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CNN Live Saturday

New York Artists Plan to Rebuild the World Trade Center

Aired September 22, 2001 - 12:55   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Once the wreckage is cleared and that will probably be many months from now, some New York artists want to replace the World Trade Center towers. Yes, there's been talk of rebuilding but these folks don't want to wait years. Here's CNN's Jeanne Moos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seen from above, seen from across the Hudson, they are nowhere to be seen.

GUSTAVO BONEVARDI, ARCHITECT: When you see the New York skyline without those two buildings, it's just -- it just doesn't work.

MOOS: Which is why a group of artists is suggesting there could be light at the end of the rubble, beams of light.

(on-camera): Is there a name for this project?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Towers of Light.

JULIAN LAVERDIERE, ARTIST: We need a surrogate where those towers were.

MOOS (voice-over): In form, if not in substance, the concepts being kicked around bear a striking resemblance to the originals.

JOHN BENNETT, ARCHITECT: It's got to be at least as tall as the towers. I mean that's -- I think it's really important, as in something you see from far away.

MOOS: The Towers of Light would be intended as a temporary monument near but not on the disaster sight so as not to interfere with reconstruction.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's gorgeous.

MOOS (on-camera): You like the idea?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love the idea.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it would be somewhat ghostly. I think having it disappear it once is enough. MOOS (voice-over): The idea originated when the "New York Times" asked a pair of artists to imagine an image to fill the void. Paul Myoda and Julian Laverdiere once shared an art studio on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center. They described the missing towers as phantom limbs. We can feel them even though they're not there anymore.

PAUL MYODA, ARTIST: It's still beyond words for me and beyond the reaches of grammar.

MOOS: They realize the light beams they envisioned were similar to what two architects were proposing. The groups teamed up and the effort is being lead by an art's organization called Creative Time.

(on-camera): I mean is this pie in the sky?

ANN PASTERNAK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CREATIVE TIME: I don't think it is pie in the sky.

MOOS (voice-over): Executive director Ann Pasternak is gently feeling out city officials to see if there's support for a temporary memorial constructed at no cost to taxpayers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I don't -- I'm speechless. I don't what to think.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think you'll stir up too many emotions about the whole incident. I think it will just bring everything back up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I think it would weird me out to see it from my own apartment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing creeps me about it.

MOOS: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nowhere as creepy as what really happened. I think it's a real good idea.

MOOS (voice-over): Among the ideas, light beams rising from platforms on the water.

BONEVARDI: It's a very straightforward statement. It's putting these towers back.

MOOS: And these towers, not even a hijacker could destroy.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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