From The WTC Memorial Finalists: The Media Event

The piece I wish I’d written in immediate response to the eight WTC Memorial Finalists: Christopher Hawthorne’s article on Slate.
What I’m on the record saying in the mean time: from my debut appearance in USA Today. [FWIW, I actually said, “30, 50, or 100 years from now.” I’m more tweaked they didn’t give the URL. Damned editors…] [Elizabeth, is that what you mean by “kicker”?]

REUTERS photo by Mike Segar of Greg Allen taking photos of the WTC Memorial designs for his weblog, image: yahoo.com

A man in need of a haircut–or at least baseball cap with his URL on it–taking photos of the WTC Memorial finalists for his weblog. Styling credits: neoprene sweater (Samsonite by Neil Barrett), Tyvek jacket (Mandarina Duck), insane amount of sweat that generated (model’s own). Photo: Reuters/Mike Segar, Yahoo.com [update: my sister “congratulated” me with, “I saw the picture of you–on your website.”]
Here are some pictures I’m not in.



News cameramen are apparently quite willful and require much stern management, image: greg.org

I was loudly forbidden to shoot any pictures, but a wave of tv cameras followed the action and drowned out the publicist’s pleas.
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Public Art Fund chair and the NY Post's William Neuman bracket some other guy, image: greg.org

Tom Eccles, who runs the Public Art Fund, cell phone in hand, incurs the certain disapproval of the nearby Paul Goldberger while the NY Post‘s William Neuman (R*) discusses something with someone I don’t know. Hey, you want good captions, read the Economist. Oh, that’s the model for Suspending Memory. It was really hard to see these things in such a fray.
two architects examine Garden of Lights upclose, image:greg.org

These architects were very cool and thoughtful. They’re looking at the above-under aspects of Garden of Light, whose chief designer, not insignificantly, is a landscape architect.
a mediamember's videocamera, trained on Garden of Light, image: greg.org

A framing trick I learned from Wim Wenders: another couple of views of Garden of Light.
As money a shot as you can get, and all the press are cashing in: a firefighter just happens to be holding a baby while looking at the Memorial designs, image: I can't take credit for this one. it's too inspired.

What a stroke of luck for the assembled media when this handsome, brave firefighter happened to wander over to a display case with a young child in his arms.
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New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger, whose argument about cell phones destroying our sense of being in a place loses a bit of its persuasiveness when you’re in an event that is staged entirely for media creation. The exhibition was opened to the public at noon, but no non-media people were anywhere nearby. The crowd quickly evaporated.