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A New York state agency warned architects not to cooperate with a plan by the New York Times to publish in advance plans for rebuilding on the site of the World Trade Center. “Sources tell Newsday that Times’ chief architecture critic, Herbert Muschamp, asked the teams working on plans for the trade center site to show him their work in advance of tomorrow’s public unveiling by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the state agency charged with rebuilding the site. He had planned to have a story in the Times prior to public disclosure of the designs.” None of the architects agreed, according to Newsday sources.

A New York art student was arrested last week after “placing 38 black boxes, bearing the word ‘fear’ in white lettering, around the Union Square station, a crucial hub where six lines intersect. The bomb squad was called in and the station was shut for five hours, causing a ripple effect of chaos on the network, as panicked commuters and transit workers feared a terrorist attack.”

“First things first. What an idiotic project. As the saying goes, art this bad ought to be a crime. So now it is left to hapless, fledgling art students, fresh from Michigan, to keep up the city’s gritty reputation for crime. At least New York can still take pride, as the nation’s cultural capital, that even our misdemeanors are works of art.”

A London gallery owner is under investigation by Scotland Yard “for showing a picture of a girl in a bath taken by her artist mother after a passerby complained to the police that it was ‘paedophiliac and offensive’.”

Should a London man be jailed for decapitating a statue of Margaret Thatcher? He claims the act was art. “The prosecution will attempt to convince you that my actions amount to criminal damage whereas my defence will centre around artistic expression and my right to interact with this broken world. We can ill afford to ever lose our sense of humour. I was left with no choice other than to do this act of satirical humour.”

Proposals for rebuilding on the World Trade Center site are to be presented today. “Thanks entirely to public pressure, our great city has taken a giant step toward reclaiming a place of world leadership in the civil art of building. The participants include some of the most influential figures in contemporary architecture. Not since 1947, when an international design team met to plan the United Nations headquarters, has a comparable list of architectural talent set to work on a New York project.”

Wednesday, a group of some of the world’s most well-known architects will gather in a room across from the World Trade Center to show some ideas for building on the WTC site. “Perhaps not since the United Nations competition has there been such attention placed on internationally prominent architects. This is our chance for transformational thinking, not architecture as commodity.”