Frontline: Sacred Ground
Nick Rosen
Producer
Wednesday, September 08, 2004; 11:00 a.m. ET
Within days of the Sept. 11 attacks, the questions began: What should be built on the site of Ground Zero? Who should build it? And should anything be built there at all?
In "Sacred Ground," airing Tuesday, Sept. 7, at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings), Frontline tells the inside story of the first stormy year in the plans to rebuild on the site of the World Trade Center. With exclusive access to architect Daniel Libeskind, the one-hour documentary follows the process to build Libeskind’s proposed Freedom Tower and reveals how the desire to build the world's most meaningful architectural tribute descended into a billion-dollar battle for the soul of Ground Zero.
Producer Nick Rosen will be online Wednesday, Sept. 8, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the report.
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Nick Rosen: I hope that this program helps re-ignite a debate about what should be built at Ground Zero because public participation has lessened in recent months. The building is highly symbolic and it would be a shame if people turned around in two years time to find they were unhappy with the decisions that had been made in their absence.
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Wheaton, Md.:
Has a final plan been approved? When should we expect to see a completed project? Nick Rosen: Yes, the final plan has largely been approved. The governor's unveiling on Dec. 19 represented an important milestone. Since then the shape of the building and it's precise location on the site do continue to develop. And although very early work on the foundations has begun, change is still possible. It is not unlikely that the building we see in two years time will differ markedly from the one unveiled on Dec. 19th.
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Washington, D.C.:
Has any thought been given to the idea that many people will be afraid to work in a skycraper in New York given what did happen on 9/11? I know office space is very limited in Manhattan and that plenty of companies would relocate to the new towers, but do you seriously think you'd have 100 percent capacity?
Nick Rosen: Developer Larry Silverstein is in a paradoxical position. He is obligated to rebuild under the terms of his lease, but he knows perfectly well -- although he cannot say so -- that tenants will be hard to find.
The old WOrld Trade Center was not a commercial success for the first decade of its existence. And the fear factor will be hard to overcome in seeking tenants for the new building. Much will be made of the safety features, but peoples' emotions are not ruled by rationality.
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Phoenix, Ariz.:
Not only is was the final model of the Freedom Tower not as good as the one in Libeskind's master plan, but it doesn't even resemble his design at all. Do you think this has resulted in Libeskind feeling as though he had nothing to do with the process? That is how I would feel.
Nick Rosen: He is an amazing, resiliant guy and he and his wife Nina are both realists. They know Larry Silverstein had other priorities than fulfilling his artistic vision and they are aware that David Childs is himself a highly accomplished architect. Therefore, I think they can feel good about what they achieved whilst accepting the others' point of view. Daniel managed to keep the towers' height at the symbolic 1,776 feet he had set. And although the building that was unveiled had a rather stunted version of his proposed inverted (eccentric) tower, it did at least acknowledge Libeskind's design.
Libeskind is still part of the process and he is hoping to win the competition to design the freedom museum, which will also be built on the site of Ground Zero.
By the way, the key decision-maker in that museum is Roland Betts, who as you could see on last night's show favors Libeskind.
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Anonymous:
I always thought that a simple park would have been the best use of ground zero.
Was that ever seriously considered?
Nick Rosen: The decision to build was made very quickly. Some would say too quickly. Luminaries, such as Rudy Guiliani argued vehemently that nothing be built on Ground Zero. And certainly as a close observer, I was surprised at the speed with which the decision to rebuild was taken.
But look at the forces pushing for a decision: the developer with his fresh 99-year lease, wanted to get the revenues flowing again; the Port Authority which lost almost 100 of its staff on 9/11 was also clear-headed in wanting a rebuilding kind of memorial. And I think in Washington, it was felt that the national interest dictated that a defiant tower was the best way of sending out a message to the world: business as usual -- American business -- was not going to be dictated by terrorists.
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Reston, Va.:
Did the Governor have a legal right to get involved in the design, or was he using the bully pulpit? Also, why was he more involved than the mayor of New York?
Nick Rosen: That's a good question. In a way he filled a political vacuum, or rather, somebody had to take the lead and it served his political interests to do so. Much of the federal funding that arrived after 9/11 was funnelled through the state rather than the city, which explains Mayor Bloomberg's passive role. The Port Authority is very much a tool of the New York governor and always has been. So in the end, the only check on Pataki's authority came from the developer, Larry Silverstein. And the battle of egos between Childs and Lebeskind reflected a tussle between Pataki and Silverstein.
Bloomberg was kept fully informed as key decisions were made. The final decision to cut the size of the tower by sevearal hundred feet, which led to Guy Nordenson's resignation, was made, I am told, by Pataki while he visited the Bermuda weekend home of Michael Bloomberg.
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New York, N.Y.:
I am not an expert in real estate. My question is why does Larry Silverstein have so much power, as seen by the way he is muscling his way through the whole process? He is the leaseholder of the WTC, not the owner; that would be the Port Authority.
In my layman's way of thinking, that would give him less say than the PA.
Nick Rosen: That's America. The guy with the lease and the insurance policy, the guy with the money, gets to make the decisions. The Port Authority had sold the lease to Silverstein because it wanted out of the real estate business and preferred to focus on airports and tunnels. So for the PA to get back into real estate so soon was not on their agenda.
Plus, like everybody else connected with this venture, Mr. Silverstein understandably wanted his place in history. To build the world's tallest building is quite a memorial for a 72-year-old property developer.
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Greenbelt, Md.:
"Sacred ground?" Not anymore. The recent Republican Convention contaminated the site more surely than the asbestos, mercury and other hazardous materials there ever could. 9/11 is now nothing more than a campaign prop, and it's a sad commentary on our political system.
Nick Rosen: As I said in my introduction, it's up to the people of New York, America and the world to bring about the outcome they desire on the site of Ground Zero.
The events leading up to the competition which was won by Lebeskind, shows that if the public speaks, speaks loudly, and speaks with one voice, then it will be heard.
Part of the problem is that the families and the public became slowly disunited as factionalism and individual politicking began to detract from the idealistic spirit that prevailed immediately after 9/11.
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London, U.K.:
I watched this film on Channel 4 the other night and was impressed by the way in which it was directed, the way in which every shot counted -- from the tiny Libeskind being crowded out by microphones at a presser, to the zoom out of Libeskind on the Ground Zero site, and the cross cutting between one of the victims pouring a cup of tea for his sister on the sacred ground with the cacophony of voices and big close-ups of mouths at a press conference in the final sequence of the film.
Will the director be available to comment on how he arrived at this visualisation? Nick Rosen: Thank you very much for that complement. I agree entirely. Speaking on behalf of the director with whom I worked closely on the year this took to research and film, I can tell you we shot far more than we could use and we always felt that we were trying to make a feature film out of this epic story.
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Tampa, Fla.:
Back in July of 2002 the general public rejected the LMDC's preliminary Beyer Blinder Belle concepts. In response the LMDC held a design competition to find more exciting plans for the site. After Libeskind's design won, David Childs shaped it towards a more ordinary, practical direction to the point that the latest Libeskind/Childs plan and the Beyer Blinder Belle plans look nearly identical when compared. It seems like we are back to square one with a plan that the public rejected. Have you noticed that similarity, and what do you think of it?
Nick Rosen: It is true that there is a similarity between the plans the public rejected and the ones we have now. In a way, BBB were the victims of the high emotions at that time. But also they failed to gauge the public mood or capture the public imagination, both areas where Lebiskind scored very high marks.
The BBB blowout did not include any design elements. It was simply a set of (dummy) buildings indicating scale and location relative to each other. It was always obvious to me, from the moment the competition finalists were announced, that the winner would be Daniel Lebiskind, because he gave New Yorkers what they needed at that time. I think that is why the governor supported him so strongly.
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Pittsburgh, Pa.:
It seemed to me that the program portrayed David Childs as the "bad guy" in the tug-of-war between he and Libeskind. Was he really as much of a son of a you-know-what as he was portrayed? Why didn't Pataki just pull him off the project?
Nick Rosen: Oh dear, Mr. Childs really isn't a bad guy and I'm surprised it seemed that way. It is true, however, that we did not get as much time with Mr. Childs as we needed or would have liked. The issue of access is always critical in documentary films and both Mr. Childs and Mr. Silverstein were both busy and continually being harassed by other media for the whole period we were making our documentary. As a result, the little human moments that can illuminate a character were absent in our portrayal of both Mr. Childs and Mr. Silverstein. I wish we had been able to get some "quality time" with them, but I am sure that the next film -- ahem -- which follows the actual building and engineering story will redress the balance.
In a way Mr. Childs had the more difficult job because he had to take the design and rhetoric bequethed by the Lebiskind master plan and turn it into a working, successful, profitable district of lower Manhattan. Needless to say, it is a commission that every architect in the world would do anything for. But Mr. Childs is the one who got it and he has made great steps towards producing a building which is both innovative and iconic. However, it is in the nature of architecture that any individual architect will want to stamp his or her identity on a building. And I do not think we have seen the end of the design development process.
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Milford, Conn.:
Why can't the Gardner design still be a viable option, no one want's this "Twisted" 70 story building with windmills in NYC.
Nick Rosen: I'm not sure what you mean by the Gardner design, but there's still an opportunity for New Yorkers and others who care what happens at Ground Zero to make their opinions known. The Freedom Tower, if built, will briefly be the world's tallest building, but it is only one element on the site of the former WTC. There is a separate memorial being planned -- a memorial within a memorial if you like -- a Freedom museum and an arts complex and other buildings above ground as well as a considerable below-ground complex.
As I said before, I do hope this program can restart the public dialogue that was so important in the early stages.
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Flagstaff, Ariz.:
Congratulations on an informative program. However, it seems you started out with a bias, entranced by Dani-elle's stylish glasses and seeping poetic pronouncements. Yeesh, this guys ego is off the charts. It looked to me like a hatchet job on Silverstein and Childs. Yes, developers do have a lot of power - to shape comunities through their substantial investments and risk taking. If you want to play, you have to cooperate, sometning Liebskind, wife and lawyer were not willing to do.
Nick Rosen: I recognize your criticism and it is a shame that top businessmen, developers and the like are so shielded from the media. I feel sure that if we had more intimate portaits of Mr. Childs and Mr. Silverstein than they would have come accross more sympathetically, but we had to fight hard for the time they generously gave us in the end. Lebiskind camp -- both Daniel and his dream team of his wife Nina and his lawyer Ed Hayes -- made themselves very available. Therefore, it became inevitable that we would tell the story more from the Lebiskind viewpoint than from the Silverstein viewpoint. I hope the next film will be able to show what it is like inside the mind of a leading developer and a top corporate architect.
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Glen, N.H.:
Has there been any consideration of further involvement by Rafael Vinoly and his team who actually won the official jury competition face-off with Daniel Libeskind (according to the New York Times as mentioned in your report)?
Nick Rosen: Rafael Vinoly and his collaborator, Frederic Shwartz, are both superb architects who were devastated when their victory was pulled away from under them. Both have gone on to do other great designs since -- Mr. Shwartz recently won the competition to design the New Jersey memorial.
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Brooklyn, N.Y.:
Why did you leave out the fact that in every public opinion poll ever taken, the Libeskind design was soundly rejected, and that his proposal was actually submitted after the design deadline had passed?
Nick Rosen: I don't think it is correct that his proposal was submitted late, although he was a late addition to the list of those invited to compete. As to his design, no single proposal won an overwhelming majority, but at the time, his captured the imagination of the people who had chosen to involve themselves in the debate. Since then public participation has fallen away, so the importance of opinion polls has lessened. If the public would become re-involved their voice would count for more.
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Toledo, Ohio:
What role, if any, did the 9/11 victim's families play in the the design of the Freedom Tower?
Nick Rosen: The victims' families had a lesser role than you might have imagined. There were one or two on the panel which chose the memorial design, the twin pools, but people I spoke to on the memorial jury said that in the end they were led by the experts to pick what many now feel is a very bland design. As regards the design and location of the freedom tower, the victims families had one big problem -- they never really agreed amongst themselves. There was a great deal of jockeying for position among the family spokespersons, and to this day there is huge bitterness and rivalry between the various family groups. So, in the end, the main acheivement of the families was to prevent very much building on the footprints of the two towers, although there has been some building. The main occupation of the chief executive of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Kevin Rampe, is to coax and coerce the families and the local media to overlook these deviations from the promises that were made shortly after the disaster.
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London Ontario Canada:
Why didn't Liebskind take his frustrations over being frozen out of the design process public, when it might have done some good?
Nick Rosen: I think that Daniel Lebiskind would have gone public if he felt he had been completely frozen out, but even at the lowest points he felt there was still something to fight for. If he had gone public it would have been seen by insiders as throwing in the towel. He and Nina decided to stay inside the tent and their prize was the governor's decision to reject the proposal from Silverstein Properties for a taller tower with no antenna at the side.
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Washington, DC:
Did Libeskind benefit at all from having a lawyer? I'm thinking specifically of the 51%/49% agreement. It sounds like he definitely got the short end of the stick in this compromise.
Nick Rosen: Studio Lebiskind has perhaps 30-40 staff and he was up against the Port Authority, the LMDC and, of course, the muscle of SOM architects. Plus, the Lebiskinds were outsiders who had arrived in New York only after winning the competition. Ed Hayes did a huge amount to ensure that the Lebiskinds survived in the rough and tumble of the PR game and the political lobbying that became a daily part of the design process. Ed Hayes knows so many people in New York -- from police chiefs to construction workers to the governor himself. I don't think they would have got as far as they did without him.
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Fulton, Md.:
As an architect, immigrant, and one who grew up in NYC watching the construction of the towers as a child, I was embarrassed by the conduct of the architect from SOM. Architecture should be a cooperative collaboration between various and sometimes opposing parties. No one is perfect, but I compliment the vision, effort, and original design by Daniel Libeskind for its purpose! Architecture is not autocratic! Nick Rosen: There was so much at stake in the Freedom Tower and you can understand any architect's intense desire to be the one remembered as the designer of what I think will turn out to be an extraordinary building.
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Nick Rosen:
I hope that this debate will continue long after the program is forgotten about and if anyone would like to make further comments, please e-mail me at nick@vivum.net.
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