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Take Back the Memorial Launches Campaign to Claim Snohetta Building for an Above Ground 9/11 Museum
Governor Pataki’s promise that the 9/11 memorial quadrant at Ground Zero would be reserved for 9/11 exclusively following the withdrawal of the IFC and Drawing Center left people asking: “What will happen to the Snohetta building now that it has no tenants?” The prevailing logic was that Snohetta would not be built, primarily because fundraising for the memorial was in disarray. Earlier this month, however, Governor Pataki announced he would set aside $80 million dollars to build a smaller version of the Snohetta building. This is surprising considering that the Governor himself has yet to make a donation to the 9/11 memorial. Not that we blame him. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) has allowed the design process for the memorial and museum to run amok.
Saying, "We cannot allow the trade center to be a construction site for the next 15 years," Mr. Bloomberg proposed that the leaseholder, Larry Silverstein, give up control of two of the five building sites, in exchange for a reduction in his rent. (Mr. Silverstein holds a 99-year lease on the site, which is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.)
That would allow officials to seek other developers to build towers on the site while Mr. Silverstein focuses on developing the Freedom Tower.
"We need this now to advance our economy and pay tribute to those who died there," the mayor said, "not a decade and a half in the future when it fits a developer's financial plan."
Officials of the Port Authority have been pressuring Mr. Silverstein to accept a similar deal. In addition, the authority has signaled that it is amenable to the mayor's proposal that its headquarters, previously situated in the twin towers, be moved into one of the buildings Mr. Silverstein is being urged to relinquish, Towers 3 and 4.
Making JC more bicycle-friendly
The city has contemplated for a number of years a bikeway system that would encourage more bicycle use within the city and promote bike tourism.
The Planning Board approved at its Jan. 10 meeting the addition of a professionally-prepared Jersey City Bikeway System plan to the city's Master Plan. Bill Feldman, manager of bicycle and transportation for the RBA Group, the firm that prepared the bikeway plan, spoke at the meeting.
Under the bikeway system, the city would be broken up into five sections with signs pointing out various destinations within those sections. The five sections would be Downtown, The Heights, Journal Square, Lafayette-Greenville, and Liberty State Park.
The bikeway system would share public roadways and include route signage for bicyclists and warning signs for motorists.
Oonce signs are installed, a study will be conducted by the city's Department of Public Works to determine if the bikeway system could include actual bike lanes that would be placed in possible locations such as Mallory Avenue, Washington Boulevard, Washington Street, Christopher Columbus Drive, and Phillip Street.
There is also consideration to link the bikeway system to the East Coast Greenway, a 2,500-mile series of nature paths and roadways that runs from Maine to Florida.
Rebuilding waterfront park
The Planning Board also gave the city the go-ahead to start working on rehabbing the J. Owen Grundy Park. The waterfront park, located at the foot of Exchange Place, was built in 1985 and has seen a great deal of wear and tear in recent years.
Glenn Wrigley, the city's chief architect, spoke to the Planning Board about how parts of the park have deteriorated, such as the railings and plants around the park. Also, it had been determined that the seawall that protects the park from the Hudson River has been breaking down.
Wrigley said that the rehab project will replace the wooden decking on the pier, new tables and lights in the park, and the seawall.
Also, the performing stage at the end of the park will see a new cover and a new power system to facilitate performances.
"There are some very tough decisions that have to be made here, and no-one relishes making them," said Janet R Howard, chief executive of the Bureau of Governmental Research… "But to say that people should invest their money and invest their energies and put all their hope into rebuilding and then in a year we'll re-evaluate, that's no plan at all." In this sense, people's genuine fears of whether the city could cope with another flood, has combined with the general air of disquiet that New Orleans shouldn't be rebuilt at all in that location - and is impacting on the authorities' ability to impose clear guidance up on some core issues. Even though the practical discussion amongst recovery workers and political agents is slightly confused, it is still qualitively different to the line that Lord May took in his Anniversary Address to the Royal Society in 2005. 'It is conceivable,' he said, 'that the Gulf Coast of the US could be effectively uninhabitable by the end of century.' As a word of advice, he advocates that we stop building on floodplains and recognise 'that some areas should, in effect, be given up.'
New Orleans could lose as much as 80 percent of its black population if its most damaged neighborhoods are not rebuilt and if there is not significant government assistance to help poor people return, a detailed analysis by Brown University has concluded.
C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans discussed the federal response to his city's disaster in a speech this week to fellow mayors, meeting in Washington.
Combining data from the 2000 census with federal damage assessment maps, the study provides a new level of specificity about Hurricane Katrina's effect on the city's worst-flooded areas, which were heavily populated by low-income black people.
Of the 354,000 people who lived in New Orleans neighborhoods where the subsequent damage was moderate to severe, 75 percent were black, 29 percent lived below the poverty line, more than 10 percent were unemployed, and more than half were renters, the study found.
The report's author, John R. Logan, concluded that as much as 80 percent of the city's black population might not return for several reasons: their neighborhoods would not be rebuilt, they would be unable to afford the relocation costs, or they would put down roots in other cities.
For similar reasons, as much as half of the city's white population might not return, Dr. Logan concluded.
"The continuing question about the hurricane is this: Whose city will be rebuilt?" Dr. Logan, a professor of sociology, writes in the report.
If the projections are realized, the New Orleans population will shrink to about 140,000 from its prehurricane level of 484,000, and the city, nearly 70 percent black before the storm, will become majority white.
fake bands - "Jake Austen's new book "TV-a-Go-Go" examines the fake but fascinating history of rock & roll on television. Jake drops by Music To Spazz By to discuss TV rock & rollers both historic and arcane. "
garbage scout
ust outta beta is Jim Nachlin's brilliant Google Maps mashup GarbageScout. Here's how it works: see something discarded on the streets of NYC; take a cameraphone shot then email it to GarbageScout; enjoy the detritus digitally from now until armageddon. And, in a touch residents of the Williamsburg waterfront might enjoy, the latest additions are represented by a flaming trash can. Awesome.from curbed