maya stone's List: impressive

It was to have been an audacious gesture in an already daring design. As  envisioned by the architect Santiago  Calatrava, the enormous counterpoised wings forming the rooftop of the World  Trade Center Transportation Hub were to have opened  almost 50 feet wide to the sky, in fine weather and on each anniversary of  the terrorist attacks.

In the text of a speech  prepared for delivery to the Alliance for Downtown New York, Mr. Ward also said:  “Making this decision helps preserve the overall iconic nature of Calatrava’s  winged design, but it will allow the Hub” to “literally fit better with the  other buildings on the site; when the wings opened they came far too close to  the surrounding office towers.”

 

When the idea was introduced four years ago, it was said that the operability  of the roof would help clear the main