Assurances on B.P.C. library

Volume 20 Issue 9 | July 13 - 19, 2007
Paradise is not lost, W.T.C. architect tells C.B. 1

Architect A. Eugene Kohn’s rendering of the JPMorgan Chase tower planned near a park at the World Trade Center site.

By Skye H. McFarlane

Liberty Park will be a paradise after all, architect A. Eugene Kohn has decided.

Kohn’s optimism — and some reassuring shadow studies — have assuaged some of the community’s fears about a proposed cantilever that would jut out over the park from World Trade Center Tower 5. However, on Monday night, community members and another area developer continued to express worries about pedestrian access and retail along the dense strip of Cedar St. that will house Tower 5, Liberty Park, a vehicle screening and parking facility, and a new home for the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church.

“It has attracted a lot of interesting and rather explicit names,” Kohn joked while describing his design for Tower 5 to Community Board 1’s World Trade Center Committee. JPMorgan Chase made a deal with the Port Authority last month to lease the building for 92 years, but the deal was contingent upon Chase being able to build floors large enough for trading operations — a function that Kohn called “part of the D.N.A. of banking.”

Kohn’s firm, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, was hired by the Port to produce a preliminary design for what a slender tower with large trading floors would look like. The resulting seven-floor cantilever led to community worries that the park and the church, which will sit just north of the Chase tower, would be plunged into permanent shadow. The building has been called the “Tower of Darkness” by the real estate blog Curbed.com. Other online pundits have used less-printable monikers, comparing the cantilever to a certain part of the male anatomy. Kohn said Monday he hopes that the community will grow to appreciate the unique design and see it, as he does, as “handsome.”

Shadow studies done by Kohn’s firm show that while the park will be in shadow much of the day, the shadows come mostly from other buildings in the area. Because the cantilevered tower will be shorter than the straight tower originally planned for the site, the cantilever would actually reduce the shadows cast on the World Trade Center memorial at certain times of the day and year.

While addressing the shadow question in an interview with the Downtown Express two weeks ago, Kohn said he doubted whether anyone would use Liberty Park anyways, since it will be situated 20 feet above street level, atop the entrance to the vehicle screening center. After those comments stirred some anger in the community, Kohn said he took some time to reassess the park and its possibilities. He even created a design mock-up for the park and the church, which he showed to the community Monday night.

“The more we looked at this, the more excited we got about the design,” Kohn said, pointing out how the park could take advantage of its great views of the memorial and its direct connection to the Liberty St. pedestrian bridge and the World Financial Center. For the church, Kohn imagined sweeping staircases leading down to street level and inviting pedestrians in, like the Spanish Steps or the grand duomos of Italy. In Kohn’s design, the church and the pedestrian corridor would stay bright and cheery thanks to lights shining down from the underside of the cantilever.

“I probably spoke too soon in the paper and I was probably misquoted somewhat,” Kohn said, stressing that he never used the word “paradise.” Downtown Express used the word in the headline, but did not report that Kohn or anyone else said it. “In any case, I take it all back. The park will be a paradise.”

However, Port Authority representatives at the meeting stressed that Kohn’s designs are only proposals. The Greek church has yet to produce any design plans and Chase has yet to hire a final architect for Tower 5, although Kohn is widely thought to be a front-runner. The Port Authority will design Liberty Park and the surrounding streetscapes sometime in the future. None of the new Cedar St. amenities can be built until the former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty St. is dismantled — a process that has been fraught with delays and safety problems.

Andy Jurinko, a long-time resident of 125 Cedar St., applauded Kohn for designing a Tower 5 building that would be markedly less bulky and ugly than the Deutsche Bank tower that it will replace. Residents were also pleased to hear that Chase may seek a platinum rating from the U.S. Green Buildings Council.

“I think the design looks kind of fun…it will give you a sense of security and shelter,” said Jurinko, who makes his living as an artist. Jurinko said he would love to view the new World Trade Center site from atop the cantilever, where Kohn has designed a landscaped plaza. He said that Chase could even charge a fee for such an experience, like the viewing areas at the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Plaza do.

Kohn was also enthusiastic about opening the plaza over the trading floors to the public, but he acknowledged it will be a decision for Chase to make.

Some community members remained unconvinced, fearing that even if the cantilever did not cast extra shadows on the park, it would stick out like a sore thumb amongst the more streamlined World Trade towers.

“It still doesn’t work for me,” said board member Allan Tannenbaum, shaking his head as he glanced at the rendering.

Board members also expressed concerns that the Chase tower would house just a single retail space — a Chase bank branch.

“I think it’s a great achievement for the economy that you’ve gotten Chase down here,” said board member Tom Goodkind. “On the other hand, you’re sitting here in front of a group of residents who need public amenities like retail stores and grocery stores and public parks.”

Marc Ameruso said that the board needed to bring Chase and the Greek church to a board meeting to discuss their more specific plans, since items like lighting under the cantilever and stairs along the church site would be crucial to the pedestrian experience.

“Street life is important. We don’t want to go back to something that didn’t work before,” Ameruso said, referring to the sometimes-labyrinthine nature of the old W.T.C. complex.

The developers of 130 Cedar St., which sits due south of the future Liberty Park site, echoed the residents’ worries about pedestrian flow and street life on Cedar St. After it is decontaminated and stripped of its façade, which was heavily damaged on 9/11, 130 Cedar St. will be rebuilt as a Club Quarters hotel with three public retail spaces.

Chris Colbourne, the project’s spokesperson, said that he thinks two of the retail spaces will be restaurants. He said that he would seriously consider the community’s request that the final retail space contain some sort of local amenity, such as a supermarket. Colbourne added that he hopes the Port Authority will take care to make Cedar St. appealing and accessible to pedestrians at street level, not just atop Liberty Park. He showed board members a sketch of what the street might look like if the park dropped straight off into a wall to the vehicle security center, without any steps, ramps or street plantings.

“We hope it doesn’t look like that,” Colbourne said, drawing appreciative laughter from the crowd. “We really want to make this a vibrant pedestrian corridor and we have a major concern about this vehicle entrance.”