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Day One doesn't mean everything changes, but Governor Spitzer's administration has now offered a new idea for the so-called survivors' staircase at Ground Zero. The NY Times reports that the stairs would be kept "whole and intact" and "set into a long flight of steps leading from the visitors’ center at ground zero to the underground World Trade Center memorial museum, which is to open in 2009." And the Times has this picture of the model!
The survivors' staircase, which led to Vesey Street in the old WTC, was named an endangered place by the National Trust for Historical Preservation, which noted how the staircase "provided a path of escape for hundreds of individuals." The NTHP even suggested that people write letters to WTC developer Larry Silverstein to ask him to incorporate the stairs into the design one of the new buildings.
Only the stairs themselves, and not the structure around it, will be moved. Avi Schick, the Spitzer-appointed head of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation said with the new placement, visitors would experience "the path of travel just as someone else experienced it...The stairs are a potent reminder of the path to salvation and survival that many people had. We were able to separate what the stairs mean from what the structure means.” And of the Pataki administration plan that would have kept some stair treads in Tower 2 and other used elsewhere, Shick said, "The plan we walked into was an embarrassment to government." Hmm, is it weird for him to mention embarrassments to government these days?
The proposal still needs to be reviewed and approved by official agencies - as well as weather comments from other survivors' and preservation groups - but the New York Landmarks Conservancy and WTC Survivors' Network thought the design worked. WTCSN's Richard Zimbler said, "The most important elements of the stairway are those parts that look like a stairway. And that’s exactly the proposal: to preserve all the steps.”
What do you think of placing the staircase at the museum? If anything, it's strange it wasn't proposed to be moved to the museum earlier. Last week, it seemed that one idea for the survivors' staircase temporary home during construction was a barge off Governor's Island.
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When walking down stairs people should remove their hands from their pockets so they can properly maintain balance.
I feel this is an important issue, and look forward to Mayor Bloomberg's legislation.
what bout the survivors toilet bowl?
This is the stupidest issue among a mountain of stupid issues to do with 9/11 and the rebuilding.
The name of the organization you mentioned is: The National Trust for Historic Preservation, and is commonly abbreviated "The National Trust," not "The National Historical Trust" or "The Historical Trust," or any mention of the word "historical."
anyone else find the idea of the survivor's stairs really creepy? i mean i guess it's supposed to be unnerving, but why would i want to 'walk down their path to salvation' or whatnot? just seems weird.
I find it really creepy. I find a lot of this whole thing realllllly creepy.
They aren’t building this stuff for New Yorkers, you know. It is for un-traumatized out of towners to come gawk at and buy up stuff.
Ok now bitch about how it traumatized the whole country and how they are building it for New Yorkers. Go ahead.
Jen, this is far from a new idea. The LDMC made very similar proposals last year during the so-called "Section 106" process, with the support of local community groups, but the self-styled preservationists and "survivors" groups unanimously opposed such proposals at the time, insisting that the whole structure needed to maintained on-site and intact, and threatening to sue if it were "mutilated." It seems that, with the impending deadline for the Port Authority to clear the site and turn it over to Silverstein Properties, those parties were finally made to come to their senses.
I think the name, "survivor's staircase," is a bit of a misnomer. I'm pretty sure this stairway led from the plaza down to vessey st. All of the stairs and elevators exited into the lobby which was located about 30' under the plaza. Who would go two floors back up and exit through the plaza with bodies and debris raining down?
ingenuous fake patriotic neo-fascist war-justifying clap-trap. Its a shame that the grief of those who lost loved ones is enrolled into all this crap...
OK. So I do question the "war on terror" debacle of this administration. Its not a question only of being for or against. There were and are other actions to take to address the 9/11 attack. And, its true, I don't trust this administration.
Just my opinion.
Please! Won't someone think of the HEROES???
This is great news! Maybe they got an insignificant part of GZ development right! There should be fireworks! People will be singing in the streets! Imagine how proud we'll all be when we see the brilliant memorials (plans to be released soon) and the shining Freedom Tower!
It WILL look incredible....the contrast...... the water rushing down to the dark dank memorials..... the gleaming tower soaring into the clouds... a truly inspired plan. Can't wait to see it.
Will they please put the Freedom Tower on a barge and tow it to the river?
If Shick, the new LMDC head, realizes something as simple as the stair plan, "was an embarrassment to government", what about the plans for the rest of the site? How could he not realize the Libeskind plan & memorial are also garbage?
Is it true that victims' family members will be allowed to swim in the memorial pools for free, but that the public will have to pay a hefty fee? Why do these spineless politicians grovel to every whim of these c**** ****s, who have fallen into a bonanza, and been paid more even than most LMDC members??