GROUND ZERO'S 'FOUNDATIONS'

The revised plans for "Memory Foundations" at Ground Zero are out. Architect Daniel Libeskind and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation made them public yesterday. Here's a quick news summary, and here's a more thorough report (free registration required). The plans still call for the world's tallest structure but also for slimmer office buildings and boxier designs than the angular structures Libeskind at first envisioned.

Here's what architecture critic Herbert Muschamp had to say (free registration required). He's underwhelmed. Here's what Libeskind himself had to say. He's happy. Have a look at his complete slide show and what he calls the signature images. Here's the "refined master site plan" and schematic images of both the original and revised designs, February 2003 vs. September 2003. Here, too, is a virtual tour of the train station now being built on the site.

For an official overview recapping the history of the design-selection process, < EM>go here; also have a look at an informal photo archive showing a timeline of developments in and around Ground Zero, as well as black-and-white illustrations of the "viewing wall" at the reconstruction site. (The wall images are worth seeing, but the texts are illegible.) Need to refresh your memory about the memorial itself? Here's the mission statement, and here are details about the competition.

Since Ground Zero and the surrounding neighborhood have become major tourist "attractions," it's worth having a look at some nearby points of interest, such as the National Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of Chinese in the Americas and the Fraunces Tavern Museum, which includes the Long Room, (a restored version of the 18th century public dining room) where George Washington made his famous farewell to his officers at the end of the Revolution; The New York City Fire Museum and The New York City Police Museum. And let's not forget the New Museum of Contemporary Art.