08/03/03: A Photograph of Ground Zero

09/10/02: Building Downtown.

04/10/02: Remembrance and Renewal.

01/12/02: Visiting Zero.

09/24/01: The gloom that is NYC.

09/14/01: Three days later.

A few months ago Image NY brought together the paticipants from it's public forums for the future of downtown NYC. What was striking at the meeting was the range of ideas for what should be done at the site and the passion of the community that it not be rushed and built by bureaucrats.

I had a very difficult time not feeling cynical about what would happen. There was so much invested in such a relatively small area of real estate and the demands that were placed on it seemed overwhelming. The site needed to be a museum, a memorial, office space, residences, affordable housing, open green space, transit hub, school, retail, etc. If it didn't end up being a Ground Zero theme park, it could possibly become an uninspiring collection of boxes that only served functions.

Then the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. released it's concept plans for downtown and confirmed that lack of artistic vision. With their six similar design studies, LMDC showed no creative direction for the project and instead constructed an assemblage of square footage. How could New York city not be consulting with it's vast array of architectural talent to produce a new, inspiring plan for downtown and work to create a new landmark for people around the world? The plans were dismissed by much of the community.