Ideas for World Trade Center site take shape

New Yorkers got their first glimpse Tuesday of what the redeveloped site of the World Trade Center may look like. Six concepts, all including substantial memorials, office buildings, and cultural space, were displayed at Federal Hall on Wall Street.

"Each plan begins with a memorial acknowledging that as we rebuild, we must remember," says John Whitehead, chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. New Yorkers will be asked to comment on the designs at a massive town meeting Saturday.

As New Yorkers struggle to recover emotionally from the towers' collapse Sept. 11, which killed nearly 3,000, the city is also suffering an economic downturn. The six proposed plans are meant to ameliorate both.

The proposals call for replacing the 11 million square feet of office and retail space lost on Sept. 11 with a cluster of buildings, none of which would rise as high as the 110-story twin towers.

Plans include:

• Memorial Plaza, featuring an 8-acre open space. It also calls for a tall free-standing tower at the northwest corner of the site.

• Memorial Square, adding 13 acres of new property to be created or acquired for a cultural district or new park space.

• Memorial Triangle, creating several triangular parks and triangular building sites that would include a pavilion.

• Memorial Garden, housing a memorial and cultural facilities on the southwest section of the site.

• Memorial Park, adding a 6-acre park and building a sculptural tower.

• Memorial Promenade, creating a linear park and building a significant memorial sculpture and two small 1-acre parks adjacent to a complex of buildings.