What do New Jerseyans want to see when they look at the Manhattan skyline that was once defined by the World Trade Center? We found people equally divided between wishes for a quiet memorial and hopes for two soaring towers.
The Skyline Looks Empty
“I would rather see two large towers like the World Trade Center,” says Irfan Madeef, a computer science major at Rutgers-Newark. Madeef is concerned that smaller buildings will not have the same effect as the twin towers.
“The New York skyline was nice before. It had a nice view. New York is famous for its three landmarks: the twin towers, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty,” he added. “Today when I look at New York’s skyline, there is an empty spot. Without the World Trade Center twin towers, the skyline looks empty.”
A Simple, Discreet Memorial
When he worked at the World Trade Center as a computer programmer, Roland Ojong rushed down from the 69th floor of the south tower to the first floor daily to grab lunch. Even though he does not miss that part of his day, he did enjoy working in the World Trade Center.
What would he like to see within the new skyline? “I don’t think that the World Trade Center should be replicated back to its original form,” he says. “A memorial of some kind should be built, discreet in size, simple in nature. A large structure that sticks out like a sore thumb may only encourage another terrorist attack,” says Ojong.
“If offices are rebuilt in that area, I would never work there because it would feel too awkward,” he explained. Ojong now works 20 minutes from Ground Zero in Manhattan on the seventh floor of what used to be an abandoned warehouse. “I feel safer closer to the ground,” he says.
Rebuild the World Trade Center
“Just build them the way they were,” says Jeff Sobel, who used to work and play at the World Trade Center.
Sobel works at the United Way of Essex and West Hudson in Newark, N.J. On September 11, 2001, he was on McCullen Street in Newark, whose architecture allowed him to see straight across the Hudson River to the World Trade Center. He would go there every Thursday night during the summers to relax with co-workers at Windows on the World.
When Sobel closes his eyes, he can still see that vision he saw from McCullen Street early that fateful morning—a sight that he will never forget. He watched the planes fly into the side of the building.
The only structures that he wants to see in that space are the towers rebuilt in their previous form. Sobel recalls that co-workers, friends and family members would complain that the buildings were difficult to navigate and a hassle to get around. He is guilty of such complaints himself. But, despite the imperfections, he says, the World Trade Center had charm. “It was a love/hate relationship.”
Sobel speaks of a renewed sense of pride after 9/11. He could not believe how many people had American flags in their cars and in front of their houses. “You felt that you were weird if you didn’t put up a flag.”
In keeping with this sense of newfound pride, he reiterates that the World Trade Center should be rebuilt. To Sobel, rebuilding the towers on a smaller scale would be living in fear, like crawling into a hole to hide. Sobel believes that as the economic center of the world, Americans need to show themselves as well as the rest of the world that we will not falter. He also wants to see a monument next to the rebuilt towers—“not to be morbid,” he says, but to mark the beginning of change.
A Cemetery and a Sanctuary
The weather is pleasant and the sky is clear. It is a calm, peaceful and uneventful fall day at the Exchange Place Waterway in Jersey City—unlike the day of Sept. 11 just over a year ago.
As the workday comes to a close, people are beginning to spill out of the surrounding office buildings. Carlton Butler, a well-groomed, tall, slender African American, fashionably dressed in business attire, his necktie loosened around his open shirt collar, sits on a bench with his legs crossed and sprawled out before him. Smoking a cigarette, he reflects on 9/11.
Looking across the Hudson to the site where the World Trade Center once was, Butler says, “It looks like it never happened.” Then he nods his head toward the ferry’s passengers as they board and depart the water ferry to commute across the Hudson to and from Exchange Place and Battery Park. “We’re already back to normal. I tell you it’s all about money and oil.”
“We’re already talking about what we’re going to build there. And if you have any moral sense at all, there should be nothing there. I don’t care how much money we lose; it’s a cemetery as far as I’m concerned. “I wouldn’t work there for all the money in the world. Three thousand people died there,” says Butler. “You can’t just dig up a cemetery and build something on top of it because the land is valuable.”
Butler feels the World Trade Center site is hallowed ground. He envisions a historical sanctuary commemorating 9/11: a botanical landscape filled with monuments, art, sculptures and reflection areas for prayer and candle-lighting. Butler believes it is very important for the victims’ family members and loved ones and for mourners to have a place of remembrance honoring the victims of 9/11.
Butler doesn’t want the site to become a big real estate venture that totally disregards the memory of the victims. He thinks we are forgetting what’s important: “that thousands of lives were lost,” and we are losing sight of what’s “morally right.”
“There’s a reason why the terrorists chose to knock those particular buildings down on 9/11 in the first place. They wanted to hit America’s power and money. I’m afraid if we rebuild something on that site, the terrorists will only be back.”
A Park
Mawuli Ahiekpor, a graphic design and computer art major at Rutgers-Newark, suggests that in rebuilding the Lower Manhattan skyline, New York “should place something there that will take people’s minds off the tragedy.”
“A park that will liven up the place, something that would not make it so gloomy. Cafes, a small park with a maze that will bring hope back to that area, water fountains in the center of it to be the memorial, something that will say why this was done.”
Ahiekpor says it is easy to get swept away in immortalizing the dead. He believes it would be best to replace the towers with something that reminds the living that there is hope in the future. “Since it was the place of a tragedy, you need something that will take away the dismal aura of that area, so by adding these things it will bring a sense of peace.”
As for the gap in the skyline, Ahiekpor believes that as a matter of safety it should remain that way. With all of the tall buildings in New York that pose a safety risk to its inhabitants, “why add more? Even though it is a painful reminder, the building could never be replaced, he says. “New Yorkers don’t need anything else to worry about.”
A View From Hoboken
Hoboken, N.J., is across the Hudson River from Manhattan. Before 9/11, if Hoboken residents looked up, the magnificent sight of the World Trade Center was a part of their daily routine.
More than a year after 9/11, with the World Trade Center missing from his accustomed view of the skyline, Ron Iannotti of Hoboken wants to see something that shouts out from across the Hudson River to Hoboken residents. “I want to see a large memorial shooting straight into the sky,” says Iannotti. “Just like the Washington Monument in D.C.”
Iannotti is not concerned that something tall and magnificent, like the World Trade Center, will become a possible target. He emphasizes the fact that we survived. “A monument like the one in D.C. goes to show that we will go on.”
No More Tall Buildings
Nydjira Smith, a security guard from Newark, knows one thing for sure about the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site: “I don’t want to see any more tall buildings,” she says.” Only because I feel as though it if happened once, it could happen again.”
She isn’t sure what she wants to see when she looks across the Hudson River at the rebuilt skyline, but she wants “average-sized buildings—nothing as big as the twin towers.”
Rebuild
Ronald Shanks of Sicklerville, N.J., says, “When I look across the river at the trade center, I hope that it’ll be rebuilt exactly the same way it was.” Shanks hopes that nothing will be changed in the restored structures so that one day he can visit the buildings he never got a chance to see up close before 9/11. And he wants to see one thing more: “They should put up a wall between the two buildings where all the names of our brothers and sisters who died that day can be seen so they won’t be forgotten.”
A Museum
Prospere Baptiste of Irvington, N.J., a real estate broker who emigrated from Haiti and has been living in New Jersey for 17 years, believes that “a museum for the memory of all victims would be the best option, the best project on the site of the World Trade Center.” He says, “The museum is going to attract more tourists and will remain for reminding all coming generations about the tragedy of September 11.”
Reconstruct
Joseph Sylvain, a yellow taxi cab driver from Haiti who works in New York City and lives in Irvington, wants to see the World Trade Center reconstructed.
“New York City and the World Trade Center are twin sisters or brothers. They can’t be disassociated. There is no New York City without the World Trade Center, and there is no World Trade Center without New York City.”
“Tourists always ask me to go there first to visit the historic site, and I feel proud. The World Trade Center is a matter of business for the city and also for taxi cab drivers,” says Sylvain.
Two Towers
Eon Vieira, a 28-year-old line chef at C-Side in Jersey City and New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, hopes the new New York City skyline will continue the tradition of the twin towers. “The World Trade Center made New York’s skyline unique,” Vieira says. When his daily train commute included the view of the skyline, the towers entranced Vieira. But “right now, it’s just empty,” he says.
Vieira, realizing the importance of constructing a memorial to those who died or are suffering due to 9/11, still thinks the new architectural design for the World Trade Center site should mirror the original area. “People used to travel to New York City just to see the towers. A memorial should be there to remember the people, not focus on the tragedy,” says Vieira. Still, for Vieira, the twin towers are what made the City: “I’d like to see two towers again.”
By Elise Anne Revere, Yvonne Lardizabal, Sieanyene Bowman, Pierre Louis, Mahako Etta, Jeuel Cato, Bernice Wise, Tricia Sartori, Donneil Jackson and Lydia Baker. All are fall 2002 Basic Reporting students at Rutgers-Newark.
