If you're interested in seeing the draft proposals for the World Trade Center Site, you can view them in full online The site is very complete, including documents, renderings, skyline-level views, models, and rendered videos.
I hate all of them.
I grew up in Manhattan and went to high school across the street from the towers. I also remember how impersonal, deserted and useless most of the plazas and streets around them were. The proposals here will largely recreate that by mostly only creating large, faceless office towers and leaving no room for the personality, culture and vitality that is the real New York -- the one at ground level, not the one you see when looking at the skyline on a post card.
Worse, although the proposals mostly respect the request that the footprints of the original towers be left undeveloped, they're completely uninspired in their use of the space. It's not sufficient to simply leave it blank -- the space will be overwhelmed by the 50-story buildings next to it.
Also, the towers being proposed simply aren't very good. I know they only had a month or two to design this, but could they have picked any more boring designs? Skyscraper design has advanced a lot since the original towers were built, and while we aren't going to build as big, we should try to build something that enhances the skyline, rather than just echoing it.
One thing I do agree with in the proposals: let's submerge West Street (the 6-lane "street" that runs along the edge of the site.) Boston has already figured out you're better off putting highways underground and leaving the surface to pedestrians. As it is, it's an eyesore and obstruction, not to mention dangerous.
The Times has rightly taken these proposals to task as completely insufficient. " These are dreary, leaden proposals that fall far short of what New York City -- and the world -- expect to see rise at ground zero." Let's hope that the people making the decisions aren't satisfied, either.
I must say that I agree with you. The design should give both a new gem to the skyline and something special at ground level. For a memorial this important they don't seem to be spending a lot of time on it. I know the public is screaming for something, but let's get it right shall we?
Be careful of what you wish for. The Big Dig in Boston has become the epitome of government morass and waste. It was a great idea, but at this rate it will never be done.
However, I too have to agree that the NYC proposals are just plain boring. All of the proposals have several skyscrapers that look like nothing more than meek, smaller replicas of the original towers. Frankly, I'd prefer two larget towers that were designed with a little panache. Boxes are boring.