Reclaiming the Space Where the Twin Towers Stood

The blank spot on the map of Lower Manhattan is starting to fill in. So catastrophically wounded nearly 13 years ago, the former site of the World Trade Center has begun, at last, to take on its new form in earnest. The fence is gone from around the 9/11 Memorial, and now, instead of entering with a timed ticket, you can walk right up to the pair of vast pools in the footprints of the vanished towers. The park around the pools is open to the surrounding streets. And this week saw the public unveiling of the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

Less than 24 hours before the doors to the museum opened, I took a tour of the site with Craig Dykers, founding principal of the architectural firm Snøhetta. Dykers and his colleagues are responsible for the design of the aboveground entrance pavilion for the museum (Davis Brody Bond designed the belowground portion, where the artifacts and exhibits related to that horrific day are on display).