NEW YORK | 175 Greenwich St. | 1,079 FT | 80 FLOORS

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by pattali

Any rendering from PA ?

They haven't released any renderings, for obvious reasons, but its basically the same plan they did release renderings for a few years ago.

[NYguy]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05122009...sey_168841.htm

SPEAKING POWER TO JERSEY

POST EDITORIAL
May 12, 2009

Way to go, Shelly Silver.

"Seven years and eight months after the [9/11] attacks," Silver fumed on Friday, "I am fed up with the stalling and exasperated with the current state of the World Trade Center project."

Hear, hear.

The fact that the project has faltered yet again is an infamy.

It is not only New York that is shamed by this; the nation stands humiliated before the world.

A heroic response to Islamic terror? A show of strength and resilience?

Forget that.

The latest?

Developer Larry Silverstein, who holds the lease on the World Trade Center site, is again at swords' points with the Port Authority. He needs the agency's help with financing in a tough credit market.

But the agency -- a tool used expertly by New Jersey to aid that state at New York's expense -- openly admits that it prefers projects like a new cross-Hudson commuter train tunnel to restoring Ground Zero to normalcy.

And with David Paterson having long since evaporated, Silver has stepped up.

For all our disagreements with the Assembly speaker, we'll give Silver this much: He can be tough when it counts.

"There are other things [NJ Gov. Jon] Corzine wants from the Port Authority," Silver says. "We're either going to accommodate each other or stalemate each other."

Now, no one should want a stalemate.

Yet, clearly, the PA has no intention of letting Ground Zero reconstruction go forward on anything but its own terms.

So if it takes Silver shutting down projects that are important to New Jersey, then we say: Shut 'em down.

Sure, talk first. And, happily, Mayor Bloomberg graciously has offered to host negotiations at Gracie Mansion.

Such a conversation might even succeed -- if Silver makes crystal clear that the price of failure would be a stalemated cross-Hudson train tunnel.

Paterson is hopeless.

So, Silver to the rescue.

[NYguy]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05122009...erg_168813.htm

ENTER, BLOOMBERG
MAYOR JOINING GROUND ZERO FRAY


May 12, 2009

SO Mayor Bloomberg has invited all of Ground Zero's squabbling tribes to Gracie Mansion soon "to find a way to align incentives and keep progress moving," he said.

That's good news, and we're delighted the mayor apparently took to heart The Post's advice on this page back on April 20; our column that day was headlined: "It's Up to Mike -- Ground Zero Rebuild Needs a Rescuer."

We said that in the absence of leadership from Albany, the warring players at the World Trade Center site needed a "boss, referee or honest broker" to mediate the dangerous impasse between Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority -- a role that must fall to Bloomberg.

Thanks to Ground Zero's overcrowded site plan, the logjam threatens not only the office towers the two sides are fighting over, but everything else on the 16-acre site, even the memorial; too much interlocked infrastructure gives each side the ability to thwart the other.

The best news would be for Bloomberg to perform a task that's beyond Gov.-in-name-only Paterson: Namely, to tell New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and Port Authority chiefs Anthony Coscia and Chris Ward to shut up about scratching two of Silverstein's three planned office towers. Instead, they need to shrink the PA's grandiose, wildly over-budget, useless "World Trade Center Transportation Hub" -- an elephantine PATH terminal for a handful of Jersey commuters.

The PA's threat is merely its latest negotiating ploy against Silverstein, who earlier buffaloed the agency by demanding that it provide "backstop" financing for two of the towers. But all the bickering over the commercial space has served the PA well by diverting attention from the PATH fiasco.

New York Times architectural critic Nicolai Ouroussoff yesterday persuasively dissected the Santiago Calatrava-designed project's "fatal flaw: the striking incongruity between the extravagance of the architecture and the limited purpose it serves." Translation: a $3.2 billion (and counting) white elephant that, thanks to the need to traverse endless underground concourses, would be inconvenient even for the handful of commuters it would serve.

What's more, the project is so big that its engineering requirements get in the way of finishing everything around it.

It might be too much to hope that the PA could be prevailed upon to scale back its signature scheme, even though the agency still has no honest idea how much it would cost or how long it would take to finish. The PA has yet even to bid out the job's major components. It's possible that no contractor will offer to build the famous above-ground "wings" for anything like what the PA can spend.

But it's worth Bloomberg's trying. This is the mayor who took control of the city's public-education system despite howls from unions and their political stooges that he couldn't do it, just as Rudy Giuliani curbed crime against resistance from everywhere; to courageously establish a new agenda and see it through is called leadership.

And if it takes a great leap of courage on the mayor's part to adjust the PA's Ground Zero agenda, so be it. Political courage has been sorely lacking at Ground Zero ever since Gov. George Pataki inflicted the illogical master plan on us -- a stroke that victimized Silverstein and the PA equally.

Last week, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver -- the state's supposed master wheeler-and-dealer, who has been utterly impotent in getting anything done at or near Ground Zero -- called the WTC site's condition an "embarrassment."

How's that for originality? Your turn, Mayor Mike.

[NYguy]

More from "As the World Trade Center Turns"...

http://www.globest.com/news/1408_140...-1.html?st=rss
Silverstein: 2004 WTC Plan Must Stand

By Cody Lyon
May 12, 2009

Responding to the buzz created by a New York Daily News story Monday that details an "incredible shrinking World Trade Center," Janno Lieber, president of Larry Silverstein’s World Trade Center Properties, says in a statement that the developer is "committed to the plan all stakeholders agreed on in 2004 and reaffirmed in 2006."

But sources familiar with Port Authority goings-on tell GlobeSt.com that the information in the Daily News story has been in the public domain for weeks, if not months. They say that the Port Authority’s position is that Silverstein’s Tower 4 should be built while 2 and 3 shouldn’t move up to skyscraper status until there’s a market to handle the office space Downtown.

For its part, Silverstein’s World Trade Center Properties says via Lieber that fully developing the site called Ground Zero is "essential so that Downtown can re-emerge as an economic powerhouse for New York City." Speaking to the 2006 agreement, Lieber adds that the Port Authority "received more than $2 billion out of the rebuilding fund based on their promise to cooperate in executing that exact vision. Now, with 10,000 construction workers standing ready to get to work, there is absolutely no reason for turning our backs on the promises."

[djvandrake]

I can't say that I'm really all that surprised by this to be honest. (Meaning the push to delay towers 2 and 3). I think it's an uber-dumb idea to do that just because today's market place is considerably softer than what it was when these designs came off the boards. Buildings of these size take years to design, construct, and lease out and if you cancel everything because the markets a bit soft at one time or another then nothing will ever get built.

Some of the most iconic buildings rose during the worst of times.

I will be really, really upset if political wrangling delays towers 2 and 3. I absolutely love them and think they'll be a signature sight for the city and nation. They will be filled, New York is too valuable of an office market for these to go begging.

[NYCLuver]

I'll take the towers over the Transportation Hub anyday.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by NYCLuver

I'll take the towers over the Transportation Hub anyday.

Ironically, it's the towers that would at least give some justification for building the expensive train station...

New York Times architectural critic Nicolai Ouroussoff yesterday persuasively dissected the Santiago Calatrava-designed project's "fatal flaw: the striking incongruity between the extravagance of the architecture and the limited purpose it serves." Translation: a $3.2 billion (and counting) white elephant...

[CoolCzech]

So build a conventional station and spend the billions on towers 2 and 3. No Brainer, DUH!

[pattali]

Or build tower 2 & 3 , temporary station is in place, Calatrava's station will be build later. Maybe a less extravagance of the station's architecture...

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by CoolCzech

So build a conventional station and spend the billions on towers 2 and 3. No Brainer, DUH!

There's already a perfectly working station there now, they don't have to do anything further to it. However, those in charge know that if those billions aren't spent on the extravagant Calatrava terminal now, it never will be. But you really can't justify that kind of expenditure without the office towers present. Even moreso when you take into account that some of the exits will be in the towers themselves.

[Nomadd22]

Originally Posted by NYguy

There's already a perfectly working station there now, they don't have to do anything further to it. However, those in charge know that if those billions aren't spent on the extravagant Calatrava terminal now, it never will be. But you really can't justify that kind of expenditure without the office towers present. Even moreso when you take into account that some of the exits will be in the towers themselves.

I'd guess there'd be a big difference in standards between a station meant to last 8 years and one meant to last 200.
I can understand the bosses not wanting someone's first impression of New York being that roller skating rink they have now.

[theWatusi]

Understood, but the monstrosity that is the Calatrava station is a huge waste of money.

[JohnFlint1985]

It is a shame that after so many years, so much talk, going back and forth with designs and memorials, stopping the construction and starting it again we got to the point that we consider not building it at all. I should say - everything is vital to this place - buildings and station worthy of Manhattan.

I never wanted to compare us to Dubai or China, but it seems that the only people that have real guts don't live here anymore and immigrated to these distant lands. It is just simply unbelievable that no one seems to want to look into the future. Crisis is ending already. Slowly but true. Manhattan should retain the crown of being financial capital of the world and to that end it should have iconic skyline, buildings, transportation system and other accessories of truly great city. And we cannot rely on the 70 years old classic heritage in this - we need something new and equally striking as ESB used to be in 1930s. Otherwise NYC s we know it will come to a quick and resolute end as the capital of world.

[nygirl1]

New Yorkers and Americans deserve better than this. Down with the Port Authority!

[CoolCzech]

Originally Posted by Nomadd22

I'd guess there'd be a big difference in standards between a station meant to last 8 years and one meant to last 200.
I can understand the bosses not wanting someone's first impression of New York being that roller skating rink they have now.

You're making the assumption "the bosses" of the PA give two squirts of monkey piss about anyone's impression.

That's a mighty big assumption.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Nomadd22

I'd guess there'd be a big difference in standards between a station meant to last 8 years and one meant to last 200.
I can understand the bosses not wanting someone's first impression of New York being that roller skating rink they have now.

I don't know what you're talking about. Have you ever been in the PATH station at all? The station that's there is fine. They're not moving anything, just building an extravagant concourse, ironically somewhat removed away from the actual station. Do you get that at all? What you may percieve as the actually station is just an extravagant shopping mall.

What's more, it's a slap in the face to the people who actually have to use the station...

Originally Posted by NY Times

And in a particularly perverse decision PATH riders won’t be able to get from the train platforms directly to the street. Instead they will have to walk halfway along the hall’s upper balcony and past dozens of shops before exiting into one of the flanking towers — a suffocating experience no matter how beautiful the spaces turn out to be.

[Nomadd22]

Originally Posted by NYguy

I don't know what you're talking about. Have you ever been in the PATH station at all? The station that's there is fine. They're not moving anything, just building an extravagant concourse, ironically somewhat removed away from the actual station. Do you get that at all? What you may percieve as the actually station is just an extravagant shopping mall.

What's more, it's a slap in the face to the people who actually have to use the station...

Unlike yourself, it wasn't my intention to insult anybody. And how implying that the temp station wasn't what lower Manhattan deserved was a slap in the face of the commuters using it is beyond me.
I'm not sure why your civility took leave all of a sudden. This place had been one of the rare pleasures to visit. Guess all things come to an end.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Nomadd22

I'm not sure why your civility took leave all of a sudden. This place had been one of the rare pleasures to visit. Guess all things come to an end.

How you see yourself as insulted is beyond me. But, goodbye.

[NewYorker2009]

I really don't think the complex needs the Calatrava Hub but the Port Authority is all about transportation and by building this would be more of a permanent PATH station but the temporary one by Vessy Street is great, I've been there several times so it should be permanent. They better not build the Performing Arts Center if they even dare to cancel Towers 2 and 3. The site needs 2 and 3 and it would fill out nicely. Seriously if they decide to cancel Towers 2 and 3 which I hope not then I say a bunch of New Yorkers burn down the Performing Arts Center if gets built because no one needs that shit.

[A-K O.G.]

http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/po...de-center.html

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