Stan Eckstut and Philip Lopate

The void left in the heart of Lower Manhattan by the September 11th tragedy has provoked considerable speculation about what should go there. There has been debate, design competitions, territorial wrestling between officials and developers, and eventually the area will get rebuilt. It is too important to lie fallow.

We, two friends – an architect/urban designer whose experience includes co-authoring the template for Battery Park City, and a writer with a strong interest in New York, believe that the question is not “What architecture should go on the site?” but “What sort of public environment ought to be created there?”

What will the streets, and the street-life, be like? How will pedestrians, tourists, and workers experience it on the ground? How can we better integrate the new complex into the area? We agree that the 13 million square footage of office space destroyed in the attack should be substantially replaced. But there are many ways of doing that other than towers set in plazas. We need to think long and hard about lower Manhattans specific character. It is not Midtown with its regular, flat-terrained blocks of high-rise density. It is the oldest part of New York, and the “grid” down there (if you can call it that) is more casually variable, the streets smaller and narrower. Given to sudden surprises and winding perspectives. To the east are the canyons of Wall Street, topography dramatic in itself; it may be possible to extend some of that canyon effect westward. Whatever gets built, it makes sense to extend east-west streets, river to river as they originally ran, before the World Trade Center created an obstruction.

In many ways, the World Trade Center marked a significant break with New York City’s spatial form. Its super-block interrupted the circulation of pedestrians; its introverted, mall-life retail was hidden from the street; and it buried its transportation modes (the PATH and subway lines) deep within. It made a wonderful contribution to the skyline, but it was not very effective at street-level.

Building replicas is not the answer. That would only be a denial that their appalling destruction took place; it would deny the chance to improve on the urban environment made by the World Trade Center in the first place. A memorial of some sort must be erected, we must not be permitted to forget that terrible loss of life. But redevelopment of the site should also reflect what it is that gives New York that “New York feel”. We can learn from the city’s other successful models of urban density, such as Rockefeller Center, a mountainous complex whose smaller buildings with street-level shops are placed like friendly foothills on the avenues. We can learn from the site’s own neighbor, Battery Park City, which has successfully recreated the vocabulary of New York streets in the residential sections, and offered public access to the waterfront. A convivial public space should be included, which need not be very large: some of the most effective oases in the urban grid, such as Rockefeller Center promenade or Paley Park, are small, while the plaza at the World Trade Center was enormous but forbidding. There ought to be another pause, maybe even another square along lower Broadway, before one gets to Bowling Green. Broadway is the central spine of Lower Manhattan, and any new complex should reinforce its importance. Thousands of commuters will pour into the area daily, as in the past. We need to provide some sort of overt transportation structure to express that entry into the city with aplomb. Eventually, we hope, commuter rail will be extended from the midtown terminals to the Lower Manhattan area, as has been talked about for years.

West Street should be narrowed, so that is no longer a barrier but a recognizable New York street, like Seventh Avenue. The new complex will offer a chance to engage the waterfront much more directly than its predecessor. Approaching the island’s edge, however, we have to be especially sensitive to questions regarding fish habitat and sewage disposal, and shore up rather than degrade the natural environment. There is real opportunity for innovation. Ideally, there should be a process to promote exciting design and protect people’s interests. One way to ensure it would be to place the project under an authority (as was done with Battery Park City and 42nd Street). While some private developers have created good public space, it is not their primary mission; only a public client can ensure a public design. More than this or that architectural vogue, we are essentially advocating a way of thinking: the noble art of city-making. The greatest tribute we can pay to those who gave their lives on this site is to make it a lively urban place, which will express the character of New York at its most street-smart.