♪ We can build a beautiful city ♪ Bloomberg: Today we inaugurate the last major piece of the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site and one that will help us to open a new chapter in the history of Lower Manhattan, the Performing Arts Center.
[ Man vocalizing ] Announcer: And now we are proud to present the Perelman Performing Arts Center.
♪♪ [ Applause ] ♪♪ The beauty of this building is that artists can have a vision for how they want audience and performer to interact, and this building has the flexibility to allow the space to conform to the artist's vision as opposed to the other way around.
So we wanted to have as many different artists and we really wanted to launch with a sense of PAC NYC is a place of safety and a place where people can come and be moved and be more connected to their own humanity.
The arts are more than just entertainment.
They are probably the only common language that the world speaks.
And through the arts, hopefully we can open up dialogue with peoples around the world and eliminate the hatred and the violence and the destruction that has faced us throughout time.
♪ There is a place for us ♪ ♪ Somewhere a place for us ♪ ♪ Peace and quiet and open air ♪ ♪ Wait for us ♪ ♪ Somewhere ♪ Kamara: Our hope and our goal is to connect audiences and artists and provide a space for them to really engage.
Just being able to come into our lobby space and being able to engage with free programming on our lobby stage with dance, music, spoken word, and deejays.
And then going upstairs to our theater level, there is this element of surprise and delight for them as they come in and they're able to say, "Oh, wow, this is a little different," and then engage with incredible art.
To celebrate that, strangely, what we've wanted to also do is then wrap it in this kind of stone cocoon because we wanted to make something that was pure and elegant and respectful of the memorial.
The stone is thin and it allows light to come in, as you see now, but at night, it actually allows the building to glow so that the building -- it asserts itself at night in a very calm but kind of unusual way.
The intent of putting a performing arts center here was always due to the belief that there is a restorative power of art.
You know, this neighborhood has needed a kind of gathering place for a long time.
And as the kind of rebuilding effort, this does feel like the final piece that was missing.
It's kind of amazing to be a part of both because I have a 30-year history of living downtown New York and a deep history with kind of the rebuilding effort.
To see the vision that went into every single block of marble selected from the finest quarries in Portugal, New York deserved the best.
John Kennedy said, "We will continue to bring music and life because to do otherwise is to surrender."
Arts and the culture institution is more than hearing a sound or seeing a site.
It renews our spirit.
It starts the healing process that we are all experiencing and have never gotten over.
Time moves on, but September 11th always comes back.
I am so grateful that working together we have built three essential monuments to make sure the world never forgets.
[ Vocalizing ] ♪ Somedaaaaaay ♪ ♪ Somewheeeeeeeeeere ♪ ♪♪ [ Applause ]
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