Traffic at the W.T.C.
To The Editor:
The Environmental Impact Statement for the World Trade Center site predicts there will be a 5% increase in traffic as a result of the hundreds of thousands of workers, tourists and visitors to the rebuilt site (news article, Feb. 20 – 26, “Construction concerns at the W.T.C.”). This estimate feels wrong to most Downtown residents. Recently the Tri-State Transportation Campaign reported that the Port Authority had underestimated by 18% the number of people who would use the temporary PATH terminal (Downtown Local, Downtown Express, Feb. 13 –18, “PATH crowds”).
“The Port Authority hoped the station would serve 24,000 average weekday riders by the end of the temporary station’s first year, but in fact, it only took two weeks after the opening for downtown trains to attract that many,” the Transportation Campaign reported. “Weekday ridership then skyrocketed 18% between December and January, and now hovers around 36,000 riders.”
If the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. has underestimated the figures in the E.I.S. by 18%, Downtown will become one huge parking lot.
Caroline Martin
Family Association of Tribeca East
Electrocution death
To The Editor:
I am from Pennsylvania and have been reading about the unfortunate death of Jodie Lane. After reviewing numerous articles from numerous New York newspapers, I find it disturbing that none of the respondents (Con Ed, city officials, etc.) discuss the possibility that the wiring was installed improperly. For example, any homeowner must bond and ground their electrical circuits according to the National Electric Code. If an electrical circuit is properly bonded and grounded in accordance with the code, non-current carrying conductive parts such as metallic poles and box covers, should not stay energized. I hope my children do not have to rely on taped or insulated wire. Any well-trained electrician could describe the purpose for, and requirements for proper bonding and grounding.
John Kaldon
The writer is an electrician who is president of Broad Run Consultants, which trains industrial electricians.
Special name fonts
To The Editor:
Re “5,201 memorial ideas released – Selected plan criticized by L.M.D.C. member” (news article, Feb. 20 –26):
Perhaps the controversy over whether or not to somehow specially mark the names of rescue workers, while not highlighting the names of others, might easily be resolved by listing the names alphabetically and using a different typeface for each of the different groups of victims — e.g., four different sans serif typefaces for the victims from the four different flights involved; and four different serif typefaces for the other four groups of victims: 1993 W.T.C. victims; the Pentagon victims; the 2001 civilian W.T.C. victims; and the 2001 rescuer victims.
Furthermore, perhaps each name might be followed by an identifier: e.g., “Katherine Jackson, XYZ Company”; “John Smith, Fire Co. #1.” This identifier would not be intended, of course, to totally define who an individual was, but would be meant to help differentiate an individual from the other 3,000 or so victims, and it would help describe more fully the victim’s connection to the horrible events of 9/11.
Such an arrangement would not only help individualize the memory of all the victims equally, it would also make the memorial a more varied, beautiful and meaningful one. For the vast majority of us who are not personally acquainted with any of the victims, a plain list of names (and nothing more) listed randomly would create a very frustrating, tiring, mind numbing and, ultimately, less meaningful memorial. Even a traditional, individual gravestone usually has more than just a name on it!
If, in the end, some still believe rescuers deserve a special tribute, why not erect an additional statuary memorial on the site dedicated to rescuers as a group — or, perhaps more abstractly, to “altruism and bravery”? I believe many would find this form of tribute less objectionable than specifically highlighting only the names of the rescue workers, or segregating them off in a “special” section.
The right to an equal listing on the memorial’s list of names is fundamental and “sacred,” however, as the list of names is the very basis of a victim’s connection with the planned memorial — and a space on this list is all that many victims and their families will ever get.
Ben Hemric
Truth & memorial
To The Editor:
Re “5,201 memorial ideas released – Selected plan criticized by L.M.D.C. member” (news article, Feb. 20 –26):
Contrary to Tom Johnson’s repeated assertion, and the resolution that he himself proposed as a Lower Manhattan Development Corp. board member, to depict distinctions among those killed at the W.T.C. Sept. 11 in a memorial does not establish hierarchies. While Mr. Johnson (nor anyone else) has ever described how hierarchies are established by recognizing the distinct individuality of each person, I can prove that it does not: the very first memorials were the flyers of the missing created and posted by the families themselves. These were full of distinctions, starkly told. There was a photograph, often of the person sitting in shirt and tie at a cubicle at work, or in the uniform of a service worker or in the gear of a firefighter. Height and weight were included, as well as distinguishing characteristics such as jewelry or tattoos. And always, tower and floor were included. Nothing could be more distinct. There was a bond trader there, a cafeteria worker there and a fireman there. Did anyone “impose” a hierarchy upon these? Did anyone “rank” the deaths? Do you know anyone who would? By what criteria I cannot imagine. The sacrifice and the loss, the tragedy and the heroism were appreciated equally. The truth of these were immutable. Do not diminish the memory of those who were killed Sept. 11 by telling less.
Let us show a little humility here; Sept. 11 should have taught us that. We are all going to dust as those who died 9/11. Let us defer to the truth and have faith in it and the visitors to the memorial response to the truth. Future generations must know so that they might be both reminded and warned. It is to them that the Sept. 11 memorial must finally belong.
By the way, it is evident that the families do support distinctions: the Family Room at the L.M.D.C. is made up of these flyers and others very much like them. And I might also note that while Mr. Johnson is against “hierarchies” in memorials, he doesn’t seem to have any trouble practicing them in daily life: thousands lost a loved 9/11 yet he’s on the L.M.D.C. board, he’s proposing board resolutions and he’s “having conversations” with memorial designer Michael Arad. That’s rather neat.
Michael Burke
Brother, Capt. William F. Burke, Jr., Eng. 21
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