The stairway, which led many down to safety on Vesey St., would be dismantled under a proposal being considered by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.

The plan would incorporate some of the steps in the exterior stairs of the 78-story office tower that developer Larry Silverstein will build by 2012.

Alice Greenwald, director of the WTC Memorial Museum, also suggested that some of the original stairs could be incorporated into the design of the museum, due to open in 2010.

But neither suggestion was welcomed by preservationists who want to keep the staircase intact.

"We are vehemently opposed to either proposal because you would be cannibalizing the ruin, whose significance lies in its structural integrity," said Municipal Art Society Senior Vice President Frank Sanchis after the meeting.

The art society is one of five groups that formed the Lower Manhattan Emergency Preservation Fund after 9/11.

In October the coalition slammed a plan floated by Silverstein to preserve part of the stairs in his tower's steps and etch where the staircase stood in his building's lobby and external floor finish.

LMDC, the agency that has led site planning, is inviting public comment before a final decision.