Stark Underground Space at World Trade Center Will Host a Riot of Ads

Inch by inch, the new World Trade Center is being stripped of its connection to the World Trade Center that was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.

Not without reason. Who would want to work or shop where 2,753 people were killed?

The trident-shape columns so emblematic of the wreckage are housed in a glass pavilion that makes them hard to see from outside. The battered “Sphere” sculpture from the trade center plaza was moved to the Battery (though it may come back). Panels on a nearby pedestrian bridge that were damaged are being replaced.

The latest erasure is occurring along the main wall of an east-west underground gallery that links Santiago Calatrava’s transportation hub to Battery Park City.

Much of the wall follows the footprint of the original 1 World Trade Center, the first building to be hit by a hijacked jetliner during the attack. The footprint also defines the edge of the National September 11 Memorial’s north pool, which is about 25 feet behind the gallery wall.

Until mid-March, the wall was a vast expanse of unadorned white marble. Pedestrians might not have understood its implicit symbolism. Yet its spartan solemnity seemed to acknowledge the power of what stood behind it.

Now, a gigantic electronic billboard is taking over the wall.

Gigantic. As long as the spire of nearby Trinity Church is high: 280 feet. Nine and a half feet tall. With an LED display operating at all hours. Sometimes it will be kinetic; sometimes static. Mercifully, it will always be silent.

The billboard is part of Westfield World Trade Center, a luxury shopping mall that is to open in August in the World Trade Center Transportation Hub.

The heart of the mall is Mr. Calatrava’s birdlike Oculus. Its underground limbs include the east-west gallery.

Because the gallery opened to the public in 2013, well before retail tenants had set up shop, there have been years to appreciate it without any commercial veneer.

But it was never intended to stay that way, the operators of Westfield World Trade Center said.

“The digital signage network throughout the facility has always been part of the retail program,” the Westfield Corporation said in a statement. “The goal is to integrate physical and digital experiences across the facility.”

As for the 280-foot-long sign, the Westfield statement said, “The objective is to create ‘moments of interest’ for those passing through the east-west gallery.”

How can the public reflect on history looking at a wall ablaze with advertising, store promotions, and arts, culture, news and information programs?

Isn’t that disrespectful? Westfield does not think so.

“Westfield is a partner of the September 11 Memorial and Museum foundation and has deep respect for the site and its history,” the company said in its statement. “There will be no digital media (no screens or other signage) facing the memorial and Westfield has been and will remain sensitive to the memorial.”

And yet.

At street level, the footprints of the original trade center towers are treated reverently. They define the edges of the memorial’s twin pools. They are the frames around which the names of victims are inscribed.

At bedrock level, they are treated respectfully. Clad in shimmering aluminum, the footprints help visitors to the National September 11 Memorial Museum orient themselves and understand where the buildings stood.

In the gallery between those levels, however, one edge of the 1 World Trade Center footprint will now be the backdrop for a high-energy marketing device.

Mr. Calatrava’s renderings of the hub do not show any advertising on the scale of the billboard. Though he has said nothing publicly, it would be hard to imagine that he is not frustrated by Westfield’s plans for signage.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which built the gallery, cares principally that the billboard not show explicit political or sexual material. (The two are frequently confused.) The agency can veto “content,” Westfield said, but that issue is not expected to arise.

The nonprofit National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center Foundation does not object to the billboard. In fact, the foundation said it may collaborate with Westfield on the “content” shown on digital screens elsewhere in the hub during the annual commemorative period in September.

Somewhere under all that content, something real will have been lost.