NEW YORK | Decision to market Freedom Tower as 1 WTC

[NYguy]

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...roars-back/?hp

The ‘Freedom Tower’ Name Roars Back

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By David W. Dunlap
March 27, 2009


For more than a year, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had been quietly backing away from the name “Freedom Tower” for 1 World Trade Center, not so much eliminating the coinage (by Gov. George E. Pataki) as lowering its profile.

Although the authority would not say so, it is easy to imagine that prospective tenants — already worried about moving into a building that will almost certainly occupy some terrorists’ cross hairs — could not have been comforted by a name with such potent political symbolism.

Of course, that symbolism is exactly what appeals to those who favor the name.

So when The Daily News and The New York Post reported on Friday what readers of City Room have known since March 2008, a fresh debate erupted over what to call what will be the tallest building in New York.


Mr. Pataki and a number of relatives of 9/11 victims — who often did not see eye to eye when he was governor — strongly criticized the idea of abandoning the name “Freedom Tower.”

As Mr. Pataki told City Room last year: “It is a little troubling to me that again there is a 1 World Trade Center, because a lot of great people and a lot of true heroes died in 1 World Trade Center. I think that name should be reserved, for those who did die on that horrible day.”

By mid-morning, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg joined the debate during his weekly radio program with John Gambling on WOR-AM. He said:

Well, it’s up to the Port Authority. If it were me and I didn’t have to rent space, I have no idea what the commercial aspects are and we can say, ‘Oh, we shouldn’t worry about that,’ but of course you have to, particularly now. I would like to see it stay the Freedom Tower, but it’s their building and they don’t need me dumping on it. If they could rent the whole thing by changing the name, I guess they’re going to do that and they probably, from a responsible point of view, should.

Mr. Bloomberg added, “If they name this 1 World Trade Center, people will still call it the Freedom Tower.”

Port Authority officials made the same point during a news conference after Thursday’s board meeting. The subject came up in part because a news release about the first commercial lease in the building put the words “Freedom Tower” in parentheses and partly because a post on City Room, followed by an article in The Times, referred to the building as having once been called Freedom Tower.

“Let’s talk about the reality of the real estate market and popular names,” Christopher O. Ward, the executive director of the authority, said at the question-and-answer session. “There are a lot of buildings that have popular names. If the Freedom Tower is the popular name as people think about this, that will be the choice of the people and how they think of downtown. On the other hand, this is a piece of real estate, it has an address; legally it is 1 World Trade Center.”

Anthony R. Coscia, the chairman of the authority, said: “As we market the building, we will ensure that the building is presented in the best possible way. One World Trade Center is its address, it’s the address that we’re using. It’s the one that’s easiest for people to identify with and frankly we’ve gotten a very interested and warm reception to it.”