Perelman Performing Arts Center finally opens at World Trade Center

It is not another office building, nor is it a memorial to the terrorist attacks of September 11, at least definitively. this is a theater complex.

Twenty years ago, the Perelman Center for the Performing Arts was conceived to add dynamism and draw people to places of devastation and mourning, but now it has finally arrived at a very different ground zero. The site is surrounded by new skyscrapers and is in a neighborhood with more residents than before the attack. Every year, millions of tourists come to memorials and museums.

Nonetheless, organizers believe the arts space (also known as “PAC NYC”) has an important role to play in one of the most sensitive and historic spaces in the United States.

“This monument is for people to come to mourn and to pay their respects. The museum is for people to learn, understand and never forget,” said PAC NYC Executive Director Khady Kamara. “The performing arts center is about celebrating life, really celebrating the resilience of New Yorkers and this country. “

Perhaps a space suited to theatrical performances, the $560 million institution has never lacked in character. Despite the designated site as a temporary transit hub, construction has faced financial hurdles, political backlash and a years-long wait. Leaders, architects, designs and occupants have all changed.

Now, the first of five refuge-themed concerts will kick off on September 19th. They will attend invitation-only events, including a Sept. 11 event open to victims’ families and first responders commemorating the 22nd anniversary of the attack on the Trade Center, the Pentagon and a site in Pennsylvania that killed nearly 3,000 people.

“I think about 9/11 and our responsibility to this community every day,” artistic director Bill Rauch said recently at the 138-foot (42-meter) cube. High.

Daylight filters through the Portuguese marble walls, turning them into shimmering amber quilts with chocolate and caramel textured patterns. The building’s boxy exterior is quiet during the day and glows from within at night. Its nearly 5,000 marble panels are backlit by chandeliers in the corridors surrounding the theatre.

Nearby but out of sight is the 9/11 Memorial, shaded by 12-centimeter (half-inch) thick stone, cleverly wrapped in glass for protection and energy efficiency. Architect Joshua Ramus explained that the windowless design keeps the din of theatergoers at a respectful distance from those mourning at the memorial, and vice versa.

“I don’t want the memorial to be a spectacle,” he said.

The arts center was built largely with private donations, including $130 million from former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, $75 million from investor Ronald Perelman, and government Funded by $100 million from the Reconstruction Agency.

“Nothing like this has ever happened to the region and it will continue to drive the city’s recovery from the pandemic in the same way the arts helped drive our recovery after 9/11,” Bloomberg said in a statement. Same.”

With movable walls, seats, floors and even balconies, the space can transform from a 1,000-seat venue into three smaller spaces. These spaces, in turn, can be arranged in a total of 62 different stage and audience configurations, with some rooms even accommodating 100 seats.

Special walnut paneling addresses the acoustic challenges of varying audience sizes and stage positions. A foot-thick (0.3-meter-thick) rubber mat beneath the theater absorbs sound and vibration from subway and commuter train lines.

The first season works as much as an opera about the racist bullying of American soldiers in post-9/11 Afghanistan, and as vibrant as Cats reimagined in drag-hall culture. “The Matrix” actor Laurence Fishburne is making his solo debut. Authors and the president’s daughter Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush talk parenting. Native American cartoonists come together for an evening of stand-up comedy.

“We didn’t want to avoid the topic of trauma, but we also didn’t want to dwell on it,” Rauch said. He and Kamara stress that the institution aims to make people feel approachable and draw a broad crowd, with tickets starting at $40 and plans to host free shows in the lobby, which are open to the public daily.

However, the center faces questions about its impact on the community and cultural landscape.

This year, as activists pressed for more affordable housing in a planned skyscraper elsewhere in the Trade Center, their campaign argued that too much redevelopment money was being spent on luxury, nonresidential buildings while many New Yorkers Kicked out of the area due to high house prices. Its median household income and median rent are about double the citywide average.

“The performing arts center is an amenity to the luxury neighborhood they built,” said Todd Fine, who runs a historic preservation advocacy business in lower Manhattan. He said the facility needs to “prove that the public will benefit”.

With many of Lower Manhattan’s arts groups struggling in the wake of 9/11, early conceptual blueprints for redevelopment call for “strengthening existing cultural institutions” while developing new ones. Early on, the arts center housed three established groups—two theaters and a museum of visual arts—as well as a new museum celebrating freedom. Although the 9/11 Museum took shape in a separate space underground, those plans subsequently changed.

Rauch said the Perelman Center is committed to working with local arts groups. The director of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, an advocacy group, believes the facility will create an arts district vibe that will attract the attention of local groups, rather than compete with them.

“Having such a beautiful building dedicated to theater on this sacred ground is a huge statement,” said council chief executive Craig Peterson.

On a recent day, James Giaccone pointed out the arts center to onlookers at the edge of the 9/11 Memorial’s waterfall pool. The advantage is named after his brother, Joseph Giaccone, a 43-year-old treasurer, father and husband of two.

James Giaccone, a volunteer with Sept. 11-related organizations such as Tuesday Kids, was initially wary of the political controversy surrounding early plans for the art space.

He then began to see it as a step forward for the trade center, and on a personal level, an embrace of living life to the full. He and his brother’s family enjoyed going to the theater.

“So I think he’ll appreciate it,” Giaccone said.