A proposal by Senator Schumer for a compromise on the rebuilding of ground zero is ratcheting up pressure on developer Larry Silverstein, the city, and the Port Authority to make a deal before a March 14 deadline imposed by Governor Pataki.

Mr. Schumer said the Port Authority, the owner of the World Trade Center site and a former tenant of the twin towers, should move into the Freedom Center, the centerpiece of architect Daniel Libeskind’s master plan. The Freedom Tower is widely considered ground zero’s least desirable site because of its isolation from the center of Lower Manhattan, its distance from a public transportation hub to the east, and the presumption that the 1,776-foot building would be the most likely target for another terrorist attack.

In exchange for securing a public sector anchor tenant, Mr. Schumer said that Silverstein Properties should agree to begin construction on all of ground zero’s four building sites within 60 days after they are ready, reduce his developer’s fee by at least half, and agree to regular examination by an independent auditor. Public officials have estimated that Mr. Silverstein will pay himself more than $100 million in developer’s fees out of insurance proceeds and Liberty Bonds, on top of any income he earns from profit on renting space to tenants.

Mr. Schumer said that under these conditions, the city should hand over its remaining $1.7 billion in Liberty Bonds to Mr. Silverstein. Mayor Bloomberg has held out the city’s remaining allotment of Liberty Bonds, tax-exempt financing authorized by Congress after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, to gain leverage in deciding the future make-up of the gaping hole in Lower Manhattan.

The senator called on the mayor to commit the bonds to rebuilding ground zero. “These bonds were created to help redevelop ground zero. That was our intent and the intent of Congress and I do not want to have to go back to my colleagues and explain that all of the bonds have been issued and we still have an empty construction site in Lower Manhattan,” he said.

At a separate event yesterday, the mayor rejected Mr. Schumer’s plan because he said it would not prevent the likelihood that the developer would run out of insurance money within four or five years of breaking ground and leave the city in the lurch.

“We’re certainly not going to put our Liberty Bonds into anything that doesn’t have the potential, with some reasonable assumptions by real estate experts, that this is going to work out,” Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday, reserving the city’s right to spend its bonds anywhere in Lower Manhattan.

Of Mr. Silverstein’s plans, the mayor said, “You will get to a point in four plus years, something like that, four or five years, where it will all come to a halt.”

Mr. Bloomberg said that Mr. Schumer’s strict development schedule, which could return parts of the site to the city if Silverstein faltered, would still leave the city without good options.

City Hall is standing by an economic analysis on February 7 that predicted Mr. Silverstein, who leased the World Trade Center from the Port Authority the summer before the towers collapsed, could not finish his plans for building 10 million square feet of office space.

Mr. Bloomberg has advocated usurping some of the site from Mr. Silverstein, who in 2001 won a 99-year lease from the Port Authority. Mr. Bloomberg has called for having multiple developers rebuild the site. He has also advocated adding a hotel and some residential units to the master plan, and creating strict deadlines that would ensure that construction at ground zero does not last 15 years, but would completed closer to 2011.

Mr. Silverstein has disputed the city’s analysis, saying it relied on over-pessimistic assumptions about rents and leasing, and questioning whether any other developer, especially a government entity, could complete the project as quickly as he can. Mr. Silverstein has pointed out that he has paid about $10 million dollars a month in rent to the Port Authority since the attacks.

Mr. Silverstein, who attended yesterday’s breakfast, appeared to approve of Mr. Schumer’s plan. He told reporters “he couldn’t be more supportive” of the senator’s position.

Officials from Silverstein Properties have indicated that the 2.6 million square foot Freedom Tower could be the hardest of the five planned commercial office buildings to rent. The developer has called the mayor’s demand that he cede two prime building sites along Church Street, known as Towers 3 and 4, a “Soviet-style confiscation.” Under the mayor’s plan, the more commercially desirable Tower 3 would house the Port Authority.

A spokesman for the Port Authority, Steven Coleman, said yesterday that the authority has committed to moving back to World Trade Center site, but has not yet committed to which building it will occupy.

“We can’t rule in the Freedom Tower, and we can’t rule out the Freedom Tower for a possible location for us,” Mr. Coleman said.

Senator Schumer has been a strong proponent of building more commercial space in Manhattan, despite some market signals that suggest it will be a difficult task to lease millions of square feet of commercial downtown. The mayor has said that even a small residential component at ground zero, combined with retail and hotel space, will help to accelerate the revitalization of the area.

Before September 11, 2001, Mr. Schumer led a task force that recommended building 60 million square feet of new office space over the course of 20 years. Yesterday, the senator reiterated his faith in adding commercial space.

“Unlike some, my fear is that the 10 million new square feet of space planned for the site won’t be nearly enough to compensate for the millions of square feet we have lost to residential conversions and to fill the growing demand for office space downtown,” Mr. Schumer said. “Supply of commercial space is shrinking and without new construction at ground zero it will continue to shrink.”

Both a spokeswoman for Governor Pataki and an official from the Port Authority said yesterday that negotiations were “progressing” with Mr. Silverstein.

The governor has committed the state’s remaining $1.7 billion of Liberty Bonds to Mr. Silverstein with the condition that he strikes a deal with the Port Authority by March 14.

Three days before Governor Pataki’s deadline, March 11,will be the four and a half year anniversary of the terrorist attacks, but there are few tangible results and major questions still linger over the future of the site.

About 200 people rallied yesterday, including representatives from the Uniformed Firefighters Association, the Cantor Fitzgerald Foundation, and families of emergency workers who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001, to protest the current design of the World Trade Center memorial.

The protesters said they want the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to consider adding a separate memorial for the emergency workers who died. Group representatives said the current plan – to randomly place all the names of all the victims on the wall – is unsatisfactory. They say the uniformed responders’ names should be listed together with the names of their police or fire unit and their badge numbers.

Following the recent deaths of three first responders, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from Manhattan, and Rep. Vito Fossella, a Republican from Brooklyn and Staten Island, announced yesterday the appointment of a health coordinator to lead the federal response to health impacts stemming from the terrorist attacks.

Dr. John Howard, currently the director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, will oversee a medical screening and monitoring program of a large pool of responders and local residents affected by the attacks. According to a statement released by the representatives, tens of thousands of first responders, federal employees and lower Manhattan residents and workers are suffering from health problems likely caused by exposure to toxins at or near the World Trade Center site, including asbestos, lead, mercury, powdered glass, and other carcinogens that were in the air.