By Jill Colvin and Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Staff
LOWER MANHATTAN — Mayor Michael Bloomberg dodged the question Monday of what should happen to the World Trade Center Sphere.
"We're working with the Port Authority with what to do with the globe," Bloomberg said at a press conference in Queens. "There's a whole bunch of people. Not my expertise."
Many 9/11 family members have called for the Fritz Koenig sculpture to return to the World Trade Center site. The sphere, which anchored the Trade Center plaza and was damaged in the attacks, now rests in Battery Park but must leave later this year because of construction.
Michael Burke, whose firefighter brother was killed in the attacks, recently started an online petition to save the sphere. It has already gathered nearly 3,000 signatures.
Sources have said the Port Authority planned to put the sphere in storage for several years and then place it in the new Liberty Park, just south of the World Trade Center. For Burke and other 9/11 family members, that option is unacceptable. They would like the sphere to be part of the 9/11 memorial, but current plans call for the memorial to be free of any 9/11 artifacts, such as the sphere.
Bloomberg, who chairs the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, pointed out Monday that conflict over the World Trade Center site was nothing new.
The site's many stakeholders often have different interests and desires, Bloomberg said. While family members were focused on remembering their loved ones, other people were more interested in telling the story of what happened on 9/11, while still others were focused on design, traffic flow or job creation, Bloomberg said.
"Virtually everything has been controversial," Bloomberg said. "I think we've come to some pretty good compromises ... Not everybody will be happy."
