Remember, Rebuild, and Renew”

Home , Daniel Libeskind, David Childs, Larry Silverstein, Michael Arad, One World Trade Center, Take Back The Memorial

“REMEMBER, REBUILD, AND RENEW”:

CONSTRUCTING AMERICA’S COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

AND THE NEW WORLD TRADE CENTER SITE IN NEW YORK CITY

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A Thesis

Presented to the

Faculty of

San Diego State University

______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

Rhetoric and Writing Studies

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Courtney Michelle Jue

Fall 2010

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Courtney Michelle Jue

ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

“Remember, Rebuild, and Renew”: Constructing America’s Collective Identity and the New World Trade Center Site in New York City by Courtney Michelle Jue Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Writing Studies San Diego State University, 2010

The events of September 11th served as a nation-wide and globally reaching, tragedy. The attacks acted as symbolic threats, challenging American identity as symbolized in the WTC’s, representing trade and American economic policy; the Pentagon representing the American military; and an attempted attack on the White House, a symbol of American government, and more specifically, democracy. As the destruction represented in the debris at Ground Zero is cleared away, and new buildings arise, the very act of building and creation acts as a symbolic representation of the American identity. It asks the question: how do we remember, rebuild and renew this space post 9/11? This study will analyze of rhetorical use of space and the discourse surrounding the WTC redevelopment to inform the study of how the two buildings at the WTC site: the Freedom Tower, or One World Trade Center, and the September 11th Memorial, communicate aspects of American national identity construction.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

ABSTRACT ...... iv

LIST OF FIGURES ...... vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... vii

CHAPTER

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1

2 REMEMBERING AT GROUND ZERO: THE VOICES OF THE 9/11

MEMORIAL ...... 5

3 RENEWING AT GROUND ZERO: THE FREEDOM TOWER ...... 16

4 VERNACULAR CRITIQUE AT THE WTC SITE ...... 22

5 CONCLUSION: THE DIALECTIC OF RECONSTITUTION AT GROUND

ZERO ...... 27

REFERENCES ...... 32

LIST OF FIGURES

PAGE

Figure 1. Reflecting Absence: Aerial View of the 9/11 Memorial...... 6

Figure 2. North Pool Sectional View...... 7

Figure 3. Completing the Vision...... 18

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you so much to my thesis committee whose flexibility, understanding, and encouragement made this thesis process possible. My thanks go especially to Dr. Ornatowski, for his tireless dedication to the growth of all of observations and conclusions made within this work. Thank you to Dr. Boyd and Dr. Carruthers for your guidance and willingness to work with the pressure of tight deadlines. Thanks to my friends and family for your support in keeping me on task and working responsibly. Special thanks to my parents for intially encouraging me to look into graduate school and the possibilities it had to offer. To all of the professors at SDSU in the Rhetoric and Writing Department, thank you for opening my eyes, ears, and mind to the infinite possibilities of “language.”

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

In spring 1946, a year after the conclusion of World War II, an idea occurred to

William Coblenz, assistant director for Public Information (a division of the Justice

Department) after a visit to the National Archives. During a lunch break, Coblenz visited an exhibit that showcased Nazi documents on the inner workings of Fascism juxtaposed next to

American charters of liberty and freedom just recently retrieved from storage. Inspired by the eloquence of the contrast between the documents, Coblenz decided to propose a “traveling exhibition of the German and American documents” so that all Americans would get the chance to see them. The idea was enthusiastically welcomed by the Justice Department, headed by Attorney General Tom Clark (Fischer).

A year later, on September 17, 1947, a specially built train left Philadelphia for a two- year trip around the United States, the longest train journey in American history. On board were 126 documents comprising the Anglo-American heritage of “freedom,” from the Magna

Carta to the Declaration of Independence and the United Nations Charter; there were also flags from the major battlefields of the Pacific War. The train was lead by a “streamlined locomotive . . . painted glossy white, with stripes of red, white, and blue from head to tail, and a name in gold letters three feet high: FREEDOM TRAIN’” (Fischer 567).

At the time, America was recovering from the aftermath of WWII, with thousands of

GIs returning home (including members of racial minorities for whom common service at the front made it impossible to simply reenter former social roles), changed roles for women, economic changes that came with the New Deal, and a new global power and identity for the

United States. The “Freedom Train” was intended to re-unify the country around a renewed sense of collective purpose and thus strengthen the foundations of collective identity, “to reestablish,” in the words of Attorney General Clark, “the common ground of all Americans” and “to blend our various groups into one American family” (qtd. in Fischer 569). Clark worried that “young Americans were losing touch with the founding principles of liberty and freedom, at a historic moment of a great test by ‘fascism, communism, or the various degrees of socialism’” (Fischer 568). In assembling the documents exhibited on the train, efforts were made to avoid controversy and to build consensus, to demonstrate, in the words of Barney

Balaban, President of Paramount Studies--one of the many media and PR executives involved in this project of “selling America to Americans” (Clark’s phrase)--“the essential unity of the American system” (qtd. in Fischer 569).

The “Freedom Train” represents a significant instance of what John Bodnar, in the title of his book on public memory and patriotism in the twentieth century, referred to as

Remaking America. This essay explores a current instance of such symbolic remaking: the rebuilding of Ground Zero, the World Trade Center site in New York City. Like the

“Freedom Train,” this site represents a space of renegotiation and reconstitution of American identity around a set of fundamental values at a time of national and global transition following the collective shock of the 9/11 attacks, the continuing war in the Middle East and the controversies surrounding it, changes in America’s global image, anxieties concerning the changing patterns of immigration (especially immigration from the Middle East and

North Africa following America’s commitments in the region), and the election of the first

African-American president—to mention just a few factors that appear to play themselves out in the debates surrounding the reconstruction of Ground Zero.

While the World Trade Center towers themselves had always been invested with symbolic meaning (which is why they were targeted), the tragedy of their dramatic and public destruction (including over 3000 lives lost) magnified the symbolic potential of the site and thus the rhetorical potential of any discourse pertaining to its reconstruction. As

Joseph Tuman notes, terrorism itself is to a significant extent a “rhetorical” phenomenon; its political value lies in the public reactions it seeks rather than the material destruction it accomplishes. The attacks of 9/11 were intended as a “message” from the terrorists to the

American government and public and were received as such; the reconstruction of the site thus becomes America’s response directed at both the domestic and global audiences

(including the perpetrators). As Tuman suggests, the 9/11 attacks were an “inherently rhetorical” act (which does not diminish but magnifies their horror) that introduced a powerful new symbol with a “serious political meaning” into American public space (104).

The magnification of the symbolic meaning of the WTC site results from its recontextualization: from the context of New York City (as a synecdochic space, New York

City represents America’s cosmopolitan makeup as well as an epicenter of national/international business, trade, fashion, and media) to that of a global contest of values--a recontextualization that emerges in the controversies surrounding the reconstruction. If, as Tuman and many other scholars have already noted, architecture is to a significant extent also rhetoric (see, for instance, Ackerman; Atkinson and Cosgrove; Stuart), the site itself, in its still bare “silence,” is already powerfully so, and anything constructed on it will speak even louder. Because of its immediate connection to a tragic and transformative event, re-building on the site becomes, like the “Freedom Train,” a re-constitutive act. That act involves both memory and renewal.

Memory and renewal are, in fact, written into the motto of the Lower Manhattan

Development Corporation (LMDC), the corporation overseeing reconstruction at the WTC site, which states the mission at the core of reconstruction as “Remember, Rebuild, and

Renew.” The reconstruction of the WTC site is simultaneously an attempt to heal the wound that is Ground Zero and to recover and renew the foundational, constitutive collective values that were symbolically put in question and threatened on 9/11. Remembering will be performed by the 9/11 Memorial, with the design title “Reflecting Absence.” Renewing will be embodied in the Freedom Tower (also known as Tower 1, or One World Trade Center), which will replace the original Twin Towers functionally, but whose symbolism will be magnified by the rhetorical charge implicit of the WTC space. At the end of reconstruction, the 9/11 Memorial and the Freedom Tower will stand as articulations of America’s past, present, and future. This re-constitutive enterprise is complicated, however, by controversies that involve, on the one hand, clashes between official and vernacular agendas and discourses focused on the site and, on the other hand, other agendas and voices that have become part of the post-9/11 American identity. It is these controversies that this essay attempts to trace in an attempt to better understand the (re)constitution of the latter through this specific and historic act of memorialization and architecture –as-rhetoric.

CHAPTER 2

REMEMBERING AT GROUND ZERO: THE VOICES OF THE 9/11 MEMORIAL

The Memorial, by landscape designer Peter Walker and architect Michael Arad, sits

at the center of the World Trade Center site. It is meant to reflect the “loss and absence” of

the Twin Towers. As Arad himself suggests: “It is located in a field of trees that is

interrupted by two large voids containing recessed pools. The pools and the ramps that surround them encompass the footprints of the twin towers. A cascade of water that describes the perimeter of each square feeds the pools with a continuous stream. They are large voids,

open and visible reminders of the absence” (“World Trade Center Site”).

After an international competition, Michael Arad was chosen for his design of two

square fountains outlining where the two towers formerly stood. The memorial’s design is

simple in line and aesthetic design. Arad and Walker have combined an open air park, trees,

water, and rock to constitute its makeup (see Figure 1). Visitors will be able to view the

memorial on several different levels as they make their way to the bottom level. At the top

park level, the names of victims will be listed on a pedestal outlining the pools. As visitors

walk down the ramps of the memorial they will be descending in a mimetic motion to the

falls disappearing into the earth (into the past) much like the reflection pools and the former

Twin Towers.

At the lowest level of the memorial will be a passageway connecting the space below

the two reflection pools. In this passageway will be an alcove “containing a small dais where

visitors can light a candle or leave an artifact in memory of loved ones. Across from it, in a

Figure 1. Reflecting Absence: Aerial View of 9/11 Memorial. Source: Michael Arad and Peter Walker. Mar. 2004. Wtcsitememorial.org. Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Web. 12 Jul. 2010. small chamber, visitors might pause and contemplate. This space provides for gatherings, quiet reflection, and memorial services” (“WTC Site Memorial Competition”). The alcove will provide a more private and sacred space, which will allow visitors to interact with the site, adding their individual involvement to the construction of the site’s identity and the public mourning process. The north tower footprint specifically will house an underground interpretive center, a “very private . . . room for unidentified remains. . . . Here a large stone vessel forms a centerpiece for the unidentified remains. A large opening in the ceiling connects this space to the sky above, and the sound of water shelters the space from the city.

Family members can gather here for moments of private contemplation. It is a personal space for remembrance” (“WTC Site Memorial Competition”). Arad wanted to allow a more intimate space for family members to come in order to distinguish the personal from the

public (see Figure 2), an act that exemplifies the vernacular and official discourse dynamic at

this space.

Figure 2. North Pool Sectional View. Source: Michael Arad and Peter Walker. 12 Mar. 2006. Renewnyc.org. Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Web. 12 Jul. 2010.

While navigating through the memorial, visitors will be able to observe an exposed

slurry wall which will be just one artifact displayed as a remnant from the destruction of

September 11th. After the debris was cleared away at Ground Zero, Daniel Libeskind, the

Master Planner of the WTC site, was most taken with the slurry wall that previously founded a barrier between the Hudson River and the Twin Towers. He asserts, “The great slurry wall is the most dramatic element which survived the attack, an engineering wonder constructed on bedrock foundations” (Libeskind). The wall is a bare, exposed remnant preserved as a testimony to the enormity of the destruction and the strength that endured despite the tragedy.

Libeskind goes on to make the analogy that “The foundations withstood the unimaginable trauma of the destruction and stand as eloquent as the Constitution itself asserting the durability of Democracy and the value of individual life” (Libeskind). For Libeskind, this

8 wall may be viewed not only as an artifact, but read as a testament to the American value system.

In addition to the slurry wall, the memorial will allow “[V]isitors [to] view many preserved artifacts from the twin towers: twisted steel beams, a crushed fire truck, and personal effects” (“WTC Site Memorial Competition”). These artifacts will act as symbolic markers of destruction (the steel beams), courage and heroism (the crushed fire truck), and humanity and mortality (the personal effects of the victims). They will provide a more overt semiotic gesture on the blank template that the memorial’s lower level offers.

The Memorial contains both private and public spaces, to negotiate between the needs of the official and vernacular communities. The small alcove and underground interpretive center act as private spaces for the personal commemoration and contemplation of the events of 9/11. By contrast, the slurry wall and remnants from the attacks are semiotic markers voicing particular messages about the nation and the roles that the individuals played in the narrative of the attacks. There is a freedom that the small alcove and underground interpretive center gives visitors. At the same time, there is also an attempt to unify visitors under the message of the slurry wall and the story of the remnants from the attacks. The presence of the public and private purposes creates a tension which characterizes the struggle over the Memorial as a place of private commemoration as well as a site for the creation of public memory.

Carol Blair and Neil Michel offer a perspective on a type of memorial space which can successfully commemorate a tragedy within a discourse of contention, division, and diversity:

If we take as prototypes recent efforts at successful commemoration, memorials engage us by asking us to think. Rather than telling us what to think, they invite

us to think, to pose questions, to interrogate our experiences and ourselves in relation to the memorial’s discourse . . . .These recent memorials invite critical reflection; they rarely reflect naïve or romanticized visions of nationalism or righteous causes. They typically refuse application of a unitary hermeneutic principle of reading; they are polysemic, often offering competing or contradictory messages. (“Commemorating in the Theme Park Zone” 37)

The answer to an appeal for a memorial space in the midst of this type of contentious, constitutive moment is that there is no fixed message.

One of the most significant texts built in recent years reflecting the above context for the American people is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (VVM) in Washington D.C. Sonja

Foss has argued that a lack of decisive message or narrative of the Vietnam War is the most significant achievement of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. She comments on the VVM’s ability to “appeal to many different individuals because it does not focus on the Vietnam War itself. The war was divisive, frustrating, and confusing for the country; a focus on it would have served as a reminder of old divisions, antagonisms, and ambiguities. But the memorial says nothing about the war and does not honor or glorify it” (335). Instead, the VVM’s silence and ambiguity allows visitors to construct their own individual reflections on the war.

The VVM demonstrates a successful resolution of the tension between official and vernacular discourse. Official discourse espouses “the official interests in social unity, the continuity of existing institutions, and loyalty to the status quo,” while vernacular interests

“embod[y] the disparate discourse of a diverse society whose voices are based on experiential, more immediate and localized intentions” (Bodnar). The memorial’s determinate purpose was not to assign order or value to the memorial space but instead to invite vernacular voices to conceptualize the public memory of the war. Veterans, family members, friends, public officials, and the like visited the memorial and experienced the remembrance of the war variously. The VVM catalyzed responses of anger, grief,

repugnance, and gratitude. Because of the contention and division surrounding the Vietnam

War, it was important that the space’s design be open to varied reactions, discourses,

interrogations, and even competing messages.

The VVM forged the way as a model memorial voice encouraging commemoration

through postmodern and vernacular discourse, a commemorative voice which is inviting

rather than domineering. This precedent encouraged some of the major architectural themes

that can be observed in Arad’s design for the 9/11 Memorial. In the midst of the Memorial’s

political, semiotic value, Arad intentionally designed a Memorial space below ground which

seems to express a desire to disconnect from the public, social space above. Arad attempts to

have the Memorial stand as a moment in time, separated from its context (and by extension,

from the political) by the sound and sight of the curtain of water. “As [visitors] proceed,”

Arad explains, “the sound of water falling grows louder, and more daylight filters in from

below. At the bottom of their descent, they find themselves behind a thin curtain of water”

(“LMDC General Project Plan”). The viewer becomes separated from the sights and sounds

of the WTC site, taken into an enclosed area to view and contemplate a “sacred,” separated

space. In this way, viewers are shielded from the “intentional historic or symbolic

contamination” (Blair, Jeppeson, and Pucci) of the WTC site and situated into the base of the

remains of the buildings, metaphorically descending into the abyss, much as the buildings themselves did on 9/11.

In the beginning stages of design discussions, Arad argued that he wanted the

Memorial to remain separate from any other supplemental cultural centers so that the space would be singular and distinctive in purpose. In a 2004 press release, he suggested, “This large open field should be punctuated only by the footprints of the two memorial pools” . . .

“while other buildings that are associated with commemorating the events of Sept. 11, such

as a museum or visitor center, can be placed across the street” (Dunlap, “At Ground Zero

Memorial”). Despite Arad’s wishes, plans for a museum are being discussed and set to be

built in connection to the lower level of the Memorial. Throughout this process, Arad has been fighting to protect the vernacular interests of the space from the official culture’s potential to interfere with the experiences of visitors and families, but the political and social import of the space makes this desire almost impossible.

Arad attempts some of the same postmodern concepts and rhetorical moves as the

Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In a description of the space, Arad explains:

The enormity of this space and the multitude of names that form this endless ribbon underscore the vast scope of the destruction. Standing there at the water's edge, looking at a pool of water that is flowing away into an abyss, a visitor to the site can sense that what is beyond this curtain of water and ribbon of names is inaccessible. The names of the deceased will be arranged in no particular order around the pools. (“LMDC General Project Plan”)

The names will be in no particular order, similar to the Vietnam Memorial. Arad explains that this disorder reflects the “The haphazard brutality of the attacks;” this is also a gesture to not “impose order upon this suffering” (“WTC Site Memorial Competition”). Arad seeks

“multivalent readings” from viewers through the open space and indeterminate listing of names and therefore exemplifies a space “intent on protecting values and restating views of reality derived from firsthand experience in small-scale communities,” (14). The Memorial provides a space where individuals may project their own understanding onto the meaning of each name as well as the significance of the falling water, and the individual experience offered in the lower level alcove.

Similarly to the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, the 9/11 Memorial is not raised or phallocentric. The VVM opposes this type of obtruding presence, through its unassuming,

12 low-lying dimensions, in defiance of the Washington Memorial. The weight of the 9/11

Memorial is observed not in the height of the Memorial space but the breadth of the recessed pools. At the WTC site, while the 9/11 Memorial is recessed into the ground, the Freedom

Tower is left to obtrude from the site, standing as the tallest structure in Manhattan.

However, the difference between the discourse of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the

Washington Monument, and the September 11th Memorial and the Freedom Tower, is that the former is meant to be oppositional, and the latter is meant to be complementary. This juxtaposition makes the individual purposes of each space compete for presence in the minds of visitors. Because of its domineering height and magnitude, the Freedom Tower’s presence has the potential to eclipse the Memorial recessed into the ground below.

Bodnar argues that one of the official culture’s primary motives is “a common interest in social unity” (13). The Memorial may serve the private, more vernacular interests of the visitors, but it also attempts to help in the larger unified social mourning process by providing both a physical (as in material meeting place) and cultural space from which the

American community will be able to reconstitute their collective identity post 9/11. The creation of this Memorial opens a space where visitors can encounter others affected by

September 11th, and therefore the mourning process will be communal and broad in scope, as was the actual tragedy. Libeskind writes that “The memorial plaza is designed to be a mediating space; it belongs both to the city and to the memorial” (Libeskind). The Memorial is a space intended to encourage a unification based on communal mourning and civic engagement in the commemoration of the events of September 11th.

The LMDC’s guidelines for the Memorial Design Competition offer a look at what directives were identified as important by official culture in the development of the

commemorative space. New York’s former Gov. Pataki and Manhattan’s Mayor Bloomberg

invited architectural designers worldwide to compete for the design of the Memorial.

Guidelines were distributed to all competitors in order to dictate what elements should be included in their designs. These guidelines embody the motives and directives of the official discourse for the Memorial and are available for viewing on the WTC website.

In letters of invitation to compete, Pataki and Bloomberg suggested that, “The values of liberty and democracy transcend geography and nationality, and they must be given physical expression as we re-imagine Lower Manhattan.” LMDC Chairman John Whitehead wrote, “The memorial will not only recall life, it will reaffirm life itself. The heroism displayed on September 11th revealed the bright light of humanity even in our darkest hour.

The global outpouring of support in the days after showed that freedom is not an American

idea, it is a universal ideal.” and LMDC Interim President Kevin Rampe noted, “From nearby

Federal Hall, where George Washington was sworn in as the first President of the United

States and the Bill of Rights was conceived; . . . to South Street Seaport, where ships from

around the globe once docked with precious cargo, the finest expressions of democracy,

ingenuity, and the international exchange emerged from the area’s citizens and visitors”

(“WTC Site Memorial Competition”). The Memorial Mission Statement, which was

collaboratively composed by members from the LMDC and the families of 9/11 victims,

assumed members of the vernacular community vested in the site, declares, “May the lives

remembered, the dead recognized, and the spirit reawakened be eternal beacons, which

reaffirm respect for life, strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom, and inspire an end to

hatred, ignorance and intolerance” (18). These guidelines emphasize freedom and

democracy, collective values that were under attack on 9/11.

The guidelines for the space are not devoid of the “historic or symbolic” (Blair),

neither do they invite “multivalent readings” because of their goal to speak within the official

discourse community. Instead, they propose a powerful meta-narrative composed of forgetting and remembering specific details of 9/11, an act of constituting public memory, in order to bolster a sense of national unity . Burke conceives of constitution as an “enactment arising in history” (Grammar 365) and involving an agonistic calculus of motives (that is, as the outcome of a dramatistic process involving agents, purposes, agencies, and so on) that creates community by proclaiming a “common substance” (Grammar 343). The guidelines offer a “common substance” in the message of freedom and democracy and the glorification of America’s founding values. This is the substance which offers the potential for unity amongst the varied perspectives of September 11th and its aftermath.

As a site of commemoration, the 9/11 Memorial attempts to be a space which invites

a similar interaction with the public as the VVM. But the 9/11 Memorial also chooses to

deny some of the properties which Blair and Michel propose for successful commemoration.

The Memorial cannot abstain from its role as a site of public memory. It is representative of

the conversation about the nation’s past and future, private and public spheres, and public

policy and vernacular interests. The Memorial is the site of a more pronounced vernacular

culture and a space which struggles to balance the private and public desires to commemorate the victims of September 11th. The proposed constitutive potentialities of this type of

memorial space are particularly complex because any memorial at Ground Zero must host

visitors within an “appropriate place of private pain in the public sphere” while continuing

“to hold memory sacred” (Miller 30).

As “a body of beliefs and ideas about the past that help a public or society understand both its past, present, and by implication, its future,” public memory making is an attempt to

make sense of past events in order to influence attitudes towards future actions (Bodnar 15).

On September 11th more than 3,000 victims were murdered, from various ethnicities, nationalities, ages, and social backgrounds. Families and friends of the individual 9/11 victims require a space for a private, more personal mourning, while Americans as well as international visitors not directly affected by the tragedy will also come to visit the memorial.

The space must accommodate a relevant commemorative space for all of these visitors.

In the selective remembering and forgetting embodied in the design of the Memorial, the “universal ideals of liberty and freedom” are given precedence as values which should be remembered amongst the mourning for 9/11 victims, while any references to the aftermath of

9/11 (the War in Iraq and Afghanistan) are forgotten in order for the audience to accept the proposed constituted identity of America as a body constructed under the identity of national freedom and liberty in the midst of individual mourning and private contemplation. The 9/11

Memorial space therefore goes beyond the intention to commemorate and memorialize by striving to reconstitute a collective identity for a community fragmented by the events that the memorial is recognizing. The space provides the potential for private, polysemic readings of the memorial while also building a civic space based on unifying, epideictic messages which attend to the constitutive needs of the public.

CHAPTER 3

RENEWING AT GROUND ZERO: THE FREEDOM TOWER

In his address to Congress nine days after 9/11, President George W. Bush suggested that the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center were a direct attack on freedom. In this speech, he labeled terrorists “heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the twentieth century.”

He asserted that the terrorists posed “a threat to the United States, indeed all civilization” because they “hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with one another” (“Address to a Joint Session of

Congress”). The Freedom Tower is emerging as the embodiment of these assertions as it rises up from the devastation of 9/11.

The Freedom Tower will rise just north of the Memorial after its completion. It will be used for commercial office and retail space, along with providing a restaurant and event center. It will embody the political and economic interests in the WTC site. The Freedom

Tower differs distinctively from the Memorial in its form, function, and symbolism. While the LMDC seeks to overlay the Memorial with articulations of official discourse in the midst of its vernacular culture, the Freedom Tower overshadows the low lying space with it soaring height and dominance of the space. The Memorial is meant to reflect death and absence, while the tower reflects life and presence.

No official competition was initiated for the Freedom Tower as there had been for the

Memorial; instead, the building was created by collaboration between David Childs and

Daniel Libeskind. Childs works for the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill.

Larry Silverstein, the current developer who holds current ownership of the site’s lease, chose Childs to make renovations on the Twin Towers even prior to 9/11.

The final design incorporates a symbolic 1,776 foot height, a spire (designed by

Libeskind as an abstract reference to the Statue of Liberty’s flame) which now sits in the middle of the tower’s rooftop and will be lit at night. The spire was one of Libeskind’s top priorities for the final version of the Tower. In a memoir entitled Breaking Ground,

Libeskind writes:

One victory in the long battle over the master plan meant more to me than any other: our success in preserving aspects in my design that evoke the Statue of Liberty, and the symbolism the statue embodies. . . . It was a hard-won battle. There were those who never felt the visceral connection to the idea that I did, others who found the connection corny. It set their sophisticated teeth on edge. But to me the Statue of Liberty is not a trinket on a keychain or a piece of rhetoric; it is the personification of liberty, the living flame. (Dunlap, “Will the Freedom Tower’s Spire Survive?”)

In images displaying the new WTC construction within the New York City skyline, the

Statue of Liberty is almost always included in the “space” that the new building will fill. The designers and architects encourage the appearance of interaction between Lady Liberty and the Freedom Tower. Libeskind confesses that he has “always had faith that most New

Yorkers feel as I do, and embrace, as I do, Lady Liberty's essential message, that of the

Declaration of Independence" (Dunlap, “Will the Freedom Tower”). Libeskind’s design ties together the Statue of Liberty, the “Declaration of Independence,” and the Freedom Tower to imply that all express similar messages about America’s constitutive values. The context created for the Freedom Tower is particularly significant because of how it exposes the official imposed meaning for the space. In 1946, William Coblenz, while viewing the foundational American documents, was particularly moved, because of the political climate of the day, by the positioning of the Nazi documents beside the American ones in the

National Archives. This positioning allowed for the American documents to be read within a

favorable light of binary oppositions: good versus evil, democracy versus fascism, WWII

victors versus the defeated. In the same way, images depicting the new site place the Statue

of Liberty in context with the Freedom Tower (see Figure 3), thus contextualizing both the

Tower and 9/11 in the narrative of American history as the struggle for freedom, in which

both American and freedom will be victorious. The placement of the Memorial beside the

Freedom Tower also provides a notable context, one that could either harm or support the

Tower’s image. The site juxtaposes the consequences of terrorism and Muslim extremism (as viewed in the recessed absence of the two previously legendary American icons) alongside

American democracy (as viewed in the ascendant presence of a “freedom” tower). This juxtaposition echoes President Bush’s assertion of the supremacy of freedom over violent extremism, just as the “Freedom Train” had asserted the supremacy of democracy over fascism.

Figure 3. Completing the Vision. Source: Maki Fumihiko, Norman Foster, and Richard Rogers. 2007. Renewnyc.org. Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. 2 Jul. 2010.

An opposing contextual view of the Tower could also threaten the image of the space as a newly safe and secure site. The trees that will line the upper level of the memorial and the space mediating between the Tower and the Memorial were not part of Arad’s original design. But, after consulting with Libeskind, Arad and Walker decided to make the change to landscape the area with deciduous trees. Arad describes the surface of the memorial plaza by saying, “[it] is punctuated by the linear rhythms of rows of deciduous trees, forming informal clusters, clearings and groves. . . . Through its annual cycle of rebirth, the living park extends and deepens the experience of the memorial” (“World Trade Center Site”). The trees attempt to provide a transition from death to “rebirth,” from tragedy in the wake of oppression to freedom. This transition suggests the proposed future for America in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy.

This transition from past to future, death to rebirth, is necessary for the commercial

“success” of the site. Currently, the LMDC is attempting to attract leaseholders to rent the space within the Freedom Tower. These future tenants must be convinced that the site provides a safe and secure replacement from the inherent symbolism that the WTC holds as a site of destruction and terror. This is a difficult task because of the significance of the

Memorial imprinted in the ground below the Freedom Tower. Although commemoration at the site is important, the site must also progress into a space known for a renewed sense of stability and safety for the Freedom Tower to thrive.

Security is one of the most prominent concerns addressed in descriptions of the

Tower by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (Childs’ firm). “The building incorporates advanced life safety systems that exceed the requirements of the New York City Building

Code and that will lead the way in developing new high rise building standards” (SOM).

Some of the specifications that “exceed the requirements of New York City Building Codes” include extra strong fireproofing, biological and chemical filters in the air supply system, extra-wide pressurized stairs, additional stair exit locations, including a staircase specifically for use by firefighters, and “areas of refuge” on every floor (SOM).

Security earned a new value as an American trope post 9/11. Americans saw the passing of the Patriot Act, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and the production of a color-coded terrorist advisory scale created to alert the public of impending terrorist attacks. The Tower underwent several alterations to its base and structure because of assessed security risks. When the design of the base was altered to include a 200-foot-high concrete base, journalist Nicolai Ouroussoff observed that the building had taken on a

“defensive posture” (“Medieval Modern”) and noted that “today’s architects are struggling to reach between assuring the freedom of movement that is vital to a functioning democracy and bolstering security” (Ouroussoff, “Medieval Modern”). The mindset of fear and suspicion dramatically altered America’s global identity post 9/11. In the wake of 9/11, and the struggle for “the freedom of movement” and “a functioning democracy,” the Tower’s security measures reflect the country’s struggle to balance between ensuring safety and allowing autonomous freedom of movement post 9/11.

In his reflections on the Declaration of Independence as a unifying document, Burke observed that its, “dialectic function as a rejoinder to the Crown did make it a representative act for diverse groups unified by the sharing of a single opponent (their consubstantiality thus being defined dialectically, by reference to a contrary term. . . .” (Rhetoric 372). The name

“Freedom Tower” consubstantiates diverse groups in the pursuit of freedom, a mission threatened by violent extremism, which provides the role of the single opponent.

Recommitment to this mission provides a unifying meaning for both the Memorial and the

Tower. Yet, unity continues to prove to be an elusive goal in the reconstruction of the WTC site.

CHAPTER 4

VERNACULAR CRITIQUE AT THE WTC SITE

In the midst of the excitement surrounding the 9/11 Memorial, the public was

informed about plans for an International Freedom Center that would be placed between the

foot of the Freedom Tower and the 9/11 Memorial. The intended purpose of the Center was

“to share the mission of the World Trade Center Memorial to ‘strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom, and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance, and intolerance’” (“International

Freedom Center Fact Sheet”). The Center had three intended goals: to present exhibits displaying stories of freedom from men, women, and children in history; to act as a forum hosting educational and cultural programs for national and international visitors; and finally to act as a “service and civic engagement network,” encouraging visitors to take the knowledge gleaned from the exhibits at the IFC out into their own communities (“IFC Fact

Sheet”). Despite the projected laudability of the mission, planners received a great public backlash. News media cited, “A growing chorus of September 11 victims' family members

[who] objected to proposed exhibits that would cover subjects in American history unrelated to the 2001 terrorists attack” (Hirshkorn). This small movement grew into a website called

“Take Back the Memorial,” which asked the public to sign a petition to remove the center from the site and find another location for it. Demonstrations argued that the Center would

detract from the focus on the 9/11 Memorial and the attention to the specific victims of that

day.

In response to the demonstrations, Governor Pataki insisted that "The celebration of

freedom is not inconsistent with the goals of memorializing our nearly 3,000 lost heroes . . . .

The creation of an institution that would show the world our unity and our resolve to preserve

freedom in the wake of the horrific attacks is a noble pursuit” (Hirschkorn). Pataki’s

statements reveal the official desire for unity through a meta-narrative that would

contextualize the WTC in a larger story of America’s struggle for Freedom. In a speech at

West Point concerning the unity of the American people, the War in Afghanistan, and the

deployment of 30,000 more troops, President Obama declared:

It is easy to forget that when this war began, we were united - bound together by the fresh memory of a horrific attack, and by the determination to defend our homeland and the values we hold dear. I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon that unity again. I believe with every fiber of my being that we - as Americans - can still come together behind a common purpose. For our values are not simply words written into parchment - they are a creed that calls us together, and that has carried us through the darkest of storms as one nation, one people. (“Obama Afghanistan Speech”)

In this use of epideictic rhetoric, Obama called the nation to reunite under the banner of

America’s founding values and recall the spirit of patriotism in the days following the terrorist attacks. The Freedom Tower and 9/11 Memorial serve as reminders of those values and that spirit. The Tower and Memorial attempt to call the American people to reconstitute and reaffirm the “creed that calls us together” to be “one nation” and “one people.” They call visitors to remember the actual and symbolic attack on American identity.

This reconstitution of the attacks in the larger meta-narrative of the international struggle for freedom echoes the Freedom Train’s request in the 1940s for the nation to reconstitute itself within the larger narrative of America’s dedication to freedom. This messages coincides with the creation of an International Freedom Center and official discourse, but the site could not maintain the International Freedom Center because of the dissonance between the official vision of freedom (a purpose characterized by the necessity to re-construct the world history of humanity’s struggle for freedom) at the site and the

vernacular (a purpose defined by the freedom to mourn and contemplate the specific events

of September 11th as their individual community views it). Families of 9/11 victims did not

want to see the site become a forum for a larger discussion of the American value system.

For them, the site was meant to be purely a site of memorial and renewal from the specific

September 11th events. In the end, however, officials decided to remove the Center from the site. Pataki acceded to the decision by commenting that “freedom should unify us. This center has not” (Hirschkorn). The omission of the IFC spoke to the lack of consensus on the message of freedom for the WTC site, post 9/11.

The putatively unifying message of Freedom was also proving divisive only a few blocks north of the site in an old building proposed as the site for a new Islamic community center. The Cordoba House (now renamed Park 51, the building’s address), under development by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife and New York developer Sharif El-

Gamal, will “include a prayer space, as well as a 500-seat performing arts center, a culinary school, a swimming pool, [and] a restaurant” (Hernandez). In June of 2010, a community hearing met to discuss the development of this space because of the controversial, close proximity of the Cordoba House to Ground Zero. The meeting was attended by many protestors objecting to the center with signs that read: “Show respect for 9/11. No mosque!” while others who lost family members in the attacks, claim that the building would be

“insensitive” (Hernandez). The meeting ended in a “29-to-1 vote, with 10 abstentions” in favor of the Cordoba House, and although the board’s vote was “advisory” and could not alter eventual plans for development, it was forecasted to be an “important barometer of community sentiment” (Hernandez).

On the other side of the argument is a group called the Cordoba Initiative, which supports the development of the Center. The mission of the Initiative is “to achieve a tipping

point in Muslim-West relations within the next decade, steering the world back to the course

of mutual recognition and respect and away from heightened tensions”

(cordobainitiative.org). The Cordoba Initiative believes that the site will not only serve the

Muslim community, but will catalyze discussion about Islam in the U.S. and more

specifically, Lower Manhattan. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who has been in a leadership

position for the Muslim community of Lower Manhattan for more than 20 years, states that

the Muslim community of New York City has “‘condemned terrorism in the most

unequivocal terms’” and this Center will “help ‘bridge and heal a divide’ among Muslims

and other religious groups” (Hernandez). TriBeCa journalist Jean Grillo wrote in agreement

with Abdul Rauf, saying that “shutting out any faith undermined American values. ‘What

better place to teach tolerance than at the very area where hate tried to kill tolerance?’”

(Hernandez). Grillo identifies the Center as a kairotic opportunity for the community

surrounding the WTC site. When asked about the Cordoba House, Mayor Bloomberg stated,

“What is great about America and particularly New York is we welcome everybody and . . .

if we are so afraid of something like this, what does it say about us? Democracy is stronger

than this. You know, the ability to practice your religion is the- was one of the real reasons

America was founded” (cordobainitiative.org).

The controversy surrounding the center has increased in recent months as candidates

running for congressional positions, Sarah Palin, and even President Obama have commented

on its construction (in a Tweet, Palin called the center “UNNECESSARY provocation; it

stabs hearts”) (Miller 28). This Muslim community center is in direct discourse with the

World Trade Center site and the larger discussion of freedom of religion in America. As one journalist stated, “Nationally, the fight over the mosque has escalated far beyond name- calling into an emotional, politically drive war over American values” (Miller 29). The

House is helping to define the identity of the site and what it claims about America post 9/11.

It begs the question: Is the site really a reflection of the American value system, a system defined by freedom? The controversy surrounding the Center reflects America’s relationship with Islam and comments on some American beliefs about religious freedom. It is also the contentious site for discourse between the vernacular (families of victims and Muslim

Community) and the official (New York government officials), as it enters into the conversation about “the appropriate place of private pain in the public sphere and how to hold memory sacred” (Miller 30). The decision to build the Center would serve the needs of the Muslim community and also speak to larger official discourse on national unity, but at the same time it would divide many communities who hold deep and private emotional currency with Lower Manhattan, along with their personal religious and political beliefs associated with September 11th.

The vernacular culture’s response to the two centers challenged the official’s imagined conception of the WTC space. While the official culture hoped that the IFC and

Cordoba House would promote certain “nationalistic, patriotic” conceptions of the space, the vernacular derided those wishes as attempts to place meaning on the site that were incongruent with their own. This dialectic shows that while the idea of freedom may be the

“common substance” constituting the identity of post 9/11 America, the particularities remain diverse.

CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION: THE DIALECTIC OF RECONSTITUTION AT GROUND ZERO

Carole Blair describes architecture as “a form of social discourse” (354), highlighting

building structures as expressions interacting with one another and with human beings, in a

dialectical relationship. Architecture must attempt to embody many social and political

interests. The reconstruction of Ground Zero is especially fraught with dialectical tension. As

New York Times journalist Michiko Kakutani has observed, “the efforts to design a fate for

those 16 acres have been driven by different constituencies' very different needs and desires,

by the need to memorialize the dead and the need to revitalize Lower Manhattan, by the clash

between idealism and practicality, art and commerce, visionary hopes and raw political

expedience” (“After a Long Day of Terror”).

The 9/11 Memorial and Freedom Tower are expected to provide spaces for mourning,

remembrance, and a renewed sense of American identity. The design of the 9/11 Memorial expresses a desire for polysemic interpretations of the events of September 11th. Official

discourse speaks to the collective values of freedom and democracy, while vernacular

discourse prioritizes private and subjective remembrance. The LMDC proposes the

Memorial as a global symbol which speaks to the world about the tragedy on 9/11, and at the

same time signifies the healing that this Memorial symbolizes. The trees surrounding the upper level of the Memorial site, along with the context of the space within a greater space of retail, commercial office space, transportation hubs and event centers, asks visitors to

remember the events of 9/11, but be lifted up towards the ideas of freedom, rebirth, and

renewal as one surfaces from the recessed depths of the Memorial.

The Freedom Tower symbolizes most specifically the intentions to “rebuild and

renew” Lower Manhattan and more broadly the larger American community. Its spire stands as a “beacon of light” suggesting the hope, vitality, and powerful potential of America even

in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. This skyscraper heralds the message that America had

chosen to once again fill the space that the terrorists had destroyed on 9/11. The image of the

skyscraper not only recalls the image of the Twin Towers but pays homage to the resiliency

and tenacity of Americans in the aftermath of 9/11 and fits into the larger narrative of

America’s role in the post-Cold War, increasingly unstable world. .

The contention surrounding the reconstruction of Ground Zero reflects the

tenuousness of constructing an American identity that is feasible, exigent, and at the same

time unifying in the face of the diversity of the American public. As a reflection on leading a

democratic nation in both unity and diversity, Burke writes, “For here we confront the unity-

diversity paradox all over again, as we see that a President [or official] who would strive to

unify a democratic nation must not unify it too well. That is, if the material situation itself

contains vast conflicts of interests, [that official] must keep all the corresponding voices

vocal” (Rhetoric 392). The WTC site discourse has displayed its ability to keep voices vocal

in the midst of this important national constitutive moment.

Bodnar suggests that “Ordinary people . . . react to the actions of leaders in a variety

of ways. At times they accept official interpretations of reality” (15) and at times they “are

preoccupied, instead with defending the interests and rights of their respective social

segments” (16). Within the first trips of the Freedom Train, the white stripe that lined the

29 locomotive changed from a bright white to red. A teenage girl kissed the side of the train as it was departing a station, leaving a lipstick mark which instigated thousands of other teenage girls to leave their mark on the train (Fischer 571). This act transformed the official text of the train into a vernacular text, a pop-culture phenomenon. Irving Berlin and Bing Crosby composed a song about the Train, while at the same time two books were published and a movie was produced to narrate the story of the famous locomotive. In total, more than “3.5 million” people boarded the train, while “144 million” participated in some related event

(Fischer 572). The popularity, and more importantly, the identity of the Train had evolved in ways that none of the founding creators could have imagined.

As the Freedom Train traveled the country with unprecedented success, it also encountered voices challenging its message. The Train was set to travel to the Deep South at that time, during a period when Jim Crow laws restricted the freedoms of African Americans.

Langston Hughes acted as a vernacular voice which commented on the impending visit of the

Train to the South when he wrote:

I seen folks talkin’ about the Freedom Train Lord, I been a-waitin for the Freedom Train! . . .

I hope there ain’t no Jim Crow on the Freedom Train No back door entrance to the Freedom Train. No signs FOR COLORED on the Freedom Train, No WHITE FOLKS ONLY on the Freedom Train.

I’m gonna check up on this Freedom Train. (Fischer 571)

In talks pertaining to the Freedom Train’s travels in the South, many officials decided that the Train would integrate blacks and whites so they could view the founding documents together. Hughes’ poem speaks on behalf of the smaller communities who experienced the

Freedom Train in the real rather than imagined communities of the Deep South as a direct

challenge to official discourse. It confronted the narrative of American freedom as the larger

White community and the Freedom Train officials may have imagined it. The Hughes poem instigated a dialectic formed by the opposing views of what freedom could mean for various

American communities. Some Southern public officials insisted upon the segregation of the train for their home counties and later were defeated in elections because of public backlash.

The American Communist party’s criticism of the project of the train cost it the remainder of its post-war popularity. The train in effect strengthened the political center by marginalizing

“its opponents on the left and right” and making them “appear to be enemies of freedom”

(572).

The reconstruction of the World Trade Center site has instigated political discourse which has polarized communities along the “wavering line” between identification and division that Burke saw as complementary (Burke’s term is “compensatory”) to any attempt at definition or constitution (Rhetoric). Freedom has re-emerged as a valued American trope under which the public continues to identify, yet it is clear from reactions to the International

Freedom Center and Cordoba House, that this value still varies in definition and

circumstance and harbors potential for division as well as identification. Discourse between

the WTC site and the Cordoba House reveal a very real tension that continues to persist between the Muslim communities and some of the American public. The WTC will act as one perspective on freedom, alongside that of the Cordoba House as they will both continue to participate in the discourse of religious tolerance and understanding of relations between the Muslim community and the West. The official and vernacular cultures of the WTC site have contended to assert their authority in constructing messages of freedom, public memory, and in reconstituting America’s identity post 9/11, and have contributed to the evolution of

31 the space’s design and meaning. There is an unresolved tension apparent in this construction, yet if we take Burke’s idea on unity and diversity into account, then we may see this tension as a dialectic , where many voices are made vocal and conflicts of interests are allowed to exist as part of the “re-making of America” at the crossroads of this contemporary, constitutive moment.

What is most important is that in the pursuit of a unified, constituted identity, division and dialectic are not lost. We may continue to observe the existence of this dialectic tension within the re-constitutions of collective identity by asking questions such as: is America a place where competing messages are invited into even the most political discourse, is there a place for epideictic meta-narratives hoping to shape American national identity within a memorial space, and does the official culture allow enough space for the vernacular interests of the smaller American communities? The World Trade Center site has been a testament to the vocalization of this continuing constitutive dialogue.

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