2004 and Mr. Bernstein in April 2005.
The point of this timeline is to suggest that Mr. Pataki's decision to evict the Freedom Center flies in the face of a long planning process, a point that the mayor has acknowledged.
Perhaps the result will be salutary. It is not hard to imagine the cultural building in the memorial quadrant, now emptied of the Freedom Center and the Drawing Center (which is looking for alternative space), serving usefully as an extension of the underground memorial museum devoted to 9/11.
Now the question is what else in the master plan is open for revision. If ground zero is too hallowed for a freedom museum, how much longer will a performing arts center be considered appropriate? Or a million square feet of retail space? Or four office towers? Especially if one of them is named Freedom.
- bill 10-03-2005 8:29 pm