Press Releases
Newsletters





July 6, 2005

Letter from the IFC

Mr. Stefan Pryor
President
Lower Manhattan Development Corporation
One Liberty Plaza, 20th floor
New York, NY 10006


Dear Mr. Pryor:

In the wake of recent criticisms and concerns regarding the International Freedom Center and in response to Governor Pataki’s public statement of June 24, we have taken a step back to examine how best to meet the high standards that all who are involved at Ground Zero remain committed to meet. We welcome this opportunity to make clear what the IFC looks to achieve, in hopes of easing real concerns, such as those of the Governor and some family members.

We are deeply committed to establishing the International Freedom Center as a new world-class institution and an integral part of the living memorial at the World Trade Center site. We believe our institution must and will honor humanity’s march toward freedom and highlight America’s role as a beacon for freedom throughout the world. We take up this mantle with a great sense of responsibility and solemn purpose, and with a shared love of our country and of freedom itself. Rest assured that the IFC will never host “debates” about the “reasons” for the murder of nearly 3,000 people at the World Trade Center, nor, more broadly, will it be used as a forum for denigrating the country we love. Any suggestions to the contrary are simply false.

We share the belief, in the words of Governor Pataki, that “constructing a moving Memorial continues to be the centerpiece of our rebuilding efforts,” including the establishment of the Memorial Center, a museum devoted entirely to the stories of the events of September 11 and the lives of those we lost.

We believe the recent criticisms and concerns have made clear that we must redouble our already-extensive efforts to reach out to the September 11 families, and we must ensure the IFC plays an integral role in telling the story of September 11. Let us address three broad areas of concern about the International Freedom Center, and respond to each.  


Respect for Victims and Their Families

From the outset of our efforts, we have viewed the International Freedom Center as an integral part of a living memorial at the World Trade Center site. In one of our earliest descriptions of our institution, in 2002, we wrote that in addition to the Memorial itself, the “innocents also need to be honored, in an additional memorial, for what they represent. For they were killed not because of who they were, but because of what they symbolized. They were America's proxies, standing for our precious heritage of tolerance, open expression, and democratic choice. And so, as we plan to honor their individual lives, we are also obliged to commemorate them collectively. Such an additional memorial will recognize that, while they may not have looked upon themselves as fighters for freedom, they certainly died in its name.” In keeping with the Mission Statement for the Memorial as refined by family members and others, we have consistently viewed the IFC as playing a leading role in the Mission Statement’s call to “strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom, and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance, and intolerance.”

As you know, our vice chair, Paula Grant Berry, lost her husband on September 11, and has helped shape both the Memorial and the IFC. We have been in frequent and wide-ranging consultations with other family members for years, including meeting with the LMDC’s Families Advisory Council in a session in mid-May. We are also in continuing touch with the family members of the Memorial Foundation Board, and have been very gratified by the repeated expressions of support we have received from a majority of them. We have begun, and will continue, a very positive dialogue with the new Tribute Center. But we also know that we need to do more, and we will. We offer the following ideas, knowing that some will require more extensive consultations with family members before they could be realized:


In all of this, as we have said, we have been and will continue to be most mindful of the sanctity of this site. Like Governor Pataki and many others, we have long noted the similarities between this site and Gettysburg, where Lincoln called us all to bring forth a “new birth of freedom.” Our efforts to do no less at the World Trade Center will be in the same spirit as the new Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center which broke ground just last month, and one of the purposes of which, according to its organizers, is to help visitors “connect that battle with America’s continuing commitment to freedom around the world.”

In addition to those exhibits directly tied to September 11 described above, it may be useful at this point to describe illustratively other exhibits we have discussed. These could include an exhibition on leading “documents of freedom” and one on soldiers’ war letters home, both of which we might mount in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. If the IFC were open in 2009, we would likely take advantage of the nearly-simultaneous 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln and the 80th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. to tell the related stories of these two great American leaders.

And later this year, even before our building is open, we are working with the Polish government to offer an exhibit on the 25th anniversary of the Gdansk agreement and the legalization of Solidarity—Poland’s first major steps away from Communism and toward freedom-- with an emphasis on the role played by America’s free press in helping to make this possible. The government of Poland brought this idea to the International Freedom Center precisely because no existing institution in New York seemed designed to mount such an exhibit.


A Thoughtful and Appropriate Gateway

We agree, as Chairman Whitehead has said, that the Snohetta building “will frame and protect the sacred memorial setting.” In the building’s absence, as many have pointed out, foot-traffic across the Memorial Plaza at the morning and evening rush hours would substantially detract from the solemnity we all seek. As you noted when its design was unveiled, the building is “appropriately respectful of its special setting and mindful of its potent role in our revitalized Lower Manhattan… It will stand as a fitting response to the devastation of September 11th, a vessel of light and hope for our city’s continuing vitality, and source of artistic and intellectual expression.”

Having listened closely to the generally-enthusiastic reactions to the building’s design, we have come to agree that, in conjunction with reducing its overall size, its separation from the North Void should be extended. Within the structure, once visitors have ascended the ramps and into the Cultural Center building, we intend to take particular care that all views of the Memorial be constructed with sensitivity, and that the context of any exhibits be appropriate.

Beyond the building itself, we propose that Fritz Koenig’s sculpture known as “The Sphere” be permanently re-located to a ground-level site adjacent to the lifted entrance to the Cultural Center, near the intersection of Fulton and Greenwich Streets. An explanatory exhibit could accompany the installation. This location is the gateway from the transit hub to the entire site. “The Sphere,” created decades ago as a monument to fostering world peace through world trade, and now itself a symbol of September 11, would seem a fitting item to place at the “gateway to the gateway.” Again, we recognize that this idea is one that would require input from families and others.


Ensuring Appropriate Dialogue

We can provide a number of assurances that the International Freedom Center’s educational and cultural programming will be positive, respectful and not acrimonious. We will have multiple layers of internal controls to ensure this.

First, our Board of Directors is ultimately responsible for our programming. We and our colleagues on our founding Board take our own fiduciary responsibilities in this regard very seriously, and we are looking to expand the Board by recruiting leading citizens committed to this task. Rest assured that our nearly 100 advisers are just that, advisers.

Next, the educational and cultural programming will be overseen in close conjunction with the Aspen Institute. We believe that Aspen has earned the extraordinary reputation it enjoys for engendering civilized and constructive conversation on issues that matter. Speaking at Aspen’s 40th anniversary in 1990, for instance, President George H.W. Bush called the Institute “illustrious” and said, “the spirit of Aspen has come to signify the attempt to bridge the worlds of thought and action and, of course, to understand the tremendous changes taking place around us.”

Third, the programming itself will be provided by world-class universities, from New York City, the nation and the world. As you know, we have already assembled as part of this consortium New York University, the City University of New York, Columbia University, the New School University, Princeton University, Yale University, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge and the University of Cape Town. Additions to the consortium will be of the same stature. Each of these great institutions has its own time-tested mechanisms for ensuring the appropriateness of programs they offer.

Finally, the oversight of the university programming by the IFC and Aspen, and the universities’ own oversight, will all be under the guardianship of the Memorial Foundation, which we understand has established its own programming committee.

Beyond these three solid levels of professional oversight, we want to provide you with a number of substantive assurances about our programming:


We hope this letter has clarified the true nature of the International Freedom Center, and will enable all of us to proceed with the work of creating an integrated and living memorial on the hallowed ground of the World Trade Center site.


Respectfully,

Tom A. Bernstein
Co-Founder & Chairman

Paula Grant Berry
Vice Chair


cc: Hon. John C. Whitehead



<- Back to Recent News


Contact Us    Privacy Copyright©2005 All rights reserved