Freedom tower yet to replace World Trade Centre

They call it "the pit", hardly a heroic nickname for the hallowed ground in Lower Manhattan where so many died on September 11, 2001. But that is what it has become, a huge, square sinkhole of barren grey cement and concrete, with a few patches of green where a few hardy saplings have taken root.

Tourists still come here, even though high fences mean they can see little. They arrive to pay their respects and to see what is going on. It is nearly four years since the two airliners brought havoc, and more than two years since the city selected a blueprint by Germany's Daniel Libeskind to repopulate the 6ha site with shiny new edifices, including a signature building, the Freedom Tower, that was to rise to 1776ft (540m) to echo the year of America's independence.

Yet, the visitors will be disappointed and probably a little baffled. A part of the pit has been invaded by the already completed new Path train station linking Lower Manhattan to New Jersey. And just to the north is a new, 52-storey glass box to replace 7 World Trade Centre. It will be completed early next year.

Otherwise all is still. Zero is exactly what is going on at Ground Zero. Everyone knows this is no ordinary public-works project.

While it is riddled with complicated engineering challenges, the emotional dimensions are equally fraught. And what emerges will be a statement to the world of New York's resilience and its ability to stand up to terrorism.

Things began to go awry last month, with word that brokerage house Goldman Sachs was giving up on plans to build a new US$2 billion ($2.8 billion) headquarters adjacent to Ground Zero and had begun looking at options elsewhere.

Then the thunderbolt landed - a leaked memo from the Police Department revealed it could not certify that the Freedom Tower would be safe from another attack.

The advisory triggered a string of events. Governor George Pataki, who, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, laid a cornerstone for the Freedom Tower last July, was forced to concede that the entire structure would have to go back to the drawing board.

That meant the goal of completing the building by 2009 would be delayed by at least a year. Some said the hiccup could be even more serious and that it may be 2011 before the ribbon is cut - a full 10 years after the Twin Towers fell.

It didn't take long for the finger-pointing. The police memo said the tower would stand only 8m from the nearest street and would, therefore, be vulnerable to an attack by a truck bomb. They said it should be moved and reinforced. But why were they coming forward only now, when the developer who will rebuild Ground Zero, Larry Silverstein, already had the permits to start?

Part of the problem is the number of players involved. One agency, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, is meant to be guiding the project.

BUT jostling in the wings are the Empire State Development Corporation, the New York Police Department, the Metropolitan Transport Authority, the Port Authority, which owns the land, the developer Silverstein, Pataki and Bloomberg, and other New York politicians.

"I don't want to say the police have been irresponsible, but where were they until this month?" chafed John Whitehead, the chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

But, according to police officials, the department had been privately warning of the safety concerns since last August. The memo, addressed to Silverstein, was leaked in late April, it seems, only out of frustration because no one seemed to be paying attention.

The arrows have mostly flown in Pataki's direction. A Republican, he has yet to decide whether to run for a third term next year but there are consistent, if slightly unconvincing, murmurings about him running for President in 2008.

If he can't get something as crucial as the redevelopment of Ground Zero right, what can he do?

He has responded to the crisis vigorously, appointing his second-in-command in the state capital of Albany, John Cahill, to knock heads.

He also gave his security adviser, a former New York FBI chief, Jim Kallstrom, the job of ensuring the buildings as finally drawn are as safe from attack as possible. "Failure to rebuild is not an option," the Governor bravely said. "We will not tolerate unnecessary delays."

Criticism has also been levelled at Mayor Bloomberg, whose re-election is already on him with New Yorkers voting in the mayoral contest in November.

He has been accused of paying too little attention to Ground Zero, putting his energies instead into winning the battle to place a giant new football stadium further to the north over rail yards on Manhattan's West Side, a project that is critical to New York winning the Olympic bid.

Even the architectural lines of command have long been blurred. The Freedom Tower, a twisting obelisk of steel and glass comprising about 2.6 million sq/ft of office space and capped by a multi-storey skeleton structure fitted with wind turbines and a soaring spire to evoke the Statue of Liberty's torch, was first drawn by Libeskind.

His design was then significantly modified by Silverstein's architect, David Childs, of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Childs has now been told to modify it a third time and has been given until the end of this month to come forward with a safer model. Libeskind is almost out of the picture.

Slightly less chaotic, but only just, is the progress towards constructing the memorial to the 2800 people killed at the site that will occupy the core of Ground Zero. Consisting of two square voids where the Twin Towers once stood, water will fall into pools skirting the voids, and ramps will lead to underground visitor areas.

Ground for the memorial is due to be broken early next year and it should be opened on September 11, 2009. If Childs can come up with an alternative design to satisfy police by June, the political panic may fade a little.

"The delay is being so overplayed, it's ridiculous," protested Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation. "If it's going to be delayed by a year, well, what can you do? It's going to be there for 100 years."

He has a point. The imperative to demonstrate that New York will not be cowed by terrorists creates a pressure to replace the void in Manhattan's skyline as quickly as possible.

But everyone wants to get this right and the hoo-ha of the past month has triggered a rash of soul-seeking about the enterprise. How many really liked the Libeskind vision and the Freedom Tower in the first place?

First to the microphone was the property mogul Donald Trump, lambasting the tower as, "the worst pile of crap architecture I've ever seen in my life".

Trump then unveiled a competing design, basically a revamping of the original Twin Towers - Twin Towers II - though one storey taller than the originals. Libeskind's office tartly replied that Trump had given his reborn Twin Towers an additional floor only to make room to place his name in bold letters.

But when the rebuilding is done, who will use the buildings? Is Ground Zero a place where corporations will want to be? Will even the public spaces work as envisaged?

For sure, people will queue to visit the memorial, but less sure are the plans for a cultural centre and a theatre space. No one doubts there must be rebuilding but will what emerges turn out to be an exceptionally costly white elephant?

Above all, is it necessary to cram the site with so much new office and retail space? The vacancy rate for commercial space in Downtown New York is about 17 per cent.

Strikingly, no one has expressed interest in relocating to the Freedom Tower when it is finished. And Silverstein has not been able to find a single tenant for 7 World Trade Centre.

On top of that is the chill that has been cast over the area by the reluctance of Goldman Sachs to stick around. If the bank doesn't want to be there, who will?

Tellingly, when Pataki pleaded with the Port Authority to move 2000 of its employees into 7 World Trade Centre when it opens, the agency demurred. Its response was not surprising - 75 of the agency's employees were killed in the terrorist attacks and no one wants to go back.

Cathy Pavelec, who retired from the agency in January, said, "Somebody tried to kill me. Somebody tried to kill the people who sat next to me. Would you want to go back?"

Some argue that now is the time to re-think the project. "What lower Manhattan needs more than anything is housing," says Paul Goldberger, dean of the Parsons School of Design.

But it is almost certainly too late for such a wholesale change of direction. When the present bout of butterflies subsides, New York will doubtless proceed with plans not so far removed from those first tabled by Libeskind.

- INDEPENDENT