It looks like the World Trade Center Memorial has hit a delay. Originally scheduled to open on September 11, 2009, the Port Authority said today that it won't be ready until 2011, the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks. The delays only came to light after construction began and the agency could give a more realistic timeline. A Port Authority spokeswoman said, "We see the reality, and want to operate on responsible timelines. We'll work......

On Sunday's Gothamist publishes opinions submitted to us by readers, in this case Andrew Bast. These opinions do not necessarily represent those of Gothamist LLC or its editors. Almost two years ago, Governor George Pataki helped to lay the 20-ton, Adirondack granite cornerstone for the Freedom Tower. And it wasn't until just this past month that the financial bickering between Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority were finally sorted out so construction could begin in......

The World Trade Center memorial, Reflecting Absence, will finally gets the chance to change from design to reality as crews prepare the area at Ground Zero for the memorial. However, some families of September 11 victims are still upset with the design and plan to protest today at noon. Their main complaints are that the memorial does not preserve the footprints of the old WTC building, the memorial is submerged in the ground and......

This is what all the testing with the Canadian fountain consultant has determined: The waterfalls at the World Trade Center memorial will be turned off during the winter, for fear of injuring visitors with flying droplets of ice. The LMDC decided to "winterize" the waterfalls because it would cost four times more (than the maintenance?) to heat the water for the falls to run smoothly. While the decision was the fiscally practical one, a mother......

NY1 reports that the WTC Memorial, Reflecting Absence, has been tested by a fountain consultant. The consultant constructed a "full-scale mock-up of some fountain configurations" to look for "potential problems with freezing and winter conditions"; the design has two pools in the footprints of the old World Trade Center Towers, with waterfalls around them. Outgoing Lower Manhattan Development Corportation President Kevin Rampe says that memorial groundbreaking is still "on track" for 2006, even in spite......

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation announced that the WTC rebuild "would necessarily involve significant traffic, noise and short-term air quality impacts during its construction period." Thanks for pointing that out! Gothamist guesses that it's the LMDC's job to put it on the books that they know these things, but we feel that most people might infer that building an almost 2,000-foot high skyscraper, a new PATH station, a memorial, new plazas, parks, streets, etc., would......

The Times reports that a slew of top design firms have applied to beomce the "associate architect" of the WTC memorial, Reflecting Absence, alongside Michael Arad and Peter Walker. Reporter David Dunlap says this could be a sign that the project is too huge in scope for Arad Walker (or any small team). And let's face it, NYC design firms have been wanting to get into the redesign of the WTC, given the democratic process......

While the purpose of the Times article about selected WTC memorial Reflecting Absence is to explain how landscape architect Peter Walker joined original designer Michael Arad, the real story is about designer and WTC memorial juror Maya Lin. Lin, who designed the Vietnam War Memorial as well as the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, AL, as well as a dreamy Wave Field at University of Michigan, was a supporter of Reflecting Absence. The article......

The design, Reflecting Absence, by Michael Arad and new collaborator, Peter Walker, was selected to be the WTC Memorial. This design incorporate two submerged pools in the space where the towers once stood. Arad, an architect with the City Housing Authority, worked with Walker, a landscape architect who formerly headed the Harvard Landscape Architect Department; the Times has more about both designers. Mayor Bloomberg is especially proud that Arad is a city employee. The......

The unveiling of the eight finalists for the WTC Memorial was met with a range of reactions, from inspired and pleased to underwhelmed and disappointed. The NY Times has had excellent coverage of the competition and they have a special section on the Memorial. Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp gives his assessment both in print and in an audio slide slow: Muschamp credits the WTC memorial competition staff for running the competition well and......