Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the World Trade Center remains a "hollow zone" in Lower Manhattan despite $85 million St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine by Santiago Calatrava and the $500 million Perelman Performing Arts Center by REX. Opened in 2022 and 2023 respectively, these cultural venues have failed to animate the 16-acre site, which still feels like a sterile office park of "high-gloss commercial behemoths" including One World Trade Center and the $4 billion Oculus transit hub by Calatrava. A fifth tower, a 1,226-foot design by Norman Foster for American Express, broke ground in 2024 for a 2031 opening.

While Lower Manhattan's residential population has more than doubled since 2001 with apartment conversions and new towers, the Trade Center's bollarded streets and superblock layout isolate it from the surrounding neighborhood. Summer movies, food carts, and a Tuesday farmers market at the Oculus Plaza offer modest activation, and Grade A office towers are nearly full despite citywide vacancy.

Critics argue the site needs housing, raised streets, and 24/7 street life — "serendipity" — to become a true neighborhood. With 100 million Americans born since 2001, the quarter-century mark presents an inflection point to rethink the redevelopment's original trauma-frozen design.