The heart of the district is a special Public Garden, whose shape and geometry are generated by the WTC tower footprints. This garden is a walled enclosure, quiet and contemplative, a place of allegory, historical remembrance, symbolism and repose. Within the garden and at other places throughout the district will be sites for an international memorial competition.

The garden is sunken below the streets and located behind the adjacent blocks. It serves as an inner courtyard for the whole city, a place of refuge. The garden contains an open amphitheater on the North Tower footprint with 2,797 seats, one for each victim of the tragedy. Underneath the theater, at bedrock, is the museum to the events of September 11.

Circling out from the garden and amphitheater are the other layers of this new city district, a rich and permanent pattern of streets, boulevards, squares, towers, parks and gardens that together form a new urbane public realm, one that can heal the city and reach out to enhance the broader civic structure of all Lower Manhattan.