Sure, no man is an island, but some worry the redeveloped World Trade Center site will be. Not literally of course, unless we see another superstorm, but because of new security measures that the NYPD announced yesterday. Idealists had hoped that a clean slate would allow urban planners to more cleanly integrate a new WTC into downtown street patterns and waves of foot traffic and the like, but those hopes appear to be quashed by plans reported by the Times that call for the whole swath to be surrounded by "a fortified palisade of guard booths, vehicle barricades and sidewalk barriers."
Part of the strategy in the name of safety includes road blockades for vehicles at eight intersections like the one at West Broadway (top rendering). Nine guard booths would monitor all traffic. Streets that would be closed or at least partially restricted include Church, Greenwich, Fulton, Vesey and Liberty. (The Times has a detailed map showing all of the measures.) While pedestrians won't really be affected on a logistical level aside from a few sidewalk-slimming annoyances, drivers will and, most important, the dreams of fluid neighborhood flow and seamless incorporation of the new WTC into the area will most definitely suffer. Said one planning expert to the New York Post, "The bad thing is that you have these checkpoints that make it look more like an armed camp or a gated community."
· With Security, Trade Center Faces New Isolation [NYT]
·Furor over NYPD's planned Fort WTC [NY]
· World Trade Center redevelopment [Curbed]
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