Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 21:30:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis Epstein
Subject: WTC Rebuilding #248:Media Dealings,Anniversary


A number of new addresses have been added to the email list thanks
to recent media interest and Saturday's petition drive...as ever...
ANYONE CAN BE IMMEDIATELY AND PERMANENTLY REMOVED FROM THE LIST ON REQUEST;
the list is never used commercially or provided to anyone who'd do that;
the email list archive(all but most recent mailings) is at
http://www.put.com/wtc/archive.html and the main WTCRM resource page
is http://www.put.com/wtc/ .
(My past commentaries are at http://www.put.com/wtc/comments.html
for those who may want to read them).

I hope to get a letter rebutting the negative spin of the
August 31st NY Times article printed in the September 14th
Arts & Leisure section (send your own to artleis@nytimes.com
if you want to help illustrate the public support for tall
towers!Do it by tomorrow,that section goes to press early!)

In the meantime,it AHS given us some visibility,which led to a Friday
meeting with Andreas Oldaag of Sufddeutsche Zeitung,a leading German
newspaper,and RTL Dutch television being interested in seeing us on
the streets,where six of us petitioned Satuday (Brett Cuvin dropped
by to offer support,Andrew Oliff,Joe Wright,Marcy Mellos,Jennifer Thorpe,
and I handled clipboards,Gary Taustine was there helping with logistics
and handing out some of the last of his black Rebuild pins to selected
recipients).No sooner had the arranged interviews with the Dutch finished
(they also questioned some passing signers of the petitions),than by
sheer luck a Spanish television crew,looking for attack anniversary
stories,happened by and we were able to give them interviews.

We alkso met some labor union contacts among the workers on the PATH
project,who promised us wide support.When the station opens and the
commuters are again getting Downtown from Jersey by tube,it will one
hopes swing the momentum back further toward regaining the Financial
District's identity as such,not as a mourning zone.But first we have
to weather the anniversary.

A number of television broadcasts have been or are being devoted
to the anniversary and the official rebuilding plans...I expect
future anniversaries to be less marked by such events.We need to
get our voices out there to contradict our opponents...so far our
efforts to press John Schiumo and New York One to let our voice be
heard among all the others they are giving soapboxes too in wide
coverage of the anniversary week has not even been acknowledged.
Please write to nytonight@ny1.com and urge that the organizations
pressing for full-scale reconstruction of the WTC (the WTC Restoration
Movement,Team Twin Towers,et al) be given some exposure!
Silverstein has reiterated his desire to build office space in
phases,which is no news...he was on WABC.

On the anniversary itself I will be a telephone guest on Michael
Smerconish's Philadelphia radio show...starting around 7 AM.

http://nypost.com/news/regionalnews/5140.htm tells of the problems
caused by too many residents Downtown for the infrastructure to handle;
another reason why official desire to accelerate the rapid population
growth down there should be resisted!...let the market handle it!

In a similar vein,the city officials' insistence on moving site
retail to street level,instead of underground where the mall operators
and retail tenants want to be because that is where the customers will
be concentrated,is absurd and needs constant criticism.Westfield should
stand firm.

Despite the official line that the Deutsche Bank site has to be
condemned to build enough office space,since it couldn't fit where
it had fit all these years,Libeskind has come up with a plan to turn
that lot into a park!
(Of course,abandon their obsession with running steets through the
site,or leave open the possibility of reclaiming even a portion of
the old Tower footprints from the emptiness decreed by the killers
for the purposes to which and for which the victims gave their
lives,and the siting problems disappear).

The family group activists however remain adamant in wanting even
more of the 16 acres to remain desolate...an appeal to the National
Park Service to take the land administratively is the latest idea
they are floating,and it made the front page of the New York Sun.

They will be letting off steam this week...we need to keep our
steam up and our engines rolling forward.

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.