September 11th, 9 years after the attacks of WTC

                                 Ground Zero Memorial

Source: www.speakup.com.br

Language level: Advanced

Standard:British accent

September 11th is a dark Day for Americans and this year, which marked the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, was no exception. Next year, the tenth anniversary, will be even worse. And yet September 2011 should see the inauguration of the memorial plaza (see interview below) at the site of the attacks.

      Ground Zero is currently under construction, but one new building, 7 World Trade Center, opened in 2006. Earlier this summer it hosted a remarkable exhibition. “Salt Queen” Bettina Wermet, a Latin artist who has lived in New York for many years, used a gallery space on the 49th floor (the building has 52) for her retrospective. The exhibition title was “Salt Rises Above the Sky: 25 years of Unique Salt Artworks.”

      Ms. Werner was naturally keen to pay homage to the victims of 9/11 and this she did with one work in particular: “Preserving with Salt the Eternal Light of their Souls.”

Interview Ground Zero

Nine years ago one of the most traumatic events in modern history took place: the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. But what will replace the famous Twin Towers at Ground Zero? In order to find out, we met with Steve Coleman, who is a spokesperson for the New York and New Jersey Port Authority:

Steve Coleman

(Standard American Accent)

Currently we have several projects that are under way to rebuild the World Trade Center site. Currently under construction is One World Trade Center site, which will be the 1776 feet (541m) tower, that’ll be the biggest building on the site and, once it’s completed, it’ll be the tallest tower in the United States. We’re also building an 8-acre memorial to those who lost their lives on September 11th, and the plaza level, which is on the street level, for that memorial, is nearing completion and will be completed and opened in time for the tenth anniversary, which is next September 11th, in 2001.

SECRECY?

Many observers believe that the Ground Zero site is surrounded in secrecy. We put this to Steve Coleman:

Steve Coleman

I don’t think there’s a lot of secrecy. I think what people don’t understand is that a lot of the work we’ve done so far is being done below ground and at street level and, with the construction fence that we have to have around the project, to protect workers and tourists, (it’s) difficult to see inside the site, other than the One World Trade Center, which is obviously 32 floors above street level, but we’ve built a 700,000 square-foot (65m2) basement for a good portion of the site, which is basically the size of a larger office tower here in Manhattan, so it’s a lot of space that’s been built bellow ground. The Memorial Plaza, is primarily a street level plaza, so it’s difficult to see over a construction fence. Two years ago we started a new website www.wtcprogress.com, where we have updated construction photos going on a regular basis, to try to keep people informed about what’s going on behind the fence, and we’ve also wrapped the fence that surrounds the site with giant panels that we update on a regular basis, to kind of show you the type of work that’s going on behind the fence, so that tourists that do come to the site can see what we’re going back there.

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

But he did admit that there have been quite a few delays in the building projects:

Steve Coleman

I think the biggest reason why it took so long was that a lot of people had a stake in what was going to be built there. You had family members who lost loved ones that had a stake, you know, you had elected officials who had ideas about what was going to be built there, and you had a developer who had the lease to the site, who had ideas of what he wanted to build there and it took a long time to reach consensus as to exactly what the site would look like when it was rebuilt. You know, once that consensus was reached and especially in the last two to three years, once we’ve determined who’s going to build what, who’s going to pay for it and how long it’s going to take to get built, you know, we’ve seen some pretty tremendous progress. A lot of the work that’s gone on for the past couple of years has been below-ground work, where we’ve had to build out a memorial museum, we’ve had to build out a basement for One World Trade Center, we’ve had to excavate the eastern part of the site, which had never been excavated before, that was basically, you know, a street level plaza before 9/11. So it’s been a lot of work that’s gone on in the past two to three years, to work on areas of the site that are at street level, or below street level, which is why people probably haven’t seen much until the tower started to rise above the fence.


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