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<br /> washed, increasingworries that historic . � y' ., ' , !"Irk- a
<br /> features , such as terra-cotta ornamenta- `. _ ,• r " . 4 '. . • ` ;�
<br /> lion, would be undermined and that the , ;
<br /> l * ),
<br /> A & ;
<br /> dust would spread even farther.
<br /> The disaster also exacerbated some '
<br /> �� . � `+r5 r' • � fit . .'� - : •�
<br /> existing problems, most notably in Federal
<br /> .r a ,1• ' 1
<br /> Hall where 1 ,000 refu ees from the Trade ' . ;a. .,. SSS _
<br /> Center fled. Existing cracks in the foun- . i. � �'' ' ° j
<br /> dations of the 1834 Greek revival temple t y ~
<br /> have widened said Roger - = .
<br /> on Wall Street �t �.y - �
<br /> at
<br /> Lang, director of community programs at ' �, aaL
<br /> i
<br /> the Landmarks Conservancy.
<br /> (Two weeks after the attack, the U. S . I.
<br /> Department of Defense continued to Y - ' _ I .
<br /> assess damage to the Pentagon. Estimates _ M
<br /> to repair the building, which opened dur- IV�"`'
<br /> ing World War II and was named a
<br /> National Historic Landmark in 1992 , Confederate heritage groups protest at Alabama!; old capitol
<br /> reached as high as $ 500 million. "We will
<br /> have to consider how to handle future •
<br /> memorials on the site , says Peter Boice , O t
<br /> Southern Discom rt
<br /> conservation director for the defense sec- t
<br /> ' f
<br /> retary and how to incorporate them °Irt� a t , �� Ej �' ittt � ttal • E' I: �r ) t ; ,'t.s ft? t' tt ) tIc � r' ( I BY JAMES L . NOLES JR .
<br /> into the building restoration." )
<br /> ind0 idualstructures , preser- MONTGOMERY, ALA ,—"Thus has been offices in the old quarters . A six-year
<br /> Beyond
<br /> vationists worried about neighborhoods . a magnificent epic , " Confederate Gen . restoration completed in 1992 returned
<br /> t Within the last decade , Lower Manhattan John Breckenridge observed in 1865 as the building to its former grandeur, but
<br /> neighborhoods—Battery Park City, the Union troops closed in on the Rebel not the grounds . Last year, the Alabama '
<br /> Financial District, and TriBeCa particu- capital of Richmond. "In God's name , Historical Commission, caretaker of the
<br /> larly—had become the city's hippest let it not terminate in a farce. " property, received a $ 5 . 8 million trans-
<br /> places to live . Besides the artists' lofts of Today a seemingly well-intentioned portation-enhancement grant from the
<br /> a TriBeCa and the glossy, if somewhat effort to renovate the grounds of the Federal Highway Administration to focus `.
<br /> W
<br /> bleak„ towers of Battery Park City, hun- first seat of the Confederacy, the 1851 on the grounds . The proposed changes t
<br /> dreds of smaller loftettes had been carved Alabama State Capitol, has stumbled include regrading the front slope , plant-
<br /> out of old buildings that were no longer into a controversy that, if not a farce, is Mg trees and shrubs, and narrowing Bain-
<br /> Cc
<br /> viable as offices on Wall Street and in its certainly raising eyebrows. Officials say bridge Street along the western side of I ,;
<br /> canyonesque environs . that the grounds need sprucing up, but the building to eliminate on-street park- t
<br /> i Although TriBeCa was humming and Confederate heritage groups smell a ing. Although historical records of the
<br /> Battery Park City was rolling along before move to deemphasize or remove Con- grounds' appearance in 1861 are sketchy,
<br /> the disaster, real- estate experts were federate monuments or to introduce the project will likely create a sight more
<br /> already wondering whether the Finan- civil rights memorials . familiar to Jefferson Davis than the rows
<br /> cial District had lived up to its promise . A Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as of parked cars there today. A plan should
<br /> CL
<br /> few grocery stores, largely subsidized by the provisional Confederate president be finalized by February. I
<br /> w develo ers had o ened but New York's on the ca itol's front ortico in 1861 The South is "a land where the past
<br /> p p P p
<br /> W newest neighborhood was , to many, still and returned 25 years after Montgomery is not dead, it isn' t even past," Williamco
<br /> i
<br /> a bleak and slightly forbidding place . The fell to Union troops to lay the corner- Faulkner observed, and so when word of
<br /> Financial District, as a place to live, had stone for Alabama' s Confederate Mon- the landscape project surfaced , local
<br /> W not lived u to its own hype . In the weeks ument, In 1940 , a statue of Davis himself Confederate heritage groups protested. }
<br /> o P YP . g g P
<br /> after the World Trade disaster, real- estate was erected on the grounds , joining 22 Fifty miles away in the spring, Selma had
<br /> Wexperts wondered if it ever would. M other statues and memorials. moved a bust of Nathan Bedford For-
<br /> d State legislators moved to a new rest , a Confederate hero and Ku Klux
<br /> U) Trade Rozhon is a reporter at The New York statehouse across Union Street in 19862 Klan founder, from the grounds of its
<br /> CL
<br /> Times . but the governor and his staff still keep Smitherman Historic Building to Old
<br /> NOVEMBERIDECEMBER 200I I �
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