Mike must lead Ground Zero rebuilding

What the still undeveloped site at Ground Zero needs desperately is a voice. Four years later, the building site - the best known in the world - is still on life support.

So it needs someone people admire and who has the power to get things done to step up and say, "I'm your man."

 But who? Robert Moses, master builder, is long gone. Rudy Giuliani is making a lot of money these days and is still deciding whether he has a future in politics. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who has kept crime at bay the past four years, has often said that politics is not his game.

That leaves us, then, with Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

Iron Mike, if you will, who has just been given a rousing mandate by voters who re-elected him to a second term Tuesday. And he says he's up to the task.

A few days ago, Bloomberg shocked the builder, the architects, the planners and Gov. George Pataki, declaring that he had the right stuff to accomplish the rebuilding and aimed first at developer Larry Silverstein, who owns a 99-year lease on the 156-acre site.

"Nobody," said Bloomberg, "can figure out how to do it."

Silverstein was outraged and sputtered. So did the lame duck Gov. Pataki, and so did the Port Authority. These are just some of the people who have developed sputtering into a fine art form.

How serious was Bloomberg?

The downtown site has become like one of those circus elephants that perform stupid pet tricks for their room and board. It's become a place for ceremonies of one kind or another, and a tourist destination for Americans from the heartland and royals alike.

So was Bloomberg just blowing off some steam, frustrated as he be must be by his diminished role in the epic project?

I don't think so.

Bloomberg is now the undisputed king of the hill. He is richer than everyone else, having single-handedly built up a computing machine empire. He has proved that he won't back away from tough jobs.

Look at education. Tough guy Rudy Giuliani was so frustrated by his failing efforts to revamp the education system here that he wanted to blow up 110 Livingston St., then the headquarters of the Board of Education.

But Bloomberg went up to Albany and convinced everyone that he was serious about education and that he would take responsibility for the system.

And he didn't have to blow up any buildings. He sold the Brooklyn headquarters and moved the newly named Department of Education into a building behind City Hall.

So now he wants to take on rebuilding Ground Zero.

Bloomberg was very specific in saying that he felt that the developer was moving in the wrong direction to fill up office buildings. "The market has changed." he said. "We need housing down there."

That got under Sen. Charles Schumer's skin. "Office buildings are our factories, providing jobs," he declared.

Bloomberg has the mother of all big problems facing him in his second term. But he stands at the top of the heap at this moment.

I asked New York congressman Gary Ackerman what he thought of Bloomberg's startling declaration, which amounts to what hockey players call "throwing the gloves on the ice."

"It has to be the mayor," he said without hesitation. "He has the legal and moral authority to go in there and clean up the mess that it has become.

"This is a most unusual site," says Ackerman. "It has emotion, politics, nationalism. It needs someone to pull all the pieces together, and I believe he is the only man in this city who could do it."

Does he have the charisma of a Koch, the good looks of a Lindsay, the intellect of a Mario Cuomo?

"Hey," says Ackerman, "you don't need a movie star for this. You need a Mike Bloomberg."

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-...=ny-news-columnists

WTC fixup tops agenda
 
BY DAVID SALTONSTALL
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
 
Mayor Bloomberg was hesitant - at least publicly - to claim a mandate from voters, even amid his huge reelection win.
But privately, aides to the mayor say he will move quickly to enhance his profile in one key area: rebuilding Ground Zero.

"It is something that is being pursued aggressively," said one top Bloomberg aide.

Insiders say it's an effort that will begin with the mayor naming four new members to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. this month - slots Bloomberg had left open on the city-state board that oversees Ground Zero until he knew a second term was in thebag.

But it is also a push that, if successful, could become a centerpiece of Bloomberg's second term, aides hope, after a first term that often saw him face heated criticism for ceding the rebuilding effort to Gov. Pataki and others.

The new focus comes as many are wondering how Bloomberg will spend the new political capital he earned by beating Democrat Fernando Ferrer by 20 percentage points.

The mayor was essentially mum on his plans yesterday, even disputing he had a mandate. "It is, I suppose, more satisfying than a more-than-one vote margin," he told reporters. "But the law says [a] one-vote margin is the only thing that matters. And what I'm going to do is go out there and work as hard as I can."

In fact, the mayor laid out a fairly ambitious agenda in speeches during the campaign - plans that include building seven new elite high schools, enrolling virtually every city child in public health insurance programs and building 167,000 new units of affordable housing over 10 years.

But his thoughts on Ground Zero have unfolded more haphazardly, most notably during a sitdown with the Daily News Editorial Board on Oct. 21, when he pointedly called for booting developer Larry Silverstein from the project and devoting more of Ground Zero to residential homes.

The logic of trying to enhance his Ground Zero role is not hard to see, experts said.

With Pataki an increasingly lame duck, and most polls showing New Yorkers eager to see City Hall take control of the Port Authority-owned site, the newly empowered mayor would seem to have a rare chance to shake things up.

"The stars are as closely aligned as they are going to be for the mayor," said Jonathan Bowles, director of the Center for an Urban Future.

Although the mayor has not settled on his new appointees to the LMDC, aides promised they would be tough-minded leaders who won't bow to changing political winds.

"They won't be potted plants," said a mayoral confidant, a joking reference to how Ferrer derisively described the mayor's Metropolitan Transportation Authority board members during campaign debates.

 
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/s...64276p-310203c.html

An Unclear Role for an Oversight Agency at Ground Zero
 
By DAVID W. DUNLAP

IN creating the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Gov. George E. Pataki promised it would be "the entity that drives the train of Lower Manhattan development." The question on its fourth anniversary is where the track ends.
  
"We look forward to working ourselves out of business," said Stefan Pryor, the president of the corporation, which was never envisioned as a permanent agency. "But we don't think we've accomplished that goal yet."

It is not clear how the corporation will fit with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's plan to become more involved at ground zero. He is entitled to appoint eight of the corporation's 16 directors but now has only three appointees on the board, though he pledged to fill the vacancies after the election.

Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff, who is not a director but represents the mayor at board meetings, said, "With the exception of what's going to happen with the commercial buildings, the truth is the vast, vast majority of decisions have basically been made."

"So naturally," he added, "the role of the L.M.D.C. declines as the responsibility for actually building things devolves to the respective agencies."

Governor Pataki still views the corporation as "central to the rebuilding efforts," a spokeswoman said last month, citing its responsibility for designing the 9/11 memorial and memorial museum, championing a performing arts center on the World Trade Center site and allocating the remaining federal redevelopment grants.

On Sept. 28, the governor seemed to undermine the corporation when he declared - while the board was reviewing the matter - that the International Freedom Center museum could not be placed in the memorial area. (State officials note that Mr. Pataki told the corporation to look for an alternative place for the museum, a search that might have succeeded had the Freedom Center executives not pulled the plug on their own project.)

As a result, Roland W. Betts, one of Mr. Pataki's original appointees and a business partner of a Freedom Center co-founder, Tom A. Bernstein, resigned from the board, saying the corporation's "ongoing role has been severely marginalized." Other directors also considered resigning, though none are known to have done so.

That is not the only way in which influence and power have shifted recently. John P. Cahill, the governor's chief of staff - not the corporation chairman or president - has emerged as the top downtown development official. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation has asserted itself in the construction process. And the Alliance for Downtown New York and Community Board 1 have lost representation on the board.

Supporters still see the corporation as a vital intermediary among the many groups with a stake at ground zero. They contend that it is reaching a critical point in designing the memorial. And they point out that it must oversee demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building, which it owns, a process that will last until 2007.

They envision the corporation as the defender of Daniel Libeskind's master site plan; as the advocate of a performing arts center, for which the board committed $50 million, and of cultural institutions generally downtown; and as the partner in redevelopment projects in Chinatown, at the Hudson River Park, on Fulton and Greenwich Streets and along the East River waterfront.

Robert P. Balachandran, the former president and chief executive of the Hudson River Park Trust, whom Mr. Pataki appointed to the board in 2004, said, "Our role is even more crystalline and important now than it ever was before."

The Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation, as it was first called, was created Nov. 5, 2001, as a subsidiary of the state's Urban Development Corporation. Charles A. Gargano, the chairman of the parent corporation, said it would "oversee all aspects of revitalizing and rebuilding Lower Manhattan."

Faced with the possibility that Mark Green, a Democrat, would be elected mayor, the Republican administration in Albany allocated six of nine board seats to the governor and three to the mayor. In April 2002, with a Republican mayor in office, the board was expanded to 16 members. The mayor and governor were each given eight appointees.

That sounds like city-state parity, but the Urban Development Corporation owns all the shares in the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which was incorporated in December 2001. It was granted "all purposes, powers and functions entrusted to the U.D.C.," including property condemnation, and charged with the "implementation and management" of redevelopment south of Houston Street."


What gave the fledgling corporation real power was its designation in January 2002, by federal law, as the conduit of a $2 billion community development grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It was designated eight months later to distribute an additional $783 million grant.

There is still roughly $400 million to be distributed, almost guaranteeing that the corporation will operate for some time. So does its role, established by executive order in 2003, as the state's lead agency for environmental reviews of redevelopment plans financed by the HUD grants.

In other words, no one will be turning off the lights any time soon. But recent events have taken a toll.

THE corporation - which worked with relatives of 9/11 victims, revised the master plan with public input and handled federal grants without scandal - was "mortally wounded" in the Freedom Center case, said a former director, who asked not to be identified so as not to be publicly critical of officials and former colleagues. "I think it was a grand experiment and it had some very important successes and it was the right thing to do at the time," the former director said. "But that time is passed."

Billie Tsien, a principal in Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, who was a Bloomberg appointee from 2002 to 2003, said the governor had made the corporation peripheral. "As long as he's running it," she said, "it's hard to imagine they have a reason for being."

"I went on the board because I thought it was a chance to make a positive contribution and a difference in New York City," Ms. Tsien said. "And in the end, that didn't happen. I wouldn't have said this until recently. I've tried essentially to be discreet. But I feel like now it seems like an incredibly empty exercise."

After four years on the board, Madelyn Wils said she still saw a future for the corporation, which "always served the really strong purpose of bringing together agencies in an effective manner."

"Whether the governor and the mayor have the wherewithal to have L.M.D.C. continue that work," she said, "is not entirely clear."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/10/nyregion...s.html?pagewanted=1

Group's $10M boot
 
Drawing Ctr. will get fed funds after WTC ax fell
 
By PAUL D. COLFORD
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
 
Driven from Ground Zero after some of its art was judged anti-American, the Drawing Center got a big consolation prize yesterday - up to $10 million in federal funds.
Lower Manhattan Development Corp. officials said the money would help the organization buy or lease another site in lower Manhattan and prepare the space.

"The Drawing Center has demonstrated that it is dedicated to downtown's cultural renewal," LMDC President Stefan Pryor said at a board meeting, "and is well on its way to building a splendid home for the visual arts in our neighborhood."

"We feel a responsibility to them," corporation Chairman John Whitehead said, apparently referring to the upheaval during the summer.

A number of 9/11 family groups opposed LMDC plans to house the Drawing Center and the International Freedom Center in a cultural building due to rise near the World Trade Center Memorial.

The Drawing Center started to look for an alternate site after Gov. Pataki said in June that it and the Freedom Center had to "guarantee" they wouldn't present material offensive to 9/11 family members.

The Drawing Center initially received $150,000 from the LMDC in September to cover expenses as it studied other sites.

"We're tremendously pleased," center President George Negroponte said last night. He added that the center, now based in SoHo, is considering several locations and will announce its pick next year.

The Freedom Center, whose programming plans failed to allay fears that it also would be too political for the site, was booted from the building in September by Pataki.

Charles Wolf, who lost his wife on 9/11 and fought plans to put the IFC and Drawing Center near the memorial, said he applauded the corporation's funding decision, now that the two groups are off the site.

The development agency "is doing a lot more for lower Manhattan than for the World Trade Center site. That's part of their mandate, and so be it."

In addition to lectures and exhibitions, the Drawing Center plans after-school programs, internships and publications.

LMDC's board also set aside an additional $35 million in "cultural enhancement funds" for other arts groups seeking to present programs and exhibits in lower Manhattan.

The meeting became tense when board member Carl Weisbrod tried to find out the total budget to plan and build the WTC Memorial and 9/11 museum.

He didn't get an answer, because, Whitehead told him, "The numbers ... are not final numbers because the plans are changing all the time."

When Weisbrod then asked when the budget will be nailed down, Whitehead said final designs for the memorial and museum will be in hand by early in the spring, when the WTC Memorial Foundation will submit them to builders.

Meanwhile, the board approved $31 million in payments to architects, landscapers and other planners signed to the memorial project, for which the foundation is seeking to raise $500 million.

 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/364402p-310290c.html

Slow-moving path to W.T.C. retail

By Ronda Kaysen

Community Board 1 members weighed in on retail at the new PATH station planned for the World Trade Center, voicing concerns about the pace of the redevelopment, a desire for street level stores and anxiety that retail might ultimately be derailed by the same forces that unraveled the cultural center at the site.

Port Authority officials presented plans for retail at the new Santiago Calatrava-designed PATH station at a Nov. 7 World Trade Center Committee meeting. The PATH station retail—about 200,000 sq. ft.—will all be entirely below ground and comprise about a third of the retail for the redevelopment. The bulk of the shops will eventually be above ground, lining Church and Greenwich Sts., although a timetable for that portion is dependent upon buildings that have yet to be financed or designed. Even the Calatrava station retail will be a longtime coming. Port Authority officials don’t expect it to be finished until the station is complete in 2010.

In images displayed by the Port Authority, upscale boutiques and Starbucks coffee shops line the three subterranean levels of the white, birdlike station. Cheerful travelers and shoppers prance down plaza-like steps, carrying shopping bags or heading through PATH turnstiles. But board members quickly raised serious concerns about what role the community would play in the development of retail for the neighborhood and when they’d begin to see shopping return to the area.

“We are a very important constituent group and lately we have been silenced,” C.B. 1 chairperson Julie Menin told Port Authority representatives, adding, “We’d like to take a consulting role in this.”

The board recently voiced dismay that Governor George Pataki summarily removed the International Freedom Center, a museum planned for a new cultural center at the site, from the redevelopment before the community had the opportunity to weigh in on the issue.

The Port Authority took steps to reassure the board that the community would not be sidelined in this effort. “We would welcome some input from the Downtown community of what retail the community needs,” James Connors, director of the W.T.C. redevelopment for the Port Authority, told board members.

Menin worried that the same groups of victims’ family members that pressured the governor to remove the museum from the site would again overshadow the community’s voice and influence the type of retail Downtown. “I’m very concerned that some family members have suggested that there are certain types of retail that, in essence, should be censored,” said Menin.

Retail will not intersect the memorial quadrant, however censorship of retail is not a risk, according the Port Authority. “The people who talk about censorship are probably in the minority. At the end of the day it will not be censored,” said Connors.

Family members have been kept abreast of the Port Authority’s plans and some are urging caution when placing stores at the site, especially those facing the memorial.

“We bear a moral responsibility to have a say in what happens to that memorial quadrant and its environs,” Charles Wolf, a Bleecker St. resident whose wife died in the disaster, said in a telephone interview. Wolf was active in removing the Freedom Center from the site. “With the memorial quadrant, there needs to be—in my opinion—shall we say sensitivity shown.”

Wolf suggested limiting the signage at shops that face the memorial so visitors to the memorial will not be distracted by signs that might line Greenwich St. “I understand the need for a community to have shops. That has to be balanced out against the need from the standpoint of the individual victims,” he said. “If the families were to have their total say, there wouldn’t be anything on the 16 acres.”

Any retail at the site at all is a long way off. Residents won’t begin to see retail anywhere at the site until the beginning of the next decade and street level retail will probably take longer. For a community that lost its primary shopping center on Sept. 11, the thought of another five years without retail is worrisome.

“A whole generation of children down here are losing the Trade Center,” said board member Jeff Galloway whose children were in third and fifth grade on 9/11. “If you meet your schedule my daughter will be a sophomore in college and my son will be a senior in high school and possibly married by the time this is done. Is there anyway to speed this up?”

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_131/slowmovingpath.html

Arts Center at Ground Zero May Feel Pinch

By DAVID W. DUNLAP

With construction estimates rising for the World Trade Center memorial, several directors of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation expressed concern yesterday that the performing arts center at the site might get squeezed by a tightening budget.

Contributing to the uncertainty at yesterday's board meeting was the lack of a definitive overall estimate and of a dollars-and-cents breakdown for the memorial, the memorial museum, the cultural building and the performing arts center.

If construction economies and new financing sources cannot be found, it is conceivable that the memorial and the performing arts center would compete for what money is available. And that could pit those who advocate the memorial above all else - some of whom are skeptical about the performing arts at ground zero - against those who envision cultural institutions overlooking the memorial's plaza, pools and voids.

"To build all of those things, we have $800 million," said John C. Whitehead, the chairman of both the development corporation and the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation.

He added, "We are looking for additional sources of funds to build the project if the costs are going to be higher than that."

His words left little doubt that the budget would be increasing. "The costs of construction have risen very substantially, particularly in the last 12 months," he said. "The cost of steel is way up. The cost of lumber is way up. The cost of cement is way, way up."

"Without changing the beauty of the memorial or the quality of the memorial in any way, we are trying to find ways to reduce the costs," Mr. Whitehead said.

The foundation hopes to raise $500 million privately and has pledges of more than $102 million. The corporation has committed $300 million of federal money, with $50 million earmarked for the performing arts center.

At the meeting, Stanley S. Shuman, a corporation director and a managing director of Allen and Company, an investment banking concern, said: "The budgeted numbers that we have do exceed $800 million. The fund-raising will have to probably exceed the $500 million from all sources, including the foundation. We all understand and agree wholeheartedly that the memorial is our first priority, but we also have to stress that the performing arts center is a high priority and is central in our commitment to the site master plan."

Carl Weisbrod, a corporation director and the president of Trinity Real Estate, said it would be hard to implement the overall plan "if we have the budget for the memorial as a constantly moving target."

"It's important to establish a budget as soon as we can," he said.

Stefan Pryor, the corporation president, sought to assure the board that budgeting efforts would prove successful. He said, "There is a concerted effort at present among all the parties - inclusive of the state and the city and all of the rebuilding partners - to ensure that we fulfill the plans that we've set out together: memorial and cultural."

Culture dominated the agenda yesterday.

The directors approved up to $10 million for the Drawing Center, a SoHo museum that is looking for a new home downtown, having lost its place in the cultural building at ground zero. "We feel a responsibility to them," Mr. Whitehead said.

He also offered details of how the cultural building might be reshaped, following the departure of the Drawing Center and International Freedom Center. Its bulk could be shifted to the south so that it would no longer have to span the underground mezzanine of the permanent PATH terminal, he said, thereby reducing costs.

Mr. Pryor announced a search for a project director for the performing arts center, which is to be designed by Frank Gehry as the new home of the Joyce Theater Foundation and the Signature Theater Company.

And the corporation said it would make $35 million in grants available to existing and new cultural institutions downtown, with applications due on Dec. 22. An advisory committee is to evaluate applicants and recommend recipients.

Its members are Eddy Bayardelle, director of global philanthropy at Merrill Lynch & Company; Anita F. Contini, senior vice president and director of corporate and public affairs at CIT Group; Tom Finkelpearl, executive director of the Queens Museum of Art; Kate D. Levin, commissioner of the city Department of Cultural Affairs; and Richard J. Schwartz, chairman of the New York State Council on the Arts.

The corporation plans to post application forms and information on its Web site, renewnyc.com, on Monday.

Tom Healy, the president of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, who recently criticized a five-month delay in the grants, said yesterday that the corporation had assembled "stellar" advisers "who know downtown arts organizations well, and who I know will bring independence, intelligence and rigor to their evaluations of proposals."

"This is very good news from L.M.D.C. today," Mr. Healy said. "It's the vote of confidence in the arts that we needed."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/11/nyregion/11rebuild.html

http://sedroul.blogdrive.com/archive/87.html
Is Eleven New York's 13?
The date of the World Trade Center attack: 9/11 - 9+1+1=11
Each building had 110 stories
After September 11th, there are 111 days left to the end of the year
September 11th is the 254th day of the year: 2+5+4=11
119 is the area code for Iraq/Iran...1+1+9=11,911-119 are opposites-eniemies?
11 11 polarity
Twin Towers- standing side by side,looks like number 11
The first plane to hit the towers was Flight 11
State of New York-11th state added to the Union
New York City has 11 lettes
Afghanistan-11 letters
The Pentagon-11 letters
Ramzi Yousef-11 letters (convicted of orchestrating the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993)
Flight 11 has 92 passengers onboard-9+2=11
Flight 11 had 11 crew members onboard
Flight 11 has 65 passengers onboard-6+5=11

Monumental rejects

Imagine the White House flanked by huge additions or a vast museum complex extending westward from the Ellipse. Picture a towering monument to motherhood looming over Observatory Circle.
    These ill-fated proposals are only a few of the grandiose and goofy designs in a new book of essays, "Capital Drawings" (Johns Hopkins University Press, $55). Reading this fascinating history of the worst- and best-laid plans makes you realize that Washington has long been a laboratory for experiments in architecture and urban design, starting with the baroque framework of streets and avenues laid out by Pierre L'Enfant.
    Had they been built, some of the visionary schemes would have made the city a far more exciting place. Among the more daring are Frank Lloyd Wright's Crystal Heights, a cluster of apartments, shops, restaurants and a movie theater at Connecticut and Florida avenues NW; an ecology-minded aquarium on Hains Point designed by Kevin Roche and Charles Eames; and a fairy-tale, turreted Memorial Bridge.
    That these projects never got off the ground reminds us just how risk-averse Washington has always been when it comes to architecture. Centuries of scuttled dreams fill the pages of this book, putting the recently dumped designs for the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Kennedy Center into perspective.
    Written by respected historians, the book's essays trace the evolution of the city's most iconic public structures, the Capitol, the White House and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, as well as its commercial and residential buildings. They are based on material from a huge but little-known archive at the Library of Congress, the architecture, design and engineering collection.
    More than 40,000 of the drawings, prints and photos in these holdings relate to the development of Washington. They range from the earliest watercolor renderings for the U.S. Capitol to blueprints for Little Tavern hamburger stands. The book includes only the choicest selection of the many images and related documents available online (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/pphome.html).
    The liveliest chapter in "Capital Drawings" taps the archive to present the Washington that never was. C. Ford Peatross, curator of the architecture, design and engineering collection, and the book's editor, uses the unrealized projects to suggest how much more impressive or, in some cases, more vulgar, the city could have become.
    Some of these visions might have altered the nation's most cherished institutions for the better. Early designs for the Capitol offered panoramic views from a cupola and a conference room under a dome, which was intended for important addresses and joint sessions of the House and Senate. Had such spaces been built, Congress might have become more bipartisan and appreciative of the city.
    The Washington Monument, unsurprisingly, also drew ambitious designs over the 19th century. Pyramids were proposed before the selection of Robert Mills' obelisk, which incorporated a museum at the base that eventually was scrapped.
    When building of the monument was halted in 1855, more ideas were put forth for how to complete it. One showed the unfinished obelisk topped with a gigantic statue of the first president.
    The design competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, explained in a separate chapter, also generated its share of wacky ideas. They include a scheme for a gargantuan Army helmet and dog tags that makes Maya Lin's controversial black wall of names look reticent in comparison.
    The White House was another favorite target for ambitious plans, some of which would have dwarfed its compact structure. Wings on both sides of the residence were proposed a couple of times, along with a large conservatory on the South Lawn. In 1898, a Missouri senator's wife suggested a much larger executive mansion be built atop Meridian Hill with grand staircases and ramparts -- a prescient idea, given today's security concerns.

 It's surprising that the president's house still stands at all, given the history of hasty transformations related in the book. "Architectural changes in the White House always take place in a hurry," historian William Seale writes. "At times they have not been accompanied by detailed drawings or even sketches."
    As Mr. Seale explains, just three of the sketches by architect James Hoban, who designed the original building, still exist in collections outside the Library of Congress. Other early documents show how Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison remodeled the main floor and how Franklin Pierce added better heating systems and rococo revival decorations.
    Systematic documentation of the mansion only began in the 1960s. "When President Harry S. Truman undertook to rebuild the house within its old walls between 1948 and 1952," Mr. Seale writes, "no coherent body of historical material was available and the result was a virtually new interior."
    Today, he explains, all drawings of the White House, even for minor renovations, are carefully preserved. Most are stored at the National Park Service and not publicly accessible for security reasons.
    Shaped by changing politics as much as by changing architectural tastes, the White House and Capitol are still works in progress. Though not a complete historical record of these landmarks, the documents at the Library of Congress serve as an important record of the changes within their walls and a guide for future restorations.
    As for the many discarded designs for Washington, Mr. Peatross suggests the best ones aren't really dead but could be retrieved from the library's archive and constructed. As he writes, "There should be no expiration date on many of these ideas, and in time a number of these visions may ... become realities."

http://washingtontimes.com/entertainment/2...11-095404-2909r.htm

Families mark fourth anniversary of jet crash


NEW YORK -- Scores of families gathered in a seaside neighborhood in Queens on Saturday to mark the fourth anniversary of one of the deadliest airline disasters in U.S. history.

The crash of American Airlines Flight 587 on a quiet residential block in Belle Harbor claimed 265 victims in a city still reeling from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

 Today, few physical reminders of the wreck remain, but New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the hundreds gathered on a chilly morning that the city hopes to pick a design soon for a $2 million memorial to the victims.

"For many people in this city, our grief remains so strong. Because passage of those four years has not filled those 265 empty chairs at the dinner table, or the 265 empty spots in our hearts," he said.

Flight 587 had just taken off from John F. Kennedy International Airport on Nov. 12, 2001, when a section of its tail tore away as the plane's pilot battled turbulence. The jet was bound for the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican national anthem was played at the start of Saturday's ceremony. Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani eulogized the dead, which included five people killed on the ground. Mourners also observed a moment of silence and the names of every crash victim were read aloud.

"It feels like yesterday," said Juan Reyes, 19, of the Bronx, who lost his father in the crash. "It happened four years ago, but it seems like four minutes ago."

He called his father his best friend, and said he hoped to be able to bring his children to the neighborhood 20 years from now and be able to tell them, "My father died here."

The city has encountered some delays in the construction of a permanent memorial, but officials still hope to have a monument in place by the autumn of 2006.

Outside of the 2001 terrorist attacks, the crash was the second worst in U.S. aviation history. The deadliest was a 1979 disaster at Chicago's O'Hare Airport that killed 275.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/new...ny-region-apnewyork

In memory of Flight 587

It was four years ago today that American Airlines Flight 587 fell out of a clear sky and shattered the hearts of all who lost loved ones on that day. New York City was still in shock from the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan when, just a few miles to the east, Flight 587 crashed to the ground in Belle Harbor, Queens, killing 265 people on the plane and five people on the ground.
November 12 was a Monday that year, and several people traveled that day to avoid flying the next day, martes 13, bad luck in Latin American culture. Today, family members and friends gather, and we all pause, to mourn and remember.

The city of Bani in the Dominican Republic completed a monument and park two years ago to commemorate the lives lost on that day. More than 80 people who died were from Bani and the surrounding area.

But in New York City, on this fourth anniversary, there is still no monument. A committee that includes representatives from the victims` families, City Hall, the neighborhood of Belle Harbor, and El Museo del Barrio is working to select an artist for the memorial.

The families have suffered other frustrations. In July, Port Authority officials unveiled a memorial park at West 177th Street in honor of those killed on Flight 587, but did not invite the families. And some family members were disappointed that the monument in Belle Harbor will not be at the crash site, but rather, 15 blocks away. New houses have been built on the site of the crash.

State Assemb. Adriano Espaillat says $400,000 has been allocated for construction of the monument. Espaillat also urged the families to take advantage of the Flight 587 Memorial Scholarship fund for the children of victims. Relatives and friends will gather in Belle Harbor this morning to remember their loved ones. Next year, there must be a Flight 587 memorial in place to commemorate their loss.

http://www.eldiariony.com/noticias/detail....ditorial&id=1274776

Drawing a blank at Ground Zero

 
By pledging $10 million to help an art gallery relocate, Gov. Pataki's Lower Manhattan Development Corp. showed just how out of whack its priorities are.
Even as LMDC board members played at being patrons of culture on Thursday, they received a troubling lack-of-progress report on what should be their most urgent project - building a suitable memorial to the victims of 9/11. They learned that the $800 million cost of that complex is spinning higher even as fund-raising by the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation lags way behind schedule.

So this was an awkward moment, to say the least, for the LMDC to announce that it is handing out up to $45 million in federal funds to lure arts organizations downtown, including as much as $10 million to help the Drawing Center, a SoHo gallery, relocate.

The Drawing Center, you'll recall, was picked by the LMDC for the Ground Zero cultural hub - then had to withdraw after the Daily News revealed that its catalog was full of politically charged works whose exhibition on the sacred ground would have been offensive.

As a consolation prize, the center got $150,000 from the LMDC to find a new home. We're not convinced the operation deserves any more public largess - but not because of its dubious taste in art. The concern is that government subsidies will succeed mainly in building a bunch of highbrow white elephants downtown.

This is just one more error in what's looking like the Downtown Follies. As became clear Thursday, neither the LMDC nor the foundation has a clue how much the 9/11 memorial and museum will cost, even as the foundation struggles to meet its $500 million fund-raising goal. It didn't even hire a fund-raising chief until August.

While a poll showed that 87% of Americans say 9/11 was the most historic event of their lives, and 60% would contribute, the foundation has received money from just 175 donors. And fully half of its first $100 million came from three sources: the Starr Foundation, Deutsche Bank and the Bank of New York.

The controversy over the International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center was a serious drag on fund-raising. After they were eliminated, foundation executive director Gretchen Dykstra said, some potential major donors expressed renewed interest. Confidence-building is job one. The board and Dykstra must show first-class competence; no slip-ups, no delays, no inappropriate displays or programming, no surprises. And plenty of transparency.

A private group, the foundation has argued that it is not covered by the sunshine laws that apply to government. That's a self-destructive position. Public confidence depends on the financial reporting and development of the memorial being done in the open.

Shamefully little has been accomplished in the four-plus years since 9/11. Except, apparently, for mistakes. And compounded mistakes. Like that obscene $10 million to the Drawing Center. New York, and the world, awaits some real progress. Pronto.
 
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opin...64775p-310654c.html