December 28, 2003	Sunday	Ziqa’ad 4, 1424

NEW YORK, Dec 27: Working to meet deadlines and demands by politicians and business leaders, architects and developers have fashioned a new World Trade Centre that will reclaim the New York skyline with the world’s tallest structure.

Labouring in secret also is a 13-member jury that hopes to select the best memorial for the people killed more than two years ago when terrorists slammed two planes into the World Trade Centre. The jury had selected eight finalists from among the 5,201 designs and a winner will be declared possibly as early as January.

New York Governor George Pataki and the city’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, both Republicans, unveiled in December the final design for the 592-metre “Freedom Tower,” which was a compromise between the original designer and architects for a developer.

Those officials want construction of the tower to start in September 2004 when the Republican National Convention will meet in New York City to nominate President George W. Bush to run for a second term.

Freedom Tower’s original designer, Daniel Libeskind, wants it at 1776 feet as a tribute to the American Declaration of Independence in the year 1776. But Libeskind, who lacks experience in skyscraper construction, has had to take a second role to David Childs, a renowned architect who works for developer Larry Silverstein.

Silverstein, holder of the 99-year lease to the World Trade Centre, is obligated to restore millions of square feet in retail and business space to the complex that was destroyed in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack. The site of the centre is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, whose main interest is to return business to the area as quickly as possible.

Freedom Tower was unveiled at “Ground Zero” in December, more than two years after the tragic attack, putting an end to a clash of egos between the designer and developer and his architects.

“The unveiling of Freedom Tower will dramatically reclaim a part of the skyline that was lost in September 11 and it will help catapult lower Manhattan back to its rightful place as a global centre of innovation and a great urban design,” Bloomberg said.

Silverstein is committed to completing construction of the tower by the end of 2008 or beginning of 2009. The new World Trade Centre will also have five skyscrapers, most of them for retail businesses and office space, to be built by 2013 at the cost of $12 billion.

He said rebuilding the complex will create 75,000 jobs and bring an estimated $17 billion to New York City’s economy.

Silverstein has pledged to build the tower with the most modern construction technology, enhanced life saving standards while being considerate to the environment.

If completing plans for the tower had been painful, selection of a memorial fit for the 3,000 people killed in the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in Washington has been no less difficult.

The artistic forms of the memorial designs have been considered unrealistic.—dpa