Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 01:10:39 -0500 (EST) From: Louis Epstein Subject: WTC Rebuilding #267:Memorial Designs...Useless!...Picket Pataki! (Plans for the November 23rd demonstration are toward the end) They are all bad,just as they were required to be. Pro-rebuilders hate them and mega-memorialists hate them (the latter for not being bad enough). The politicians pledge to do nothing to stop the finally selected one...which leaves that vital duty to us. Yesterday(Wednesday) I went to see the "unveiling" of the eight memorial designs now being considered by the jury appointed by the official planners. The designers were not there,and the jurors were represented only by Vartan Gregorian. http://www.nynewsday.com/nyc-wtc-1119,0,33619728.story tells of the typical heavy-handed manner in which the "Leave Manhattan Destroyed Committee" treats the memorial designers.(Jurors are similarly under gag orders). Of course,Kevin Rampe,architect of the policy of requiring surrender of all intellectual property rights before a design will even be looked at,was full of self-congratulation as he introduced the day's events,saying how wonderfully responsive the process had been.He also promised that no matter what design was selected there would be bedrock access at both footprints. His speech was followed by one from John Whitehead, and then Gregorian spoke on behalf of the jury. He spoke of their process and how they had been promised no interference (of course,they had been handed a program that ensured no good designs would be tolerated). He spoke of the memorial's need to be a symbol of resilience, and of course did not admit that theirs selections were quite the opposite.And he spoke of various things that need to be reconciled...not mentioning among them the need to carry on in the footsteps of the fallen. Rampe then said to let the designs speak for themselves... I suppose no one could think up a rational defense for them, though a film loop of the various designers,almost all unknowns, was shown. The mockups of the designs then had people allowed in to see them. They all adhered to the irrational program requirements,though many levelled or partly levelled the top of the Libeskind pit.The shades of badness among them don't really bear discussion...none is worth calling preferable.In a nutshell: "Votives in Suspension" has a depressed area including roofs on the footprints,from which lights representing each victim are hung from cables.Remains are (illegally) buried at bedrock. "Lower Waters" has the south footprint a deep pit with trees, while the north one is a raised black granite building that looks like a camera viewfinder. "Passages of Light: The Memorial Cloud" has street level roof platforms around deep footprint lawns. "Suspending Memory" has footprints as forests amid a pool, connected by a footbridge,and a little "Twin Tower" model for every victim. "Garden of Lights" is flat on the surface with trees everywhere BUT the footprints. "Reflecting Absence" has the footprints as two deep concrete pits with deeper center pits,amid trees. "Dual Memory" speaks of bringing back soil from the site...I am not sure there WAS any,or if any removed has been traced...there are 92 plots of soil for every country that lost someone,the north footprint being roofed and the south a garden. "Inversion of Light" features deep footprints amid street-level lawns and wide sidewalks with trees. The number of "3022" victims comes up time and again, testimony to the officials' determination to take the Pentagon and Shanksville attacks and graft them onto the WTC attacks,usurping the significance of the other locations. All of the designs are commemorations of the effectiveness of the murder, open wounds inviting future terrorists to do the same to other American icons. The slogan for the whole display is "A Place to Reflect"...anything but making it again what those who worked there lived and died for.Well, let us reflect on the inadequacy of this process and its products, and do something about it! During the speeches a large group of firemen in uniform coats, led by a "BATT CHIEF SPELLMAN",made a presence in the back of the hall and fielded some interviews with reporters.Presumably they were active in seeking special recognition for their lost comrades, and John Finucane,the leading spokesman for this cause,expressed satisfaction with some designs' recognition of this. I was at various times during the presentations sitting next to Brett Cuvin of Team Twin Towers and John Lumea of the Phoenix Project. At one point I was standing next to Larry Silverstein,I did not talk to him but made a point of then mentioning desire to work on the 110th floor to Brett. I was interviewed by a few reporters for various media, not sure if anything I said has made air or print.I met Josh Rogers of Downtown Express and someone from Gotham Gazette,among others. On the other side of the Winter Garden the latest Libeskind model was displayed as part of a self-congratulatory diorama about the official process...at least some pro-Towers comments were quoted in the constantly-crawling-in-lights quotes of public comments. The model shows all the buildings,including one on the Deutsche Bank site,with slanted tops angled away from the pit so as to emphasize its symbolic blastedness.And the spire-greenhouse section on the "Freedom Tower" is shown as VERY thin! (Imagine New York is having workshops of people looking at the designs and reacting to them...but it's not clear that views hostile to the program that produced these designs would be accomodated). I then went to the West Street hearing further downtown. Every speaker I heard opposed Governor Pataki's proposed tunnel... I made a point of the West Street proposal's accomodating the current WTC site plans being an apparent effort to have the Governor's mistakes reinforce each other,each plan assuming the others will be approved. It was interesting to learn that the easternmost lanes of West Street actually went over the slurry wall,which was NOT within the WTC block.Moving the street westward is needed to accomodate Libeskind even though the area is state highway right-of-way. (Note,above,that slurry-wall-exposure barely figured in the memorial plans,which often separated it from West Street with broad sidewalks). Despite the lack of approvals,Greenwich Street has been built up to street level on top of concrete walls going through the site,its disastrous consequences for unified site design clear for all to see.We need to attack this design conceit as part of the ongoing environmental review process...more traffic is a bad thing! VERY SUSPICIOUSLY,though the "Draft Scope" that we attacked at the first environmental hearing is still available at the renewnyc.org site...the "Final Scope" issued in September that responded to our comments is nowhere to be seen! Any violations in the environmental review process need to be pounced on hard and used to force derailment of Pataki's stampede timetable. In recent news articles, http://nypost.com/news/regionalnews/11004.htm tells of and http://nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/11047.htm reacts to and http://nypost.com/postopinion/letters/11301.htm is letters about Congresswoman Maloney's effort to have the National Park Service study the memorial construction. http://nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/11295.htm reacts to the designs with preference that the memorial not encroach on commercial development and that the firefighters be separately recognized. http://nypost.com/news/regionalnews/11112.htm tells of the lawsuit by an ejected-on-a-technicality would-have-been finalist. We can hope that delays are forced on Pataki's timetable by this lawsuit and by the unanimous opposition (for all the wrong reasons) of the family-group activists.(After their preview before the unveiling,the "Coalition of 9/11 Families" gave every design an "F"...on the unveiling day itself they were busy at a Kean Commission hearing). http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/138448p-123022c.html is a Daily News editorial calling for a popular vote on the memorial design,but otherwise disturbingly accepting the outrageous official program requirements.Letters to voicers@edit.nydailynews.com may be in order. Newsday printed two opinion pieces,both linked from the Gotham Gazette news page...Justin Davidson's making far more sense than Sheryl McCarthy's. In the NY Times,Herbert Muschamp calls for something more simple, while their editorial page says it will take time to "come to terms", but we should roll over and accept this garbage. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3285789.stm offers comment opportunities. There are polls: http://www.wnbc.com/news/2647903/detail.html http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/nyc-memorial-poll,0,4142970.poll http://www.nytimes.com/expoll/20031119pulse.html ...but without a "none of the above" option they are pointless; the process as a whole is unacceptable and that is the point we need to make. SUNDAY,November 23rd the PATH trains reopen and Pataki is planning to arrive in triumph at 11 AM. WE MUST BE THERE WITH SIGNS TO DENOUNCE THE PLANNING PROCESS. I will be there and I call on all who can to join me. The media opportunity is critical...weather is supposed to be sunny but Pataki's parade must be rained on! Reporters are requested to gather by 10:30...we should try to be on Church Street (probably meet across from the PATH entrance) before that. This is not an occasion for speeches,though we may have leaflets. We are not getting a "sound permit" or "parks permit"...just getting together to express our views on the sidewalk. The PATH trains open to the public at 2 PM and will be free for the rest of Sunday. I note that the 20-foot limit on distributing literature that the PA has posted on the WTC site viewing fence still leaves the two segments of concrete closest to Church Street clear...I paced it off. The NY Post message board has sprung to life again: http://www.webforums.com/forums/f-read/msa154.69.html WE NEED PRO-TOWERS POSTINGS to help drive the debate there... I am gratified to see a good number already,but add more! There have been some highly tenuous claims made lately that the Gary Taustine "Rebuild" logo somehow infringes on the very different David Picton logo used by Team Twin Towers. Aside from using the Twins to make the letters I and L, they are in virtually every respect opposites.We certainly don't advance our common cause by getting territorial. Just as Erik Sieb and James Costigan both call their rebuilding proposals "Memorial Circle" (Sieb uses that as a domain name), and Costigan and Derek Turner have called theirs the "seventh" design (Costigan using wtcdesign7.com as a domain name),and Ken Gardner and Eli Attia invoke the Phoenix in naming their projects, some ideas come to people independently and are realized in different ways.Let us all work for the goals we share! 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.