Last Friday, Frank Gehry and Bruce Ratner presented the public with the latest, more modest version of their controversial Atlantic Yards development. The 22-acre, 16-skyscraper complex, which threatens to irrevocably transform the very character of the entire borough of Brooklyn, home to 2.5 million people, will cost $3.5 billion dollars and scheduled to be completed in 2009, pending approvals. Simultaneously, construction on the WTC Memorial grinded to a halt after it was discovered that the price tag had somehow doubled. The memorial, which essentially amounts to two huge, square puddles and a souvenir stand, could no longer be had at the meager sum of $500 million; now, $1 billion would be required to build it as planned. In the wake of the revelation, the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation suspended its fund-raising indefinitely, and Mayor Bloomberg, Pataki and New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine all vowed not to let the budget go a penny over the original $500 million, according to The Daily News. Thrifty redesigns are on the way, which may include the planned museum moving from beneath the street into the Freedom Tower, as Bloomberg had previously suggested.
