Let Genius Soar Above Tragedy

New York belongs to more than just New Yorkers, and so the debate over what to do with the World Trade Center site isn’t just a matter of what to do with 16 acres of suddenly vacant land in lower Manhattan. For Americans, New York is the Emerald City of our hopes, dreams and aspirations--a metaphor for all that is America.

The trade center’s towers were sufficiently brash to characterize the spirit of this exuberant nation and the chutzpah of its great commercial focus. It’s time for New York to snap out of its haze and start planning a project that recaptures that spirit for all of us.

Part of the charm of New York is the Godzilla-like conviction of its residents that size does matter, that bigger is better. But that cockiness has been strangely absent from the planning process. Trying to steer the course between the Scylla and Charybdis of commerce and memorials, the planning has been bland and uninspiring.

The planners don’t seem to realize it yet, but they will never be able to please those who want the site to be primarily a memorial, even if whatever buildings are constructed are scattered around a meditation park.

Certainly there is a need for introspection and careful thought after last year’s tragic events. But that doesn’t justify architectural designs that befit--as some critics have said--Albany.

Almost as an afterthought, after receiving Bronx cheers from Manhattan, the chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which is in charge of World Trade Center planning, said he would now welcome input from citizens throughout the country. Well, here’s one thought from one of those citizens: It’s time to unleash the nation’s, even the world’s, architectural and planning genius to come up with a design that truly soars.

Unconstrained by anyone’s knee-jerk preconditions--whether they be maintaining the sanctity of the actual footprints of the twin towers or the cash flow to the leaseholder--designers should be put to the task with the mandate to liberate their imagination and ingenuity in a roar sufficiently full-throated to match the site, to reflect the spirit of this nation and to commemorate what was once here.

Frank Lloyd Wright once dreamed of a mile-high building. Perhaps now its time will never come. But at least out-of-scale ideas like that should be on the table, along with others that have been lurking in the dreams and fantasies of architects who have never had the opportunity to design a monumental development for a site such as this. A design that tells the Osama bin Ladens of the world that they can’t keep the United States down.

If New Yorkers fail to grasp this opportunity, then they will have doomed all of us to a continuous vision of ... Albany.