Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 23:06:01 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis Epstein
Subject: WTC Rebuilding #165:More Down,More to Go


Just as I sent mailing #164 I got news about
about the memorial guidelines,which I knew had been scheduled
for release,but I had not yet found a news story about them.

A story on the matter is at
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/28121.htm
for the next week or so...and yes,the megamemorialist
dream of bringing unidentified remains and toxic ash
to the site to create a tomb has been made part of the
program.We need to denounce this at that January 14th
hearing!

The article also notes that new identifications of remains
continue to be made...there have now been 1452 out of the
2792 victims.And that Governor Pataki,in his state of the
state address,repeated his pledge that the footprints of
the Towers would remain as empty as instructed by bin Laden.

Another feature besides including the dead who were at the other
sites (which apparently bothers their outnumbered survivors,
or at least the Pentagon families are known to object to their
own memorial involving the WTC families) is a wish not to sort
the dead by passengers,rescue workers,etc...to me,this is something
of a denial of their identity and their circumstances.(Thoughts,
anyone?)

The Imagine New York II meetings were last night and tonight;
I have heard from some but not all of the pro-rebuilders who
were there,and encourage all who have participated to tell me
how things went at their tables.Joe reports he was recognized
from the NY Times article photo (which Gary Taustine,also
there,has scanned at http://www.gramercynews.com/Times.html
if you haven't seen it).

John Beattie has been posting lately advocating his concept
of towers with the victims' names engraved on the outside.
This seems problematic in terms of views for the people inside
the towers,I think...I have asked him for clarification.
It is interesting that the outspoken megamemorialist Lee Ielpi
seemed supportive when Beattie told him of the idea.

Gotham Gazette allowed him to start a new topic about it,
no responses from others the last time I checked their board.

The other firefighter-victim's-father often quoted in the press,
Jack Lynch,made a posting on the Gotham Gazette board that drew
a response from Alex Butziger,who emailed the response to Lynch
correctly predicting that the GG censors would not pass it.He
got a response from Lynch that Alex then posted to the NYCS board.

An interesting factor is that Lynch proposes that people be charged
admission to the site.(I initially thought that this was a response
to the point of the loss of economic activity the memorial would
represent...but actually it was his misinterpretation of Alex's
criticism of the idea that the families be granted effectively
free ownership of the bathtub area,in terms of determining the
purposes for which it could be used).People do not want to pay to
grieve...or to go see the cause of other people's grief.And he
falls into the old truisms about the Towers being uneconomical
and the memorial being a big boost to tourism.

Like an email to me that came out of the criticism of our rally
from a group of family-group activists,Lynch closed his letter to
Alex with a declaration that since they disagreed there was no
reason to correspond further.Alex responded nonetheless and asked
Lynch to come post on the NYCS board,which is full of pro-rebuilders.
I don't think he will.

Alex has also urged me to ask NYSL members on this list to come post
to the NYCS board (which is the first link in the message boards
section of http://www.put.com/wtc/ of course).

Today...not tomorrow,which I apologize for incorrectly stating
at some point...was the Gotham Gazette java-chat with Robert Yaro
of the Civic Alliance.

Quite a number of pro-rebuilders logged onto it...Tom Auchterlonie
apaprently wasn't there,but did ask a question that the moderator
chose because a lot of us asked questions like it,concerning tall
new Towers.Yaro,with his less-office-space agenda,came back with
the claim that very tall towers are unmarketable.A transcript is
at the GG site.

Many of us asked questions that were not accepted by the moderator,
pretty much par for the course at GG.

At 1 PM on January 14th their next conference is with
Barbara Littenberg of Peterson/Littenberg,scheduled for 1 PM.
Their plan of course calls for those two buildings with poles
up to 1400 feet...the needed audience response should be
encouragement to make it occupied floors alll the way up,
and merge some of their smaller buildings into the main twins
and use the space to lessen the setbacks.:)

I am not sure I can make it and still be on a timely train
to be on the line for the first-come-first-served seats for
that night's hearing on the memorial (the night after the
hearing on the design team plans).I expect the audience
response to her plan will be fresh in her mind at that point
and some parts of it could do with reinforcement.

Don't just tell her "take it away,we want the Twins"
(or Turner's plan,or Sieb's,etc)...but give her pushes in
that direction.

Veteran architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable has written an
anti-tall-towers article for the Wall Street Journal,which is
currently available at Reconstruction Report,which did not
accept my response to Peter Marcuse's article.

It's been noted that this time they prefer postal written comments
to be sent to the One Liberty Plaza address rather than the Grand
Central Station PO Box.(I intend to send copies of my commentaries
to both).

I expect to be doing more petitioning this weekend...weather
will be cold but fairly clear.

See you on the 111th floor on 9-11-11!

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.