Fiterman Hall didn't exactly overshadow the official opening of 7 World Trade Center today (the sun was in the wrong position for that) but the ragged remnant of 9/11 offered a silent reminder of how much more work there is to do.
With its shattered walls and missing windows, its emptied floors behind shroudlike nets, the 15-story Fiterman Hall played silent counterpoint — like the unwanted party guest that everyone notices but no one acknowledges — to the candied-apple exuberance of a plump Jeff Koons sculpture that was unveiled by Larry A. Silverstein, the developer of 7 World Trade Center, outside the building's front door on Greenwich Street.
The nine-foot-high, multilobed, stainless steel sculpture, "Balloon Flower (Red)," sits in a circular fountain in a new triangular park, about one-third of an acre, designed by Ken Smith Landscape Architect. It is framed by planters filled with azaleas and boxwood and by small groves of sweet gum trees.
Sweet gums are also intended for the World Trade Center memorial plaza but Mr. Smith did not know this until today, so the choice was coincidental. "They have a fabulous fall color," he explained.
"Balloon Flower (Red)" mimics on a colossal scale the twisted balloon creations that are a staple of children's parties. It is meant as a bit of fun in an otherwise somber setting. "We thought everybody would walk by it and smile," said David M. Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the architects of 7 World Trade Center.
Fiterman Hall, across Barclay Street, can wipe that smile off quickly.
This 1950's office building had been transformed into a classroom hall for the Borough of Manhattan Community College. Nearing the end of a six-year renovation, it was badly damaged on Sept. 11, 2001, by the collapse of the original 7 World Trade Center. It is to be decontaminated, demolished and replaced by a new Fiterman Hall.
But the federal Environmental Protection Agency has posed dozens of questions about a draft deconstruction plan that was submitted in January. The state Dormitory Authority, which is overseeing the project with the City University of New York, expects to submit an amended and expanded plan to the regulators in July.
On the fastest conceivable track, decontamination might begin in October and run through next February, with a four-. to six-month demolition to follow, suggesting that Mr. Koons's mirror-polished sculpture will be reflecting Fiterman's ghostly presence for quite some time to come.
