Lupica: Michael Bloomberg's vision, cash help heal giant hole in city's heart with ...
Michael Bloomberg sits at a table in an upstairs room in his offices on Madison Ave., and he talks about the National September 11 Memorial & Museum that will be unveiled on Thursday. It is a cathedral that honors memory and courage and dignity and the greatness of our city, and becomes a part of Bloomberg's record that even cynics and second-guessers cannot rewrite.
'The power of the names,' Bloomberg says. 'That's the model. It made it personal.'
He is talking, of course, about the victims of the attack that came out of the sky on Sept. 11, 2001. He is talking about the victims lost in our buildings downtown, the victims on the planes, the heroes who died trying to somehow save as many as they could.
'The names make it human,' he says.
Michael Bloomberg, who took over as chairman of the board on this project eight years ago and then became the kind of top manager with this museum that he was running the City of New York says, 'The city needed this and the country needed it and the world needed it.'
Now on Thursday, with President Obama and his wife in attendance, there will be the first look at what will immediately become one of the grand museums of the city. And the country. And the world. President Obama will give a speech and that speech will start a six-day dedication period when Sept. 11 survivors, relatives of victims, first responders and lower Manhattan residents will get to view the museum before it opens to the public on May 21.
And what they will see once they walk past the fountains out front, once they walk into the world of Sept. 11 and Sept. 12 and the days that followed, is a magnificent part of the legacy of Michael Bloomberg, who would not let this project stall or die, who took over the thing and put up his own money and saw it built, room by room, as this space was filled with the memories of that day, of both tragedies and triumphs.
Bloomberg spoke on Tuesday about how Maya Lin's amazing Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington and this National September 11 Museum are the two best he has ever seen in his life; how they are similar in this one important way, the power and emotion of the names. And how important it was to him that this particular museum, in this city, was done absolutely right.
'There are,' Bloomberg says, 'defining moments when you have to stand up.'
He put up $15 million of his own money. American Express had already pledged $10 million. David Koch contributed. So did Jon Stewart. Bloomberg pointed out on Tuesday how many governors we have seen in New York and New Jersey during the life of this project, and how they wanted to be part of the process, too.
Always, he said, he knew that he had to respect the families of the victims of the day. He became mayor of New York in the shadow of that day; became a mayor who was never once afraid to swing for the fences. He shows you that now, in lights, with this shrine to Sept. 11, 2001.
Bloomberg is asked if he ever imagined that downtown Manhattan would come back the way it has, bigger and louder and busier and more vibrant than ever. Without hesitation he says, 'Absolutely. One hundred percent. This was an original part of the city, with its views and old buildings and water views. I never doubted that lower Manhattan would come back.'
He talks about how when he did take over as chairman, feeling he was the logical person to do that, as both a mayor and the kind of philanthropist who clearly does not intend to be the richest guy in the cemetery, that there was a reluctance, even from the rich, to contribute money at first.
'People were afraid to write checks,' he said. 'They were afraid it wasn't going to get done.'
But he never doubted that it would get done, the way he never doubted that lower Manhattan would once again become a capital of the city. He managed the squabbling and the political agendas and the concerns of the victims' families, even the ones who had concerns about him. He was the top manager here that he always was as mayor, despite the rewriting of his record as a manager now that he's out of the room.
'You let the arguments play out,' he said with a shrug.
Because Bloomberg would not quit, now the museum becomes a bright and new landmark of the city on Thursday. A friend of mine was given a tour of it on Tuesday and when he was done he said, 'It is this huge, striking jigsaw of human life and history. Somehow they have taken the day and frozen it in time.'
You get pieces of the day, fragments, memories, even surprises. There is footage of Matt Lauer on the 'Today' show, breaking into their normal coverage, talking about breaking news at the World Trade Center. The Rolex watch of Todd Beamer, one of those who stormed the cockpit of United 93, the plane that was headed for Washington, D.C., and either the White House or the Capitol, is under glass at the museum. There is a Survivors' Staircase and wallets and seatbelts.
There is a bicycle rack from outside the twin towers, with a half-dozen bikes still locked into the rack. And ambulances with their tops blown off and firetrucks.
Certainly Michael Bloomberg did not do this alone. But you must know that the money is never raised and the museum does not get built without him. It really is as much his legacy as anything he did here as mayor.
'There were some dark days,' he says. 'But I just kept telling everyone the same thing: 'We are going to do this.' '
For the city, for the country, for the world. Mostly for the people we lost. Bloomberg is right. It is personal. The names of the dead will always make it personal and human. They needed a place like this, downtown, where they can live forever. So did we all.
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