New York – The final plans for the controversial International Freedom Center have been released, and critics said it’s everything they feared.
The IFC says its exhibits and programs “will explore freedom as a constantly evolving world movement in which America has played a leading role.”
One display would chronicle “the tremendous outpouring of sympathy for the victims” of Sept. 11, 2001, from around the world.
Elsewhere, the Freedom Walk, laid out on “a grand concourse,” would offer artifacts and images of freedom “from the ancient world through today,” such as the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The plans were demanded by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. amid heated concerns from some victims’ family members that the IFC is too political to occupy a building near the Ground Zero memorial.
The development agency posted the 49-page “Content and Governance Report” on its website, www.renewnyc.com, for public comment.
Anthony Gardner, chairman of the World Trade Center United Family Group, said the IFC’s plans “change nothing.”
“It’s still the same program, maybe with more bells and whistles, but it has no relevance to 9/11 and will not tell the story of 9/11 that needs to be told,” he said.
Unless Gov. George Pataki, R-N.Y., pre-empts discussions, the development agency is expected to decide in the next month or so whether the IFC will have a home in the so-called cultural building.
Pataki has insisted on an “absolute guarantee” that programming at ground zero won’t offend victims’ families.
