Recent calculations of the cost of the memorial complex by architect Michael Arad and landscape designer Peter Walker have shown that it will cost the state and private sponsors $ 1 billion. After that, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Governor George Pataky demanded that the authors redo the project so that the net worth of the memorial was no more than $ 500 million.
After an accelerated revision, a new version was presented to the public, significantly different from the one that won the international competition in January 2004.
But since the cost of its implementation will be about 510 million (the total amount together with the cost of construction and operation of infrastructure facilities - 672 million), the authorities and the fundraising committee ignored the changes in the project's philosophy.
In the new project, underground galleries were destroyed, through which visitors were supposed to get to ponds located well below street level, and where the names of 2,979 victims of the terrorist attacks of 1993 and 2001 were to be engraved. Now these names are engraved on the parapets of the same ponds, but at street level. Thus, the place of reflection on the fragility of human life has been moved from a quiet underground hall to a bustling city square, where office workers in the WTC towers, tourists and buyers of the shops located there will scurry about. In addition, the reservoirs, located on the site of the twin towers, will be arranged next to the wide city streets, where there is always a lot of transport. It should also be borne in mind that construction of other WTC facilities will be noisy around, which will last at least another ten years.
The problem of the parapet has already worried the relatives of the victims: in their opinion, many visitors, in order to watch the waterfalls fall into the ponds below, will lean on the names of the victims engraved on the curb.
After visiting the memorial structures at ground level, the public will now be directed to the visitor center, and from there to the underground museum (according to an earlier idea, after contemplating the memorial hall underground, it was necessary to rise to the surface again and go to a separate small museum). Thus, the main thing in the complex was not the memory of the victims, but the exposition of various artifacts associated with the twin towers: the remains of a steel frame, fire engines and part of the foundation.
