Up From the Pit?

Yesterday's choice by city and state officials of Daniel Libeskind's plan for ground zero is a mistake. The two hallmark features of the plan are a pit on the World Trade Center site and the world's tallest tower alongside it. The pit may be a fine memorial to the September 11 attack, but it pre-empts the competition for a memorial that is also under way and that may come up with a better idea. What's more, if a goal of the redevelopment process is to maintain Lower Manhattan as a financial center, leaving a giant crater-like a scar in the middle of the neighborhood isn't the best way to announce that downtown is back and open for business. The tower, meanwhile, is a folly worthy of Genesis 11. Why the taxpayers should pay for it is a mystery to us, as is why any commercial developer would want to. We've said all along that while some memorial is appropriate, designing development at the World Trade Center site is a job best left to the private sector. It is best left, in particular, to Larry Silverstein, the real estate magnate who holds the lease to the World Trade Center site and who paid for the insurance policies that will supply the proceeds from the twin towers' destruction, proceeds to which he is entitled. Yesterday's decision is a demonstration of nothing so much as the disaster that will ensue if the rebuilding process is dominated by government officials.