Opinion

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04.21.04

Chipping Away At The Past

The New York Times Metro Section of April 16th 2003 had the front-page headline, ‘A Survivor Faces a Slow Death, Piece by Piece’. Wow! There’s a headline to grab one’s attention.

The article was about the Deutsche Bank Building, or One Bankers Plaza; a forty storey behemoth that stood proudly in the shadow of the Twin Towers, located at 130 Liberty Street.

Black steel and dark windows, full of some of the worlds greatest financial wiz kids, with trillions of dollars passing through it now gets ready to meet the cutters torch.

I was saddened when I read this. For two years, weather permitting, I and colleagues would grab our lunch and eat on the raised plaza area. From there we could bask in the sunshine, see the Hudson, watch the world go by from one storey up; but for me, just to eat in the presence of the twin towers was enough.

September 11th has come and gone and life certainly, no matter how painful, moves forward.

Confusing me right now is why this building has to be taken down? In the era of modern technology, especially in the construction trade, can’t this landmark can’t be saved or re-born as the term is often used when talking about downtown Manhattan . Indeed this building had a special meaning to the towers. It was physically connected to them via a foot bridge over Liberty Street almost akin to an umbilical cord.

The main reason given is the contaminants that now have polluted the building as well as the instability.

Modern engineering can surely stabilize the building. The visible gash it sustained after the towers collapse has since been reinforced with new steel beams to withstand the forces of fierce winds. If they could have built the world’s greatest Twin Towers , forty years ago, as well as keep the mighty Hudson River out I am sure that they can fix this one!

But contamination is a tricky one. No matter what, there were many other buildings contaminated, not forgetting residential apartments.  They have been reoccupied. Add all this information together and I still cannot see why?

The towers fell and One Bankers Plaza still stood; open and wounded but it still stood; like a soldier manning his post no matter what the circumstances of the battle are.

In the article Gov. George Pataki has said, back on February 27th 2003 , that in the realms of the Libeskind Plan because of the painful reminder of the building and its connection to September 11th it [ One Bankers Plaza ] had to go.

Hold on George! Rewind a little. Didn’t you say in support of President George Bush’s ad campaign using visual images of Ground Zero that you supported the President in using those graphics because, and I quote, ‘ we should never forget the events of September 11th’?

What’s its going to be George, forget it or remember it? Please make up your mind, as the voters are getting confused. I surely am. The more I read this article the more I became upset and confused at political garbage.

On another point I keep reading about the Libeskind vision of downtown. Is he proposing that we flatten it and start all over again?  This is like painting over the Mona Lisa and starting over again!

This action, this demolition will take another 1.4 million square feet of office space away from New York . It’s already tight! Kevin M. Rampe, the President of the LMDC says that taking down the building is an important symbol of Lower Manhattan ’s rebirth. What rebirth? There’s no Phoenix Rising from the Ashes? Lower Manhattan is not waiting to be re-born it’s waiting to be rebuilt!

We should not be wiping away icons of our past. A building that was nearly as old as the Twin Towers, a building where people died, that was initially thought to be on the verge of collapse and stood;  that took the full force of the first towers demise. We should be rejoicing in its strength.

The terrorist failed to bring any others down, but we are doing just that. This sickens me.

Next door to the Deutsche Bank building stands 90 West Street , for nearly 100 years.

Designed by Cass Gilbert in 1907(who also designed the Woolworth Building ). This was my office, on the 13th floor I may add.

The collapse of the South Tower left its scars on 90 West taking some heavy blows from steel and concrete battering the north face. It suffered badly. Beautiful ornate stone works damaged, ripped away, floors missing and raging fires ensued leaving it bewildered.  The same pollutants engulfed it the same way it did its neighbor. Yet there is no desire to bring it to the ground, but in fact bring it back to life.

One Bankers Plaza did not have the same aesthetic appeal or old world architecture as 90 West Street does but it’s an integral part of downtown Manhattan . Is it really an eye sore? I don’t think so.

Why has Deutsche Bank decided to write off their building? I can only imagine it’s from a financial point of view and nothing else. Couple that with a few political big-wigs, who can survive? One Bank Plaza definitely cannot. To quote an old work colleague, ‘welcome to corporate America ’!

One Bankers Plaza will be immortalized in the people that worked there, that died there, in the memory of millions that simply walked past and in the Miramax movie ‘Hamlet’. The fountain below the public plaza became the attention of the movie makers for some scenes.

It’s a shame that we have to slowly chip away at the past. On one hand we are told to never forget the events of 9/11, not that anyone in the world could, and on the other hand we are told to do the opposite.

As the New York Times article stated, just like the Singer Building in 1968, One Bankers Plaza will no so much disappear as simply pass from the scene.

Click Here to read the New York Times Article (pdf)  

Dennis