Those fancy shirt sleeves were rolled up as officials met over the crazy costs for the World Trade Center Memorial. And if there's anyone to speak about money, it's our billionaire Mayor Bloomberg, who the NY Times says gave the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation a "verbal spanking":
He chastised the foundation, saying the group had become obsessed with the design and construction of the memorial. "The foundation should be focusing on fund-raising," he said. "The agreement fundamentally was that the L.M.D.C. — the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation — would do the design, somebody would build the building and it would be run by the foundation, who would be raising private money."
We can see both sides here: The LMDC was maybe trying to figure out how much it would cost to build the memorial, which is important...but they really should have been trying to raise more money - tsunami and Hurricane Katrina competition, be damned! Mayor B suggested that the memorial's museum and visitor center could be moved into Freedom Tower to eliminate some costs. Hmm, next they'll suggest the memorial not be built but shown on virtual reality goggles handed out there.
And we finally got around to seeing Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t episode about Ground Zero. While it overly simplifies things, what it was good at was that the WTC development was supposed to be Governor Pataki's way to the White House in 2008, but instead he made terrible decisions. For instance, this quote in the Daily News from September 11 widow Monica Iken on the Memorial Foundation board: "We were promised a 'world-class' memorial by Gov. Pataki, and we've been given a world-class failure."
