Deputy Secretary Jackson Attends WTC Rebuilding Announcement

HUD Deputy Secretary Alphonso Jackson made a special visit to New York City on Thursday, February 27, 2003 to be part of the ceremony announcing the winning design for rebuilding Ground Zero. HUD has contributed almost $3 billion dollars in the rebuilding and restoration of lower Manhattan.

Eighteen months after the collapse of the World Trade Center, Deputy Secretary Jackson joined with New York State Governor Pataki and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as they announced the winning design by architect Daniel Libeskind.

An ad-hoc committee representing the State, city, Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and Port Authority chose Libeskind the previous evening.

Libeskind's vision for the Trade Center includes a soaring garden spire that would extend 1,776 feet into the sky and leaves the slurry wall and bedrock floor of the foundation exposed to serve as a memorial. In addition, Libeskind proposes building five towers plus a 20-story hotel that would restore the 10 million square feet of office space lost on 9/11.

Many relatives of the victims favored the use of the slurry protective wall as a memorial, whose "wedge of light" would prevent shadows from falling on the memorial every September 11. As Libeskind remarked about the slurry walls: "Despite everything that happened at that site, they stood. They testify as eloquently as the Constitution itself to the value of life, freedom and democracy."

Libeskind beat a team of architects called THINK, which proposed two latticed towers that would be built above and around but not touching the original tower footprints. The new towers would have housed memorials, museums and performing arts facilities to create an innovative cultural center.

The next phases of the WTC site include a Memorial competition in the fall, a temporary PATH station to be completed by December 2003 and a final design for a street system and transit terminal plans by mid-2004.