This week, urban anthropologist Elizabeth Greenspan and her book, battle for ground zero inside the political struggle to rebuild the World Trade Center. In it, the Harvard University lecturer exposes the bitterness of which many different groups stake a claim to the real estate they considered sacred to so many. This program is about one hour. Host im kenneth feinberg, and i have a great distinct pleasure of chatting for a few minutes with elizabeth greensp greenspan, anthropologist, lecturer at Harvard University, and the author of a very important new book, battle for ground zero inside the political struggle to rebuild the World Trade Center. This battle is not about al qaeda and its not about the 9 11 terrorist attacks, at least not directly. What it is about is a social, anthropological study of the various political, social and other factors that went into the final decisions surrounding the site at the World Trade Center. Why, when, what the problems were. Elizabeth greenspan, welcome to after words ass thank you. Host let me start off by asking what motivated you to publish this book, to write it and take the time to research . What were the underlying reasons you decided to focus on the struggle to reconstruct the World Trade Center directory i was a graduate student studying urban studies and anthropology. Side is interested in cities, and i become, becoming very interested in how cities reconstruct themselves after wars and violence and destruction. I was think about a project in berlin actually. Im studying what the city had done in the 90s after the wall came down. Fascinating things are doing to mark the wall and these different moment in history. I was putting together and anything a study with professor that fall, and then 9 11 happened. Some incredibly powerful events. It was clear that so may things are going to be changing from that moment on. U. S. Policy, domestic, u. S. Foreign policy. Right away within weeks everyone starts asking what do we rebuild . How do we capture the feelings that were having right now as a country . What kind of architecture would we imagine . So debate started playing out on outdated pages, on tv about the face and how we can put something here to mark this. And so i started reading about this in the papers and i thought i couldnt possibly just continue forward with my graduate plan, when the things im interested in and the questions im interested in are now playing out right here in new york city. Host how much of the Early Research that you did, the early effort that you engaged in in trying to fashion a sort of the thesis of battleground zero . How much of this was your evaluation of political pressures, economic pressures, pressures of emotional human nature . Guest it was all of those things. Thats what was so interesting why this place is so important, because it concentrates one16acre landfill political pleasure. People running for office to get politicians involved who care about this place and need to make something happen. You have people are leasing the buildings. Billions of dollars at stake in rebuilding commercial space. Then have new yorkers who live around the area. You have family members who have lost loved ones. Nearly 3000 people were killed. Then you have americans and people from around the world who saw what happened. They also feel connected. So you have so many different interests all coming together who all want, to me and really felt like a question of ownership a lot of the time. Equity the key question is who owns this land. There were lots of we should answer that question. The was illegal and which is well, the developer owns the lease and the Port Authority. They owned the land. But for a lot of people does a completely inadequate and to because they thought, americans own this piece of land. This is a piece of american patriotism now. This is a place where a horrible tragedy happen. We have to commemorate it. Host in your title you talk about the battle for ground zero. What were the major conflicting forces that were adversarial to each other that gave rise to your metaphor, the battle for ground zero . Guest they were too, the main tension is the one between the public sphere where you have, but many different people within the public sphere from architects to new yorkers the victims family members, the taurus, you know, all coming together, masses on the street who want to say, who are turning out other carries to voice their concerns. Him and then you have the private sector you have the developer who owns the land. You have the Port Authority and the developer owns the lease and then have the Port Authority was the kind of quasipublicprivate institution in new york that owns the land. They are very invested in, they believe in building a memorial of the also want to make sure that all of the office space that was destroyed was rebuilt. There were 10 million square feet of office space, quite a bit. Almost every conflict at some level is a clash between these public and private forces time to figure out what the balance is. Because everyone believes there should be some sort of mixture between a public and private void. Host how much of a role in the battle did the families themselves who saw the land and the World Trade Center area as almost sacred land, how much, aside from the developers and the insurance companies, politicians, the number crunchers, how much of the battle involved this psychological attrition doing anything with property other than declaring it some sort of holy land . Guest right. Family, as many fans thought of it as a Burial Ground because people were killed there. Something thats important think of, they were to just kill the bear, but there were just over 1000 people who were never found. So the way in which they were killed as well. Its a pretty shocking kind of violence where people were just literally decimated. Host incinerated. Guest and incinerated. So for those families who werent able to have a body or any kind of fragment of bone deberry, this places where they think of their loved one is laying. So the Burial Ground in many thoughts, especially early on in the first years after 9 11 that nothing should happen to it. Many new yorkers and Many Americans didnt necessarily share that point of view because a lot of people want something, for instance, to kind of rise on the skyline again. Fill in the hole in the sky that the twin towers used to fill. So there was a sense that we should treat this land carefully, and we should commemorate, but we shouldnt i think there wasnt a consensus that there should be just a park, for instance, largest open space. But a lot of families worked hard to make sure some portion of land was put aside for a very substantial memorial. It was hard. In this kind of giveandtake and this kind of democratic process, people have to make compromises and that was a big one for many families, that they knew that something would be built there, and it would be developed when they wanted nothing. Host in most battles that we studied history, there are winners and losers. There are heroes and villains. In your book, who do you focus on at the end of the day that turned out to be the heroes in resolving this battle, and who do you come in one way or another, focus on as enemies but not enemies but as those who are obstacles to a successful getting to yes on the resolution of about a . Guest its a hard question. This process was so long and so dysfunctional that theres almost no hero, because everyone, once they entered in, was kind of tarnished at some point. I think some people believe that mayor bloomberg is something of a hero. Although there are many people who disagree with that, but he came in later in the process. For a while, governor pataki was really running things but then he left in 2006 and that opened up some room for the mayor to get involved. He became the chairman of the 9 11 foundation, and he also helped to bring the Port Authority and the developer together to start making some compromises. I talked a lot of people who thought without bloomberg this, the battles would still be going on, that he made some key, help some other people make key compromises and key decisions. But ive talked to just as many people who continue to be furious with the kind of agenda that the they saw, you know, the city, the Mayors Office having. He is certainly one person. Chris ward who took over the Port Authority later on in 2008 is another, kind of help, right around 2010 is when things started to move forward. Host that is nine years after the attack. Want a nine year war of attrition, in your book, as to actually implement the plan . Guest i mean, i think thats the question. Artist it was a debate. Sometimes there were family groups who protested. There was a big debate over the museum that was supposed to be at ground zero called the International Freedom center that the Lower ManhattanDevelopment Corporation had picked. And a small group of families, many disagreed with him, but a small group mobilize and they got his museum defeated. So that takes time. But a lot of the vows were actually between Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority, these two partners, Publicprivate Partnership because this was an unprecedented situation, there was no guidelines on how theyre supposed to Work Together when their property was destroyed in such a historic fashion. So they fought. They broaden their lawyers. In arbitration, and it took years. Host lets focus on two battles. Lets focus on two battles that you mentioned and discussed in the book. You mentioned one today. Explain to our viewers what the battle in failed and the sides our and fall. Take, for example, the very reasonable it seemed idea for the International Museum. What was the genesis of that idea . What was its strengths and why did it founder . What was there about a wellintentioned, noble idea in the sense of an International Museum at the site, why did ultimately fail . Guest the idea, initially it was called the Freedom Center, then they made it the International Freedom center. The idea, another developer in new york who happen to know, had been in there for a long time, in involved in politics and he thought that this was host who is this . Guest bernstein. Host tom bernstein, yes. Very wellintentioned and very sound public citizen. Guest right. He had this idea pretty early on after 9 11. He began talking about it with people. As he says in the book him in an interview, it was a somewhat vague idea dedicated to the big concept of freedom. He wanted to talk about freedom historically. Struggles for freedom over time in different parts of the world, including in the United States where there were a struggle for freedom here. And he wanted to talk about, you know, hot spots. That was one of the parts of the museum, hot spots, battle for freedom and struggles for human rights. Was somewhat unclear the want of public intellectuals and professors involved, and he signed up and marie slaughter. He was getting important well established people on board. But there was always a push in the rebuilding effort to how things moving forward very quickly. So they put together a set of plans that in hindsight somewhere in all told me it was to fester they really werent ready be putting together these guidelines. Host still too much emotion as and in the air traffic i think they just werent exactly certain what they would see. They talked about at the end of the museum is going to be a Public Servant and whether be inviting people to sign up to volunteer for human rights efforts in different parts of the world. Wellintentioned but what does that really mean to what exactly does that look like . People didnt know to the Aspen Institute was going to be involved in helping set of programming. There were lots of partners. Exact with the program would become with the exhibits would look like, that was still left to be decided. There was still time, but the public wanted to see blueprints. So they released these prints to the times. They wrote a big story on the museum and it was clear that this sounds interesting, but its not quite sure what its going to be. Host you make it sound as if the idea, ultimately floundered, over its absence of clarity, or just timing in life is everything and it came along at a time for what . The emotionalism of World Trade Center and the attacks have settled, or what . Guest one important part of it is that 9 11 wasnt specifically addressed for the most part in the museum. It was going to be mentioned up front but it really wasnt a museum about 9 11 and that ends up being a big reason people start protesting against the museum. Timing may also been a part of a competitive think the lack of clarity. It sounded abstract and freedom is a big idea, and what exactly does that have to do with 9 11 . You have to make an intellectual case for it and thats hard to do in these quick little blueprints that theyre publishing and putting online and people are reading. A couple people found out about this. One was deborah burlingame, a board member on the foundation. She started asking questions. What is this Freedom Center and but let me . She had two primary problems with the museum, and the first was that didnt have anything to do with 9 11, which to her was very important. Her brother was a pilot on the plane that crashed into the pentagon. And the second, she looked at what she believe believe the nuf people who were involved were progressive liberals is of a certain sense of been critical of the bush administration. And she thought they were going to be bringing their politics into this museum and using it as a place to advance their political cause. And so from both in, she very sadly puts Grassroots Organization together that just went out and successfully defeated this museum. But it was a huge, i mean an incredible controversy and chaos for a number of months in the summer of 2005 the got out that age pages involve. Host to what extent we have a debate that gets really nasty, and is played out in the new york times, the wall street journal, to what extent is it inevitable that when you have that much, that degree of controversy, it may take a while, but sooner or later the idea was dead. The meter controversy itself on an idea that was noble and wellintentioned guarantees ultimately its failed to even its going to take a while to kill it. I think thats a good point. I think when it comes to this place, 9 11, thats been the pattern. People dont, the leaders in charge, they want things to move forward. Any controversy anything that looks like its going to be a problem, its gone. Thats what happened here. At first people on board with it. Pataki was supported. Giuliani was at least on paper supported. And then what happens is berlin games group got Hillary Clinton. Everyone is planning on burning for president. Very, politics is big part of it. They convince her and rather happenstance effort to say that shes against the museum. They write a press release. They publicize with Hillary Clinton who again says giuliani becomes against it, tacky comes against a, boom, boom, boom. I think youre right in some sense, since it becomes a controversy like that, and politically its not sustainable, its gone. But you do have to look at Something Like the debate over the Islamic Center which is another major controversy at ground zero. That was falling and the same footstep to give people getting really emotional, lots of protests on the streets. The oped pages, the blogosphere. But a different result. It stayed, and certain politicians said they should be moved but others called for tuesday. One of whom was mayor bloomberg who said this would be a mistake. So they kind of rode out the controversy. Speak lets take another example of a battle that falls within your overall battle for ground zero. Were talking with Elizabeth Greenspan, the author of an important new book, battle for ground zero inside the political struggle to rebuild the World Trade Center. Macmillan is the publisher. Lets focus on another bout, which to some is more existential but a very, very real, and that is the architectural plan. And the competition, the results, and sure enough, the very polarizing battle over what exactly architecturally should be done with this important piece of land in Lower Manhattan. What was that all about . Guest so this was one of the first. Early on, you know, we said we have a 16acre piece of land. We have to put something on a, or maybe not. It was just open any, what do we do with it, right . Everyone wanted a say in that. So very quickly people, leaders promised a public process to receive public input, to generate a master plan. At the same time that that was going on, however, like you said before, you had Larry Silverstein, you had pataki assuring the Port Authority and they believed in the importance of the commercial space that was destroyed. They wanted to make sure that Lower Manhattan remained an International Financial hub. And they believed that in order for it to remain the reputation they had to rebuild all of this commercial space. That was very, a very controversial point e