Tomorrow is the eighth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. And, the Port Authority tells us, there has been "major progress" at the site of the future National September 11 Memorial & Museum—apparently relatives of victims will be able to walk on the street-level plaza for the first time. Other stats: About 80% of the Memorial's steel (equivalent of 6,500 tons) has been installed, 20% of the concrete has been poured, and the Last Column was installed.
The Architect's Newspaper also has some new renderings of the museum: "Designed by Davis Brody Bond Aedas, the museum creates a dramatic procession from the memorial plaza and the Snohetta-designed pavilion down to bedrock, where two main exhibition halls will be located on the footprints of the original Twin Towers." A suspended walkway will take visitors seven floor below ground, and they will be able to see the slurry wall:
At a point halfway between the tower volumes, the ribbon turns to align with the "Survivor's Stair," the original World Trade Center egress that survived the towers collapse and has been reinstalled as a connection those escaping the destruction of September 11 and those returning to bear witness to it. Finally, visitors will reach bedrock 71 feet below the memorial plaza. There they will find remnants of the original tower, such as the original column bases and concrete footings, another marker joining the past and the present.
However, else at Ground Zero, Larry Silverstein said that development for the other towers is at a standstill (nothing new there), telling NY1 he still hasn't received control of the site, "The effort to work together has really vanished if you will. Unfortunately we're not working together today and the board has simply made it clear that it wants to do things its way and if it doesn't get it done its way, then it's not going to allow us to proceed."
The Port Authority, in return, said, "The simple fact remains that the public shouldn't be asked to take on risk that the private developer won't take on himself. If we took on that risk, we would be choosing private speculative office space over public transportation projects." Sigh.
