Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, a new documentary revisits one of the most consequential public meetings in the rebuilding of Ground Zero: a gathering where thousands of New Yorkers examined the city’s first plans for the site and rejected them.
The University of Miami’s Office of Civic and Community Engagement and the George P. Hanley Democracy Center will screen “9/11: Reclaiming Ground Zero” this month, followed by a discussion with the film’s producer and the Hanley Center’s director.
The town hall that rejected six plans
The film centers on Listening to the City, a public forum held at Manhattan’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on July 20, 2002. Thousands of people from across the New York metropolitan area gathered to weigh in on the future of the World Trade Center site, making it one of the largest public forums of its kind.
The nonprofit AmericaSpeaks, led by Carolyn Lukensmeyer, organized the session for the Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York, a coalition working with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as plans for the site took shape.
Participants sat at hundreds of round tables, using electronic keypads to register their views as they reviewed six preliminary concepts released days earlier.
The response was emphatic.
Participants rejected the plans, objecting in particular to the amount of commercial space and arguing that the proposals did not give sufficient weight to remembrance. One principle drew strong support: the footprints where the Twin Towers had stood should be preserved for memorial purposes.
The initial plans did not survive.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and Port Authority subsequently launched an international design study. In February 2003, they selected architect Daniel Libeskind’s “Memory Foundations” concept as the basis for the World Trade Center site’s master plan. The design incorporated several priorities that had emerged from the public process, including preserving the tower footprints for memorial space and restoring a prominent element to the Lower Manhattan skyline.
From forum to film
Director Josh Sabey spent years tracing the people and decisions behind that process. The documentary includes interviews with officials, architects and participants who shaped what came afterward, among them Libeskind, former New York Gov. George Pataki, journalist Errol Louis and Lukensmeyer.
The film was produced by Lukensmeyer, Robbie Shinder and Sarah Perkins. Shinder’s other documentary credits include “The Basement Talks” and “Once Upon a Time in Queens.”
Freestyle Digital Media released “9/11: Reclaiming Ground Zero” on digital and on-demand platforms Sept. 1, timed to the 25th anniversary of the attacks. The 69-minute documentary has also begun appearing at museums, universities and civic organizations around the country.
Rather than concentrating solely on the attacks themselves, the film turns much of its attention to what happened afterward — when officials, planners, victims’ families and residents confronted an unusually difficult question of urban planning: what should rise on a site where nearly 3,000 people had been killed?
Coming to Coral Gables
The Coral Gables screening runs from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15, at the Newman Alumni Center’s Multipurpose Room C, 6200 San Amaro Drive. Admission is free, with light refreshments before the screening.
After the film, Shinder will join Gregory Koger, a University of Miami political science professor and director of the Hanley Democracy Center, for a discussion of the documentary and the public process it chronicles. Registration is available through the university’s events website.
The Hanley Democracy Center was launched in fall 2022 through a gift from financier and philanthropist George P. Hanley and formally dedicated in March 2023. Housed in the College of Arts and Sciences, the center supports research and public programs focused on democratic institutions and civic participation.
That makes the story at the center of “Reclaiming Ground Zero” a natural fit.
The screening arrives during a week of national remembrance marking 25 years since the attacks, but its focus is on a less familiar chapter of the aftermath: the moment when thousands of New Yorkers were invited into one of the most closely watched planning decisions in the country — and their rejection of what was put before them sent planners back to the drawing board.
