Six days after the 2001 terrorist attacks, critic Ada Louise Huxtable warned in the Wall Street Journal of the coming dangers to innovative design and planning: “This city can show its compassion, and its resolve, as it is doing now, but it is also a city incapable of the large, appropriate gesture in the public interest if it costs too much. . . . If the usual scenario is followed, the debate will lead to a ‘solution’ in which principle is lost and an epic opportunity squandered.” Ten years later, was she correct? From its inception as an urban renewal project that erased a 13-block area, the World Trade Center and its Twin Towers represented the last gasps of big ideas that were just about to expire. Today, the new WTC embodies a different set of ideas. Streets ripped out 50 years ago are returning — to better connect the complex to adjacent areas, which have evolved into real, 24/7 neighborhoods. In this section, you can begin to see if Huxtable was right.

Pictured: A remnant of the destroyed WTC stands in the entry Pavilion of the 9/11 Museum; Photo © James Ewing for Architectural Record

The Rebirth of the World Trade Center (and New York)
We track progress at Ground Zero and frame it in the context of other major New York moments of the last decade.

Photo © James Ewing

The WTC, Then and Now
To create the original world trade center, the Downtown Lower Manhattan Development Association and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey closed five streets and carved out a 16-acre superblock in the first half of the 1960s. The new WTC is reinserting some of those lost streets in an effort to better connect the complex with the rest of Lower Manhattan.

Photo © Engineering News-Record Archive (1958)

Controversial Tower Rises at Ground Zero
Part monument, part speculative real estate venture, the nation’s soon-to-be tallest building takes shape.

Photo © James Ewing

Libeskind Looks Back
Although his design for a "Freedom Tower" was replaced by SOM's One WTC, Daniel Libeskind helped shape the rebuilding at the World Trade Center through his master plan. RECORD recently spoke with him about the process.

Photo courtesy Studio Daniel Libeskind

Creating a Place to Honor the Past and Look Ahead
To Build on Hallowed ground in a dense urban setting, architects had to balance the needs of many different stakeholders.

Photo © James Ewing

Bringing Space and Light to the Underground
An imaginative plan for a transit hub has had a bumpy ride in the process of being realized.

Photo © James Ewing

Smoke and Mirrors
Critic Michael Sorkin weighs in on development at the World Trade Center site.