Pure
Fiel a Verdad
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2001
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Seems so American. Private property and all that.
'Survivors' Stairway' Is Marked as Endangered
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: May 10, 2006
The last above-ground remnant of the World Trade Center — a battered but still —recognizable staircase down which hundreds fled to safety on 9/11 from the inferno in the north tower — is one of the most endangered historical places in America, the National Trust for Historic Preservation said today.
Survivors Begin Effort to Save Stairway That Was 9/11 'Path to Freedom' (November 25, 2005) That is because it stands in the way of an office tower, designed by Norman Foster, that is planned on the same site by the developer Larry A. Silverstein. And neither Mr. Silverstein nor Lord Foster have said yet what they plan to do about the staircase.
"Silverstein Properties has not made a commitment to preserve the staircase and we're urging them to do so," said Richard Moe, the president of the trust, a private, nonprofit organization that uses its considerable influence in place of any actual regulatory power.
"It will be the most dramatic original piece of the site that will have meaning to generations to come," Mr. Moe said. "This obviously has national significance because 9/11 had such a cataclysmic effect."
The decision by the trust to place the "survivors' stairway" on its much-noted annual list of 11 endangered historical places will undoubtedly raise the profile of an overlooked but significant architectural artifact from Sept. 11, 2001.
Older story with picture:
Survivors Begin Effort to Save Stairway That Was 9/11 'Path to Freedom'
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/25/nyregion/25remnant.html?ex=1147406400&en=5efc350808165f03&ei=5070
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: November 25, 2005
These were the final steps.
After hundreds of workers made a terrifying floor-by-floor descent from their offices in the sky on 9/11, as the twin towers shuddered and rained ruin, they found a gangway to safety from the elevated plaza down the Vesey Street stairs.
"They were the path to freedom," recalled Kayla Bergeron, the chief of public and government affairs for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Her own 68-story journey ended as she walked down that staircase with Patty Clark, a senior aviation adviser at the authority, hand in hand for the last few yards to Vesey Street.
These are the final steps in another sense. The Vesey Street staircase, also called the "survivors' stairway," is the World Trade Center's last above-ground remnant.
It escapes much public attention because, from the street, it is almost unrecognizable.
Closer up, however, two flights of stairs come into view, next to what looks like a concrete slide but was once the base of an escalator. The upper steps still have their crisp granite treads. The lower steps are as craggy as a Roman antiquity. They convey a sense of human scale on the gigantically emptied landscape of ground zero.
But they also stand within the outline of the future Tower 2, an office building planned by Silverstein Properties. That is why a preservation effort has begun. Possibilities include moving the staircase elsewhere on the trade center site, making it an architectural feature attached to or enclosed by Tower 2, or - far less likely - redrawing the Tower 2 outline to avoid it.
"It's certainly a very significant remembrance of what happened that day," said Charles A. Gargano, vice chairman of the Port Authority, on a visit to the staircase last week with Ms. Bergeron and Ms. Clark. "Somehow I would hope that it can be preserved somewhere in the site, if not within Building 2."
The World Trade Center Survivors' Network hopes the stairs can stay rooted. "There's a great power in their being where they were," said Gerry Bogacz, a founding member of the group. "After the south tower collapsed, that was the only way anyone could get off the plaza."
Peg Breen, the president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, and Frank E. Sanchis III, the senior vice president of the Municipal Art Society, have also asked that the staircase be permanently preserved in place.
"There will never be another original element of the World Trade Center complex in its original street-level location," they wrote to the site's developer, Larry A. Silverstein, on Nov. 10.
Silverstein Properties had no comment.
'Survivors' Stairway' Is Marked as Endangered
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: May 10, 2006
The last above-ground remnant of the World Trade Center — a battered but still —recognizable staircase down which hundreds fled to safety on 9/11 from the inferno in the north tower — is one of the most endangered historical places in America, the National Trust for Historic Preservation said today.
Survivors Begin Effort to Save Stairway That Was 9/11 'Path to Freedom' (November 25, 2005) That is because it stands in the way of an office tower, designed by Norman Foster, that is planned on the same site by the developer Larry A. Silverstein. And neither Mr. Silverstein nor Lord Foster have said yet what they plan to do about the staircase.
"Silverstein Properties has not made a commitment to preserve the staircase and we're urging them to do so," said Richard Moe, the president of the trust, a private, nonprofit organization that uses its considerable influence in place of any actual regulatory power.
"It will be the most dramatic original piece of the site that will have meaning to generations to come," Mr. Moe said. "This obviously has national significance because 9/11 had such a cataclysmic effect."
The decision by the trust to place the "survivors' stairway" on its much-noted annual list of 11 endangered historical places will undoubtedly raise the profile of an overlooked but significant architectural artifact from Sept. 11, 2001.
Older story with picture:
Survivors Begin Effort to Save Stairway That Was 9/11 'Path to Freedom'
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/25/nyregion/25remnant.html?ex=1147406400&en=5efc350808165f03&ei=5070
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: November 25, 2005
These were the final steps.
After hundreds of workers made a terrifying floor-by-floor descent from their offices in the sky on 9/11, as the twin towers shuddered and rained ruin, they found a gangway to safety from the elevated plaza down the Vesey Street stairs.
"They were the path to freedom," recalled Kayla Bergeron, the chief of public and government affairs for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Her own 68-story journey ended as she walked down that staircase with Patty Clark, a senior aviation adviser at the authority, hand in hand for the last few yards to Vesey Street.
These are the final steps in another sense. The Vesey Street staircase, also called the "survivors' stairway," is the World Trade Center's last above-ground remnant.
It escapes much public attention because, from the street, it is almost unrecognizable.
Closer up, however, two flights of stairs come into view, next to what looks like a concrete slide but was once the base of an escalator. The upper steps still have their crisp granite treads. The lower steps are as craggy as a Roman antiquity. They convey a sense of human scale on the gigantically emptied landscape of ground zero.
But they also stand within the outline of the future Tower 2, an office building planned by Silverstein Properties. That is why a preservation effort has begun. Possibilities include moving the staircase elsewhere on the trade center site, making it an architectural feature attached to or enclosed by Tower 2, or - far less likely - redrawing the Tower 2 outline to avoid it.
"It's certainly a very significant remembrance of what happened that day," said Charles A. Gargano, vice chairman of the Port Authority, on a visit to the staircase last week with Ms. Bergeron and Ms. Clark. "Somehow I would hope that it can be preserved somewhere in the site, if not within Building 2."
The World Trade Center Survivors' Network hopes the stairs can stay rooted. "There's a great power in their being where they were," said Gerry Bogacz, a founding member of the group. "After the south tower collapsed, that was the only way anyone could get off the plaza."
Peg Breen, the president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, and Frank E. Sanchis III, the senior vice president of the Municipal Art Society, have also asked that the staircase be permanently preserved in place.
"There will never be another original element of the World Trade Center complex in its original street-level location," they wrote to the site's developer, Larry A. Silverstein, on Nov. 10.
Silverstein Properties had no comment.
