3.4 The stairway was later shown to have been relatively unscathed shortly after 9/11.
Meanwhile, residents saw the tug-of-war as yet another obstacle in the way to a redeveloped, healthy neighbourhood. Community Board 1 urged that eventual preservation should in no case ‘cause or add to delay in reconstruction’, or increase the already incredibly high costs of the Memorial Foundation, and The West Street Coalition was opposed to any efforts to save the staircase. Their chairman was quoted by the New York Times: ‘if it can be moved to a museum, great. But to the extent that this is going to delay rebuilding the World Trade Center site, I think New Yorkers have had enough [of waiting].’ 166 Significantly, he also questioned the uniqueness of the staircase as a ‘surviving’ structure (the Liberty Street pedestrian bridge was another aboveground remnant still standing) and pointed to recently published photos by Meyerowitz that showed the undamaged stairs after 9/11.167 The tug-of-war over the staircase lasted through 2007, while the LMDC once again tried to mediate by conducting a series of meetings between the parties. In the end they proposed, late in 2007, that:
LMDC shall facilitate and ensure that the Port Authority and the Foundation will cooperate and engage appropriate consultants to: (1) extract intact and move the entire run of stairs and the ‘connector plate’ at the top of the stairs; (2) store these elements (…) (3) return and install intact the full run of stairs and a portion of the “connector plate” in the Museum in a central location (…) (4) provide for meaningful
166 167
New York Times, 14 September 2006. Ibid.
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