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January 31, 2013
The WSJ is reporting that the all-but-dead billion-dollar proposed performing arts center at Ground Zero has been given a small breath of life. However, it is far from a done deal.
In the WSJ, by Jennifer Maloney, “After years of little progress, a planned performing-arts center at the World Trade Center site may take a crucial step forward Thursday when the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. is expected to give the bare-bones organization, known as the Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center, $1 million to hire staff and develop building plans. An approval would put the Frank Gehry-designed center on track to open in 2017, said Maggie Boepple, who was the organization’s first hire last March and is now the center’s director. And it would reverse a decision the LMDC made in September to withhold the $1 million seed money, citing concerns about the project’s price tag and the ability of supporters to raise the hundreds of millions needed to pay for it.”
The performing arts center will never be ready by 2017. If government is involved with getting it done, it will take easily another 5 years, and cost billions more. And it will probably be sterile and boring, and downtown residents will rarely get much out of it.