NEW YORK, NY September 10, 2003 — Two years ago this month, the world literally looked on in horror as the twin towers collapsed. New Yorkers - and the world shared a communal sense of loss. As the months and years have passed, the effort to decide what to do with the site has also been very public - and fraught with emotion. What has emerged is a planning process unlike any other. From member station WNYC, Andrea Bernstein reports.

In September 2001, this site - now known as ground zero -- was a huge pile of smoking rubble and human remains. Now, workers are putting the finishing touches on a temporary rail station in a pit that shows no trace of the previous wreckage.

Twenty stories up, Kevin Rampe, the executive director of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation looks down at the site from his conference room. He points out the northwest corner where the new 1776 foot tall Freedom tower will go and, to the east a new train station. To the south are the so-called footprints of the old twin towers, reserved for a memorial park. Arrayed around the edges will be 5 angle-roofed office towers. Rampe remembers the days when officials began to talk about rebuilding - how daunting it was, and how they had little idea how to proceed.

Rampe: but I think what was important was that there needed to be a period of reflection, I mean after this terrorist attack and everything that happened it was critical we stepped back and didn't rush into what we were going to do at the site.

In those early days, people literally scribbled designs on napkins, they met in peoples living rooms and gathered by the hundreds for hi-tech conferences. There was lots of advice for Larry Silverstein, who has the lease for the site. In one of these meetings, just four months after the attacks, John Thomas expressed a view typical of area residents.

Thomas: Today when we walk by its like there's a hole in the sky and its terrible and I wish Silverstein would actually build this building as high or taller r than the original World Trade Center (applause)

But many people - including former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, thought there should be no building at all on the 16-acre site.

And then there were voices like Bruce Ehrmann, a real estate professional who lives just north of Ground Zero.

Ehrmann: We've been the unfortunate recipients of this opportunity to do something really visionary to do something extraordinary to do something well planned 81 and not just to throw up something very quickly in order to throw something up.

That first summer officials unveiled a set of designs that realized Ehrmann's worst fears. But instead of clinging to those blueprints - that's the usual script in New York - they scrapped them, and literally went back to the drawing board, unveiling NEW designs on live television. Millions of people logged on to the internet to review the designs and e-mailed responses. By February, a new design was chosen - by architect Daniel Libeskind. The design both retained the foundation walls of the old World Trade Center as a memorial and proposed the world's tallest tower. The combination of those two elements instantly won the favor of New York Governor George Pataki.

Pataki: and I think it has in a way in a way people thought might not be able to be done brilliantly captured the two competing themes that have to be achieved one is to remember so we never forget the heroes that we lost and the courage New Yorkers showed and the other is show we're moving forward with confidence.

The final site plan does contain many things the public wanted. One civic group that conducted forums made 49 recommendations for the site - 40 were included in the final plan.

Roland Betts is a Lower Manhattan Development official.

I'm not really sure how this happened. The Libeskind plan and even the two final plans, the Vinoly plan and the Libeskind plan, it seems to me have been very broadly accepted and frankly I kind of pinch myself sometimes because that's highly unusual in New York.

There WAS a hitch. About two months ago, developer Larry Silverstein tried to change the plan. But under pressure, Silverstein backed down.

Silverstein: I think essentially the master plan, the plan of Dan Libeskind is what will be the reality on this site, there is always tweaking, minor modifications as you go forward.

There are those who are NOT happy, including some of the family members of those who died. They say that in order to build the tall tower, the train station and the other office buildings, officials will have to build underground infrastructure on parts of the footprints of the twin towers. Rosemary Cain's son, George, was a firefighter.

Cain: It's not easy to talk about, but there were body parts. These people were crushed and some families didn't get back an inch of their loved ones. All they have is the bedrock. when normal circumstances occur and somebody passes away you can cling something of your loved one to you. We were never allowed to do that we could never cling to our loved ones.

Neighborhood activist Bruce Ehrmann - the one who called for a visionary plan back in January 2002 - is sympathetic to people like Rosemary Cain. But for him and the tens of thousand of people who live near ground zero, it's equally important to restore vitality to the area. Ehrmann says he does think the current plan is visionary.

Ehrmann: From ashes came an actual vote by the people which one might have thought would have produced the most mediocre of results but on the contrary when left to the best devices of the people produced a champion design, Libeskind's design.

Officials expect to unveil five finalists for the memorial in October, to open the train station in November, and to lay the cornerstone for the Freedom Tower next summer. With any luck they hope, the tower will be ready for tenants in 2008. For NPR News, I'm Andrea Bernstein in New York.