Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 23:37:12 -0500 (EST) From: Louis Epstein Subject: WTC Rebuilding #194:The Wils Battle,New Petitions,Blitz Pataki Two news items: http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/70535.htm refers to family-group hostility toward Community Board 1 chair Madelyn Wils,who they have accused of opposing their demand to have a tomb-of-the-unknowns at the WTC site. She was scheduled to be on New York 1 tonight... I wouldn't be surprised if she tried to make sympathetic noises toward them,though megamemorialists are out for her resignation from at least the Lower Manhattan board and site planning committee,if not CB1. http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/70774.htm refers to another contentious issue...the determination by the officials to make only a single list of victims at the memorial,with no recognition of whether people were there as office workers,airline passengers,or rescue personnel... this angers many of the uniformed-service community (it's a flash-point between Jack Lynch and Nikki Stern,for example). The FDNY Emerald Society is trying to blitz Pataki with faxes demanding a special recognition for rescue personnel. The rumored return of the restaurant at the 110th floor, a recent concession in our direction from Libeskind,is reportedly running into opposition from Larry Silverstein. He is said to be uncomfortable with a restaurant up that high even though Windows on the World owner David Emil is eager to return,as he has been all along...maybe a restaurant up there being in demand would undermine Silverstein's argument that nobody would rent offices up there. However,I can see a restaurant that's built as part of the Libeskind site plan suffering thereby...not only is it not on the same foundation as the workplace of tens of thousands, it would have that blasted pit as a view from many windows... so maybe people would only want tables looking away from the pit,or only want to go there on foggy days when the pit below could not be seen. Governor Pataki's monthly call-in show on WCBS Radio is next Thursday,March 20th...perhaps we can get pro-Towers questions put to him.(Governor McGreevey's was last night,perhaps we should have tried him). We're looking at getting a rebuilders' night on New York One... they have had so many family-activist-nights after all! I'll advise on writing in favor of one when this becomes appropriate...should be something coordinated in timing. The http://www.put.com/wtc/ now links to two new petitions added in the last few days...Jason Maeng's petition that talks about city revitalization as a whole (adopting a number of Bloomberg's ideas good and bad) with the WTC Towers as a centerpiece,and a counterpetition on the ashes/mausoleum issue.Read them,and if you like them,sign them! The very first email on this list,on September 15th 2001 (now linked at http://www.put.com/wtc/archive.html) concerned potential refinement of the tube structure of the WTC towers for new towers.I note that something of this nature has been talked about by Robert F on the NYCS board lately...though he seems to confuse the functions of tube and core.There can be (as I proposed) an additional tube around the elevator core(though I am now more concerned with their being freestanding stairwell cores at the corners of that additional-tube ring),but the core itself is a solid thing full of elevators,you can't turn that core into a tube. A small number of very strong columns in the inner ring would be a reasonable compromise allowing almost the column-free space that was there before,and could theoretically greatly lessen the chance of an airplane colliding and making it all the way out the other side to destroy more outer columns on that side. Everything should be stronger than before,but there still has to be rentable space,and views! Gotham Gazette links to an interesting snicker at Libeskind from the Hartford Courant...and a reminder of the Bloomberg power grab schemes from the New York Observer.GG has also contacted me asking if pro-rebuilding groups were going to disband after the Libeskind choice...NOT A CHANCE!! The Team Twin Towers news page also links to some interesting articles. I note that my offering a comment on Bloomberg's Queens Chronicle article(linked from the NYCS board) that called the foolishly restored Greenwich Street "spiritual center of the site" was apparently ignored by the moderators...they are still asking people to be the first to offer their opinion.By all means go offer posts saying the spiritual center must be gigantic new towers, for which Greenwich Street restoration should gladly be sacrificed if convenient! 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.