WTC Memorial Going Ahead as Planned

Recently, there's been a bit of opposition ot the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's World Trade Center Memorial design, which was selected over two years ago, with the main complaints being that the memorial was partly subterranean. Now the LMDC has issued a letter to the complaining families saying that memorial will be built as planned, as construction will begin next month.. The Post received a letter, which has LMDC president Stefan Pryor explaining that when letters about the memorial design were sent to 5,000 family members in 2004, only 400 forms were returned and only one mentioned the "below grade" location. (We wonder if the families would, in turn, say that the forms were not very clear.) Pryor's letter also included the thought, "While we understand that, as is inevitable in a process of this complexity, some of you may still disagree with choices that have been made, those choices were made in good faith." Gothamist still doesn't know how to feel about the WTC Memorial design - it has changed significantly, in order to meet other development issues, since it's initial presentation. The unfortunate thing is that usually people only know how they feel about physical spaces until they are built - we're thinking about the opposition to the Vietnam War Memorial during the pre-construction period.

And in other WTC news: The NY Times has a story about Jenny Holzer's moving text art at 7 World Trade Center, calling it "rare and public sign of progress."