Up from Zero

August 9, 2004
Renowned architecture critic Goldberger (Above New York
) has undertaken the Herculean task of describing the three years of proposals, counterproposals, chaos and compromise that resulted in a plan for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site. Unlike many post-9/11 books, this careful, detailed analysis is sure to remain a valuable reference work for future generations, who will wonder how the redevelopment took the shape it did. Goldberger provides a blow-by-blow, yet always readable, account of the myriad interest groups, meetings, press conferences, backroom negotiations and public forums that led to the selection of a plan for the site and designs for the Freedom Tower and memorial, "Reflecting Absence." While displaying a deep understanding of history, urban planning, human psychology and power politics, Goldberger remains a largely neutral reporter of events. At the end, however, he mourns the lost opportunity to diverge from New York's traditionally commercial approach to real estate development. He concludes, "What played out through 2002 and 2003 was the use of architecture for political ends, not the use of politics for architectural ends—that is the key moral of the story.... Idealism met cynicism at Ground Zero, and so far they have battled to a draw." Agent, Amanda Urban.

December 15, 2004
Without question, the nation's highest-profile architectural project today is rebuilding the 16 acres at Ground Zero. The New Yorker 's architecture critic and a Pulitzer Prize winner, Goldberger (The World Trade Center Remembered) has the qualifications to unravel the extremely complex planning, selection, and design processes that the city of New York has faced. The story starts in December 2002, when seven master-plan proposals were unveiled at the Winter Garden before the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Designs and personalities intermingle, and particular attention is paid to proposals advanced and modified by Daniel Libeskind, Sir Norman Foster, Richard Meier, and the other finalists. After a succinct chapter on the original trade center, the book delves deeply into the aesthetical and memorializing qualities of the various visions; the competition's intense political jockeying, frictions, and compromises; and the challenges of adapting diverse ideas to myriad and at times conflicting purposes. The book reads like a multipart magazine article--alternately informative, judgmental, chatty, and, on occasion, prone to grand pronouncements. The concluding chapter uses Ground Zero as a case study to delineate the limits and ultimate dissatisfaction of most memorial architecture. As lawsuits proliferate and conflicting forces continue to swirl at Ground Zero, one senses that resolution and renewal remain fugitive. Highly recommended as an interim report for all libraries.--Russell T. Clement, Northwestern Univ. Lib., Evanston, IL

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2004
As we mark the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the future of the 16 acres known as Ground Zero remains a subject of intense debate. Recognizing that the attempt to both memorialize those who perished and bring life back to Lower Manhattan is a historic challenge deserving of careful documentation and analysis, Goldberger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic currently at the " New Yorker," offers just that in this avidly detailed account of the messy process by which government officials, developers, architects, family members of the victims of 9/11, and community activists struggled through grueling public hearings to formulate and select a master plan. Fluent in the complicated aesthetic, political, and financial issues involved, keenly attuned to the deep emotions aroused, incisive in his profiling of major players, and refreshingly candid in elucidating the failings of the original World Trade Center (for more on this, see " City in the Sky" [BKL N 1 03]), Goldberger asks, Can a powerful and realizable vision emerge from so much wrangling and compromise? Stay tuned.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)