“The minute you begin thinking about light as a material—and it’s material in motion, right, it’s always moving, lighting is not static—then you begin to think about how you can use it and how you can manipulate it. Then it opens up a whole world.”

PAUL MARANTZ Lighting Designer

There are no water fountains or trash receptacles on the 9/11 Memorial plaza. While the memorial designers fought for them, they lost the battle. “We had gone to Israel to find a trash can that you couldn’t blow up,” Walker said, but they “decided not to do them.” Trash cans were excluded for two reasons. One, they’re a security risk—people can put bombs in them, although various design mechanisms can be used to make doing so harder. The second issue is an aesthetic one: typically, trash receptacles are located in corners, and the last thing anyone wants to see as they approach the memorial or a chic shop is an overflowing trash can. Staff could be hired to empty them, but it’s not clear who would be responsible for that cost: the Port Authority controls the overall site, the Memorial Foundation maintains the memorial plaza, and New York City owns the sidewalks, which each World Trade Center property owner is expected to maintain.

Safety and security concerns determined the location and number of public amenities. Restrooms are available at the Transportation Hub, inside the fare zone, and, for ticket holders, at the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Additional facilities will be located inside the retail areas of Two and Three World Trade Center. There are none on the memorial plaza, an example of thinking that is blind to the needs of families, the elderly, and the pregnant. Perhaps it is a good thing that one cannot buy a cup of coffee on the plaza, either. New York City Planning also did away with bike racks, a step backward for green transportation. These basic needs fell between the cracks largely because they were outside of the Port Authority’s usual purview and the authority did not have the internal resources to take on the Department of City Planning and other agencies.

SAFETY

Questions about World Trade Center security are rife because of its unique history and the sheer numbers there on any given day. Thousands of people flow in and out daily, arriving on foot, via subways and trains, or in buses, cabs, and cars. Hundreds of trucks make daily deliveries. Somehow, in the midst of this constant flux, the Port Authority has to get inside the heads of garden-variety pickpockets, teenage pranksters, and those with darker motives. The World Trade Center integrates comprehensive protective materials and technologies. The extent of these measures, delineated in classified documents, has been shared with very few. To quantify the Port Authority’s efforts in another way: From the 2015 operating budget of $2.9 billion, “we’ll probably spend a number like $800 million (including capital spending) on security, a shockingly high number, but given the demands of the 9/11 world, not surprising,” Patrick Foye said.

“We are, without question, a target,” said Joe Dunne, a 32-year veteran of the NYPD and its first deputy commissioner on September 11, and the Port Authority’s former chief of security. His comment echoed those expressed by many entrusted with public safety in an age of terrorism. Furthermore, One World Trade Center’s distinction as the tallest tower in the nation makes it an “attractive nuisance,” as Dunne called it, “for crackpots and daredevils.” The media is culpable too. If there’s so much as a sneeze at the site, if a teenager manages to sneak through a hole no bigger than a manila envelope and get to the top of the tower, the story appears instantly in the press, egging on other would-be trespassers.

Visible protective measures include street bollards, sally ports, inspection booths, and raptors, such as those pictured here at the western end of Vesey Street.