After the 9/11 attacks, once the smoke cleared and the rubble was removed, New Yorkers faced a fundamental question: who gets to decide the future of Ground Zero? Some wanted the towers back, while others believed the site should remain a memorial. So the city decided to do one of the bravest—or stupidest—things in the history of city planning. They gathered 5,000 representative New Yorkers into the largest town hall in American history. People expected chaos, yelling, maybe even a fistfight. But what happened was democracy. And guess what? It was beautiful.Â
The Center for the American Experience, in partnership with the Department of Historical Studies at The New School for Social Research, invites you to a screening of Reclaiming Ground Zero, a documentary revisiting this landmark moment in participatory democracy.
The screening will be followed by a conversation with Paul Goldberger, Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic and Joseph Urban Professor of Design at Parsons School of Design; Carolyn Lukensmeyer, founder of AmericaSpeaks and Executive Director Emerita of the National Institute for Civil Discourse; and Jeremy Varon, Professor of History at The New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College. The panel will be moderated by New School President Joel Towers.
Presented by The Center for the American Experience (CAE) and Historical Studies at The New School.Â
Joel Towers has served as The New School’s President since August 2024 and has led a transformation of the university to become more academically integrated and operationally resilient. His deep experience at The New School as a University Professor of Architecture and Sustainable Design also includes a decade as Executive Dean of Parsons School of Design. In these roles and others at the university, he has worked to advance education, research, and practice integrating bold design, policy, and collaborative approaches to climate resilience.
Paul Goldberger is the Joseph Urban Professor of Design at The New School and one of the nation's most respected voices on architecture and the built environment. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism in 1984 while at The New York Times and later served as architecture critic for The New Yorker, where he wrote the "Sky Line" column. He is the author of Up from Zero: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York, the definitive account of the post-9/11 rebuilding process, and is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair.
Jeremy Varon is Professor of History at The New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College, where his research and teaching focus on post-1945 US history, social movements, political violence, and human rights in the "War on Terror." He is the author of Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies and the forthcoming Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War: The Movement to Stop the War on Terror (University of Chicago Press). He has written and spoken widely on the complex legacy of 9/11 in American political life.
 Carolyn Lukensmeyer is a nationally recognized leader in democratic innovation and public engagement and founder of AmericaSpeaks. She has advised cities, states, federal agencies, and international institutions on participatory governance and democracy reform. After 9/11, Lukensmeyer helped design Listening to the City, the 2002 public forum that brought New Yorkers together to shape the rebuilding of Ground Zero.Â
The Center for the American Experience at The New School is a faculty-led initiative that brings together design, the performing arts, the social sciences, and the humanities to examine the complex past, present, and future of the United States and its place in the world and in our lives. CAE is dedicated to interdisciplinary scholarship, creative practice, innovative pedagogy, and bold civic engagement.Â
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Guided by the complementary perspectives of a historian and a media sociologist, CAE explores the ideas, histories, myths, cultures, and debates that have shaped American life. At a moment defined by political polarization, challenges to democracy, and profound changes in how information is created, shared, and understood—from social media to artificial intelligence—the Center examines the forces shaping American culture, public life, and democracy. By connecting perspectives across disciplines and communities on campus and beyond, the Center embraces the multiplicity of the American experience.Â
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Building on The New School's longstanding commitment to cultural pluralism—a theory articulated by philosopher Horace Kallen, one of the university's earliest faculty members—CAE brings diverse perspectives into conversation not to sharpen divisions, but to cultivate understanding, discover common ground, and imagine new possibilities.Â
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Through public programs, exhibitions, performances, and collaborative research, CAE convenes scholars, artists, students, and the broader public to explore the American experience and its enduring questions together.
Be sure to visit CAE's Events Page to see the full roster of our events and subscribe to our mailing list.
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Visit The New School's Livestream and YouTube channels to watch select university events live and recorded.
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