The Port Authority hasn't been able to make good on many promises regarding the construction of the World Trade Center memorial, but let's hope they keep this one.
The agency vowed yesterday that the two massive waterfalls that will boom into the chasm where the building once stood will be ready for the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, according to a published report.
Hailed as the largest manmade waterfalls on the continent, the cascades will fall nearly 50 feet, dropping 40,000 gallons of water per minute into two reflecting pools in the shadow of where the mighty twin towers once stood, reports the Daily News.
"It's not a pit anymore," Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward told the paper. "With all the progress that is taking place on the site, it's not even Ground Zero anymore."
Last week, builders of the site's tallest office tower, One World Trade Center, set a 70-ton piece of steel into place -- the largest column installed yet at the building. Nearly 30 more columns are slated to go up by the fall.
Ward assured the city council that the waterfalls would be abundantly flowing by 2011, and testified that three quarters of the white oak trees that will adorn the Memorial Plaza will be in the ground, reports the News.
The underground Memorial Museum, which will exhibit 9/11 relics and recount the terrors of one of the most horrific days in U.S. history, will open in 2010, Ward said.
Local
The positive news about the memorial came quickly after City Councilman Alan Gerson (D-Manhattan) slammed developers for all the delays that have beset the site.
It's incomprehensible and unforgivable that not a single project at the World Trade Center site has been completed," Gerson said, according to the News.
