Eyesore or Symbol? Saving Vesey Street Staircase at Ground Zero

By Mike Di Paola

Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- There's nothing pretty about the Vesey Street staircase, the only above-ground remnant of the World Trade Center to survive the Sept. 11 attacks.

The crumbling concrete block, punctured with rusting steel girders and broken pieces of metal pipe, stands in the path of a massive reconstruction project. And yet the beat-up staircase has an ardent fan base: the hundreds of survivors who depended on it for their safe escape.

The survivors, along with a coalition of preservation groups, are lobbying to save the staircase. They hope to persuade the owners of the site, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, either to build around it or move it to another spot on the 16-acre site.

Even Silverstein Properties, the developer of the new project, supports saving the staircase -- one way or another. ``There are several options as to where the staircase may ultimately go on the site, all of which should be studied with input from the community,'' the developer said.

Granted, building around or even moving the staircase will be an expensive and problematic engineering feat. The concrete- and-granite structure is 64 feet high and weighs 175 tons. It sits on the footprint of what will be the second-highest building on the site, Tower 2 at 200 Greenwich St. That 78-story building, designed by Norman Foster, is the last of the Trade Center buildings scheduled for completion, by 2012.

Four Options

The Port Authority says it will decide on the stairway's fate before year-end, with four options under consideration: save the stairs and integrate them into the design of the new WTC; move the stairs to another spot on the site; save a piece of the stairs (and move it); or scrap the thing entirely. The site owners wish to remain neutral, but unofficially the Port Authority is leaning toward the save-a-piece-and-move-it option.

On a site already fraught with symbolism -- the centerpiece Freedom Tower will have the evocative altitude of 1,776 feet -- the Vesey Street stairway is a potent symbol. As the only architectural survivor of the 9/11 assaults, it represents a resiliency and toughness that New Yorkers can appreciate. While the lower steps are crumbling, the staircase's upper portion retains much of the smooth, granite integrity of the original.

Some critics, among them David Stanke, a lawyer and neighborhood advocate who can see the stairway from his apartment, say the cost is too great to justify its preservation. ``The staircase was never a notable part of the plaza, and it is not a reminder in any way of the landmark Twin Towers,'' he says, noting that it was an exterior staircase. ``How important is it historically?''

`Most Endangered'

Important enough for the National Trust for Historic Preservation to put the stairs on its list of 11 most endangered places. The trust also teamed up with four other prominent groups to form the Lower Manhattan Emergency Preservation Fund, which is calculating the costs of saving the stairs.

And vitally significant to people like Tom Canavan, who made his escape down those stairs moments before the North Tower collapsed behind him. ``Ideally, I would like to think it will stay where it is,'' Canavan says. ``I don't know if it's fate or luck that the stairs survived, but they were the last thing standing. There's something to that.''

I'd watched and photographed the towers on Sept. 11 from the corner of Broome Street and Sixth Avenue. Not along after the North Tower came down, hundreds of survivors trudged up the Avenue of the Americas, their faces white with dust and shock. Some of these same people owe their lives to the Vesey Street staircase. While they were running down the steps, rescue workers were on their way up.

Hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent on ``Reflecting Absence,'' the memorial for those who died here that day. We also need something to remember those who lived. The Vesey Street staircase may be an eyesore at the moment, but it deserves to survive amid the sparkling new buildings about to rise around it.

(Mike Di Paola writes about preservation and the environment for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer responsible for this story: Mike Di Paola at mdipaola@nyc.rr.com .

Last Updated: September 26, 2006 00:08 EDT

		Email this article Printer friendly format				RSS