Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 23:46:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis Epstein
Subject: WTC Rebuilding #110:New Jersey Meeting,Petitions,More


This email is sent to over a thousand people for the first time,
as I add about 150 addresses obtained during Saturday's petition
drive.Since there's a significant intake on the list,I'll reiterate:

ALL IT TAKES TO BE REMOVED FOREVER IS TO ASK ME...I will delete
the address of the asker immediately(don't ask from another address)
and confirm this,and in any event never use the list for commercial
purposes or provide it to anyone who would.This is strictly an
effort to inform and mobilize supporters of full-scale reconstruction
of the World Trade Center,regardless of design or layout as long as
the human presence on the site stretches just as far into the sky
as before if not further.

Archives of the email list are found at
http://www.put.com/wtc/archive.html
(always a few mailings behind the present),
and the general WTCRM resource page is at
http://www.put.com/wtc/ .

(Persons may be "drafted" onto the email list
for expressing support for tall towers on the site,
but nobody is considered a member of the WTCRM unless
they tell me they want to be.There are no dues).

Again,since there are an unusually large number of
recipients for this 110th mailing (the first was
on September 15th 2001...they can be daily during
periods of intense activity,or more than once a day
if there's a quick needed update/correction,but they
can also skip several days in a row,and used to skip
months)...I will detail up front something usually
referred to in passing at the end.

We are now in the public comment period for the
six stunted "Phase I" design options which can be
found at http://www.renewnyc.com/plan/concepts.htm
and have been criticized ever since they were first
announced.

NO MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE,
please send in commentaries that specifically
urge that these plans be replaced by ones that
include towers at least as tall as the old Twins!
The deadline is September 30th and we are only going
to move them in the right direction by sheer force
of numbers united on this point.The bureaucrats'
preference is to ignore criticisms in that vein and
instead move toward their predetermined desire for
smaller-scale structures.

It may be tempting to figure that someone ELSE can send
in comments and you don't have to,but it's important
that EVERY voice be heard.And the more effort you put
into making your voice heard the more it will count.

Commentaries are being accepted by email at
lmdc@empire.state.ny.us
and by mail at

LMDC Invitation for Public Comment
Site Plan Options
c/o Empire State Development Corporation
P.O. Box 4438,Grand Central Station
New York,New York
10017

Fax number 212-962-2431

The Port Authority can be reached at

225 Park Avenue South
New York,New York
10003

Saturday's petition drive got off to a slightly late start
but was quite a success.Five of us took part...I was joined by
Joe Wright and Marcella Mellos for the full day,by Gary Taustine
in the early going and Andrew Oliff for the latter part.
We got over 650 signatures,pushing our total to date well
past a thousand.Most of these were on sheets with the vague
"as tall or taller" wording,which I continue to worry will be
interpreted by the Whitehead clique to mean "with a spire at
least as tall as the old roof",since they'll give us as little
as they can get away with,but the sentiment was clear.

We got signatures from local residents,from other Americans,
from people from around the world...from a priest,a nun,a son
of a former president of Albania.There were employees of the
Port Authority and Silverstein,there were survivors of the
attacks.And there were people who wanted to join the effort to
get more signatures,which will continue.

When we first set up the table at the One Liberty Plaza marker
near Broadway,the security force came out and asked us what
we were doing...indeed,while I was waiting for Joe and Marcy
one guard asked me what my purpose there was as I stood there
with a clipboard.We told them we had been given permission by
the building management the first time,three weeks before,but
we had to get it again...two different supervisors came out
this time,we filled them in on who we were and what we were
doing,they said OK,we thought that was the end of it until
senior managers arrived Monday to review things.

However,maybe an hour later we were told that family members
from the Viewing Room (who in one version claimed to "live"
at One Liberty Plaza,a definitely non-residential building)
were offended by our advocacy of building on Hallowed Ground
and had asked the building management to tell us to leave.
(None of our petitions make any mention of the footprint issue,
so this is working from the interpretation of the entire site
as HG,presumably).

We packed up the table and moved across Liberty Street to the
Broadway sidewalk outside Liberty Plaza itself (LP is a small
park that is still fenced off after being damaged a year ago).
We set up table and placards and kept working...I minded the
table while Joe went to the other side of Broadway,and Marcy
and Andrew spent most of their efforts over on the Cedar Street
corner.We ran out of our flyers...I only remembered on the
train home that I had a small cache of Joe's flyers in an
outer compartment of my briefcase,but those would have gone too.

Monday the One Liberty Plaza management will let us know if we
can come back to their corner in the future.Either they will
tell the self-centered self-appointed representatives of the
relatives that our right to free speech prevails,or we will
have a clear cause for complaint against these would-be squelchers
of opinions contrary to their own.I hope we can find media outlets
that would not let sympathy for the relatives be seen as excusing
the stifling of pro-rebuilders,should we continue to be denied
access to that corner.

Ideally,any public complaint about this should be led by a
pro-rebuilding survivor,I know there are a number among us.
But I hope the building management will give us the all-clear.

(For some reason,I am put in mind of a situation where a suicidal
nutcase driver has made a head-on collision with a bus,killing
many occupants of the totalled bus,and victims' survivors are
committed to continuing to visit and look at the site from which
the wreckage of the bus was removed months before.And can't bear
to know that there are people around urging the purchase of more
busses).

An item I added to the website a couple of days ago,after learning
of it from David Lopez...there will be a public hearing on the future
of the site,at the usual hours of 6 to 9 PM,on SEPTEMBER 25TH at
the Central Railroad Terminal,Liberty State Park,Jersey City,
New Jersey.

NEW JERSEY RESIDENTS SHOULD MAKE EVERY EFFORT TO ATTEND THIS MEETING!
Someone who is going should contact us so we can provide a "care
package" of flyers,"YES I'd work on the 110th Floor!" stickers,
Rebuild pins,et cetera...there will be a petition volunteers' meeting
at Gary Taustine's on Thursday,could someone write to me by then?

CNN has a messageboard regarding rebuilding at the site that at last
report has an unusually mega-memorialist bias."Save the WTC" has posted
there,other pro-rebuilders should chime in as appropriate!
Note also their idea-submission areas,the opportunities to vote on
submitted ideas (as Alex Butziger says,rank the tallest skyscraper-based
plan on each page highest!),and the Gotham Gazette's "Ground Zero
Planner".Make your voices heard!

Andrew reported that Skyscraper Safety Campaign number two
Monica Gabrielle,who lost her husband in the attacks,has sent
a message to a selection of pro-rebuilders (not me) that accuses
us of not caring about safety.She doesn't seem too aware of the
inherent safety advantages of taller buildings over shorter ones,
but of course many of us have given considerable thought to improved
safety futures and there's no reason to rebuild less than the safest
tall towers ever.

Craig Truglia recently interviewed me for his high school paper,
and it turns out he lives right near me.

Former Mayor Koch has just been made the centerpiece of a
Democrats for Pataki campaign push,so he is unlikely to want
to distance himself from the Governor's pandering to anti-rebuilders
despite his own past support for full rebuilding.

Rally permit approval should be confirmed this week...I will
announce when word is received.A keynote speaker is still being
sought,but in any event we expect to be on the sidewalk between
the Woolworth Building and City Hall Park on October 11th barring
any unforeseen surprises!Let's get a big turnout!

I have spoken today to Lawrence Shen,an architect whose plan
for 135-story twins won the unanimous approval of his table at
the Javits Center LTTC,but was ignored by the "theme team".
He has received other endorsements for his plan but is fighting
an uphill battle to get the Whitehead clique and other bureaucrats
to even agree to look at it...he has until Tuesday to convince
them he is "qualified" to be someone they will consider plans from.

The lawyers' insistence that plan submitters waive intellectual
property rights is another impediment to good plans making it
through their process.

The ongoing plan for an open competition to design THE MEMORIAL
only is sure to tie the hands of integrated site planners unless
we can raise too much of a ruckus for this railroading to stay
on track.Eli Attia's petition at www.phoenixusa.org continues
to draw many signatures from pro-rebuilders and mega-memorialists
alike,he has noted that when he reached ten thousand Whitehead
called him and tried to convince him to submit a proposal,but
Attia declined.

As Attia is a tall-tower specialist and advocate,his stand on
the principle of an open competition for all may have jeopardized
our chances of getting tall towers on the menu in the current
instance,just as the "preference" for leaving the footprints
empty in the current proposals is designed to scare architects
out of making any dent in the emptiness decreed by bin Laden.
But we must continue our pressure no matter what designs are
proposed in "Phase II" from whatever source.

I note that there was a good analysis of public vs. private grief
posted recently on the NYSTC boards...the distinction is being
inappropriately missed in the present instance and we need to
insist that it be respected.

Someone was guessing on one of the boards lately that
Monica Iken was about 27 years old...she is 32.
Once again...do your research,let the other side be
the ones who get their facts wrong.

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.