Twin Tower solutions
To The Editor:
Re “Time to slow down and speed up” (Editorial, May 6 – 12):
For nearly four years there has been hardly any progress on the W. T. C. site. The only progress that is going forward and in the right direction is the construction of the new 7 W.T.C. and the new PATH station. I am not surprised to hear about the construction delays for the Freedom Tower, because it shouldn’t have been picked from the start. Since it has been picked two years ago, there are still no tenants for it nor has there been a final design. However, I am not saying that it should be changed. It should be removed instead, and have it replaced by something better such as having back the Twin Towers rebuilt with better safety modifications. This is what the people really want there. If that was the choice Governor George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg made from the start of 2002, then they would have been half-built by now, and everyone would have been pleased to see a worldwide symbol restored. Not too long after the attacks on the Pentagon, there were no debates on how it should be rebuilt, so why should it be an issue here in New York City? The only right way to restore the skyline is to resurrect what we lost rather than replace it with a 70-story building in which nearly half of it is nothing but lattice work, a.k.a. a skeleton.
Tal Barzilai
Pleasantville, N.Y.
To The Editor:
As someone who works across the street from the World Trade Center, I read your most recent editorial with a mixture of shock and amazement (Editorial, May 6 – 12, “Time to slow down and speed up”). I simply cannot believe that, given the events of this past week, you continue to believe in the rebuilding process as it is currently being run by Pataki and the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.
First of all, to say that the memorial design is “not universally loved” is quite the understatement. I have not met one family member, 9/11 survivor or Downtowner who has anything good to say about it. It offers no solace to those of us who must live with the attacks on a daily basis, nor does it offer visitors any information on 9/11 and how that day and its aftermath have affected those of us closest to it.
Secondly, I am baffled by your optimism that the L.M.D.C. will “bring the public back into the process.” When was the public ever in the process to begin with? Was it in February 2003, when Pataki handpicked a design that only received 26% of the vote in the L.M.D.C.’s own official poll? Was it in July of that year, when a public hearing on the L.M.D.C.’s E.I.S. made it clear just how opposed almost all of us are to allowing vehicular traffic through the site? What are the chances that the public will be given a voice now, when we have never been given it before?
And last but certainly not least, I strongly disagree with the notion that the lack of demand for office space at the W.T.C. is an indication that the focus should be elsewhere. Rather, I believe that this lack of demand is itself a sign that the process is deeply flawed. It is a sign that nobody wants to work in the middle of a construction site for an indefinite amount of time, and furthermore, it is a sign that business leaders are turned off by the Libeskind site plan.
It is time to do the right thing for Downtown, what we should have been doing from the very beginning. It is time to rebuild the Twin Towers.
Rachel Snyder
WWW Downtown Express
