Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 23:36:09 -0500 (EST) From: Louis Epstein Subject: WTC Rebuilding #155:Exhibits,Implications,and Realities I note that I have added a number of pro-rebuilders from the Gotham Gazette message board to the email list (all can be removed permanently should they request it,of course!) taking the size of the list to an all-time high. As far as the Gotham Gazette goes,their Java-chat yesterday morning with Rick Bell managed to use most of the time slot with him describing the plans,so comparatively few questions were answered.A few pro-rebuilding queries did get through, but he gave vague answers...about what you'd expect.Their next chat is on January 9th,with Robert Yaro of the Civic Alliance. Message board postings there seem to be running into moderators yet again,but it may just be those who fail to give email addresses who get blocked. Since the press conference,a number of the new plans have launched websites of their own,and I am indebted to Paul Blair for finding them. His comments are in quotes and my responses ==>inside arrows<==. "THINK #1 - tower #3 is 110 floors, occupied all the way up (1600 ft.)" "THINK #2 - tower has 120 occupied floors. From measuring the diagram, occupied floors go up about 64% of the structure, or about 1350 feet." ==>I note that that would be a very tight height to floor ratio! I suspect the diagram is inaccurate. Also,the conical tower of the "Great Room" plan is NOT ON THE 16 ACRES but on the lot now occupied by the damaged Deutche/Bankers Trust building.<== "THINK #3 is shorter - tallest office building has 61 floors. However, from measuring the diagram of the culture towers, it appears that the memorial will be 85% up the building, or at 1420 ft." (incidentally, elevator transportation up the towers is discussed at "Foster's tower has 98 floors and the height to the highest occupied floor is 1,568 ft." (see the facts and figures at ) ==>So,200 feet,almost,from the top occupied floor to the roof?<== "I can't find figures on Libeskind's tower but if you measure this diagram human occupied space seems to go up at least 72% of the structure, or 1278 feet" ==>See below for the unimpressive truth about Libeskind's office space.<== "United Architects plan is intended to go to 112 floors (1600ft), though they allow they could cut it down to 80" ==>Of course,we mustn't allow that cut!<== "The spires on the Peterson/Littenberg towers appear to be occupied space all the way up" ==>Nope...clearly spires for the last hundred-plus feet.<== "As for not building on the footprints, the only reason it is an issue for me is if it prevents buildings from being built as tall or taller than the WTC. If that happens then the issue isn't worth arguing about. It doesn't mean the terrorists have won anything other than the fact that they did succeed in destroying the original two buildings and that we are going to memorialize that fact." ==>I think we have to also look at the precedent empty footprints would set.We can not say that every time a large building is destroyed, its foundation will never again be rebuilt...or that on occasions when we do not do so,the victims are less respected than when we do. Nor can we be seen to obey killers' will in such a fashion that we invite more attacks. On a practical architectural level,the empty footprints make it harder for twin towers on the site to be offset from one another in such a fashion as to not block views from each other.Look at all the walls of buildings in the new plans where people 90 stories up will have 90th-floor windows across the street as their views!<== Yesterday(Thursday,December 19),I went to the Winter Garden to see the preview of the exhibition of the designs.I was afraid that the invitational reception would wall off direct access to the models, but I need not have worried...the designs are all in "shop window" type areas on the sides as you go in around the grand stair to the area where the reception was held,and when I arrived an hour before the reception three of them (United,Skidmore Owings et al,and Meier et al) had already been unveiled. After dinner at the nearby Chinese restaurant with Jason Fane and his wife,we returned with the reception in full swing and looked at the whole set of models,some accompanied by videos,holograms, and such promotional stuff. First one going clockwise was the Libeskind,which Jason,who has some familiarity with Silverstein's knack for maximizing rentable space, said had "a 0.0% chance" that Silverstein would build it.I later talked to Libeskind's brother-in-law,and learned that the office space is 70 stories AT MOST...that's likely not even half the 1776-foot height of the spire,which stretches hundreds of feet over the 20-story ornamental greenhouse that tops a sliver building,NOT the tallest office building. Foster's tower,things turn out,is to be 1765 feet tall,or by some reports 1764...but the note above that it is 1568 feet to the top occupied floor,and there are only 98 floors,is disappointing. I was releived that it is in fact flat and not pointed at the roof, some models and angles make it look like it comes to a point... but 200 unoccupied feet on top? Jonathan Hakala was there,giving interviews whenever he could, and managed to speak to Lord Foster (as well as to Larry Silverstein, who he spotted,though Jason did not see him)...Foster told him the structure would have only 6.5 million square feet of office space, or a Twin Tower and a half.And think of all the people on the interior sides of the towers whose only views would be of each other! The United Architects were there in force promoting their design, and said they had worked with Thornton Tomasetti's engineers on structural strength and were very confident that it would withstand high winds.While their occupied height to the top is quite appreciated, their willingness to downsize to 80 stories needs to be addressed, and the appearance of precariousness,despite actual strength, is no selling point. The Peterson/Littenberg plan is clearly ornamental in its upper reaches,after the final setback.It's five stories higher in occupied space than the Beyer Blinder Belle botches in July,but its "skyline element" is 100 feet shorter.Yes,they have twins,but they're not good twins.Fold some of the smaller buildings into the main ones and bulk them up!...timid "phased construction" be DAMNED! Skidmore Owings & Merrill and their collaborators had nine buildings,all said to be 1000 feet tall,arranged in a three by three matrix but some twisting so the one in the middle didn't have its views COMPLETELY blocked by the others.Again,merge the space in some of them into two of them,with those two much larger and taller as a result,and you might have something! I asked Richard Meier who had first called his plan a "picket fence", since everyone had been calling it that,and he said he'd never heard anyone call it that.Just how out of touch ARE these guys? And who'd want to rent space on walls of "pickets" facing each other,even 1111 feet up? Think's "Sky park" did in fact have a "world's tallest" in its program... as the final phase of construction and with a note that it and the smaller predecessors would be designed independently by others, the Think people being more concerned with the 10-story-tall garden. The MODEL shown there was dominated by this 1600-foot straight-sided square that wasn't even supposed to represent a real design...even though that building would,in the real world,be the most important thing there. Think's "Great Room" had its cone topped by a 2100-foot antenna clearly on the current Deutcsche Bank lot,the "Room" being over the 16 acres...again,they treat the signature structure as an after thought. Think's "World Cultural Center"...well,those giant round cages DO include things like conference centers that ARE directly over the old towers' footprints.Now why not reclaim that land directly for the purposes to which and for which the dead dedicated their lives? But the office buildings were not emphasized there either. I also met John Lumea and Eli Attia on the occasion. I was video-interviewed twice myself,once for Manhattan News Network at some length.The other time I was just asked if the public were being given enough time for input,and I responded that they seemed to be tired of listening to us and trying to stampede decisions...I cast the history of the official planning and public commentary as an ongoing battle to extract more height out of the reluctant planners. Jonathan Hakala made an interesting comment...that naming Monica Iken to the official memorial committee has muzzled her from making hard criticisms of any official proposal.(She was at the exhibit, I saw her talking on a cellphone a few times). I composed http://www,put.com/wtc/flyer.html but only handed out a few copies (I had expected gates of a walled area where people would be going in and out,not a vast milling crowd). I am always concerned with representing various points of view within the rebuilding movement.I say what I think,but respect other views. I recently received an impassioned email from Joseph Nappi, who thinks the rebuilding movement should line up behind the Foster plan and give up hope of getting anything better than any of the new design proposals...that we will be politically marginalized if we keep trying for anything else or to get any plans improved to our liking.He concludes, "If there ever was a time to stand down and support a project it is now, whether that is Foster or not is not my decision but I think you need to revaluate your position, because if we take the wrong stance here, all the effort that went into getting us these plans may be wasted. It is my firm belief that WE WILL NOT SEE MORE NEW PLANS...I think pushing for a back to the drawing board decision from the LMDC is foolhearty, the politicians and the people want to see something built, what is built will be based off voting for these plans if we object to these plans we silence our voice. This is what I fear will happen because it is my firm belief that whatever is constructed downtown will come from these plans." I disagree intensely...the designs proposed now were no more than trial balloons,and what gets built will differ markedly from any of them.The question is in what way they will differ, and to make it the right way we must keep pushing HARD. Yet the day I saw the exhibit this article appeared in the NY Times: _______________________________________________________________________ Architects' Proposals Have Little to Do With Reality December 19, 2002 By CHARLES V. BAGLI How will the plans presented yesterday by some of the world's most renowned architects be translated into concrete and steel on the site of the World Trade Center? That question is being debated by urban planners, local residents, developers and public officials involved in rebuilding Lower Manhattan. With acres of vacant office space downtown, there is a consensus that five years or more will pass before the first commercial tower goes up on the 16-acre parcel of land where the twin towers once stood. It is also likely that whatever is built there will not resemble what was unveiled yesterday in the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center: a bewildering array of crystalline towers, gardens in the sky, bedrock memorial parks 70 feet below street level, and the tallest and largest building in the world. In the coming months, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site, will make a plan based on the work submitted yesterday. But officials say that the developer or developers who eventually build on the site will not be bound by, say, the proposal by Norman Foster for an oversized six-million-square-foot building. "That's contingent on financing and the market," said Joseph J. Seymour, executive director of the Port Authority. "Whether it'll happen exactly as it was presented this morning or not, I don't think anybody can say at this time." The architects' imaginative ideas will feed the public's desire to see what a restored skyline might look like. But the demand for office space, which is remarkably weak today, and the nature of the corporations, businesses and institutions that will move into any buildings on the site will have just as great an influence on what the buildings will look like and when they are built. The value of an architect's conceptual plan, said Charles A. Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, is that "it will lay out a schematic plan for the size and location of the memorial and the reintroduction of the street grid. It also identifies the areas of the site for commercial development." The development corporation could then proceed with an international competition for a memorial design, Mr. Gargano said, and the state could start on transportation projects. Office buildings will be years down the line, he added. In short, the architects' plans show how a memorial to the roughly 2,800 people who died at the trade center could work with office towers, museums. shops and housing. That is all the exotic models on display at the Winter Garden represent, said a director of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Fundamentally it's a sideshow because none of these things will be built," he said. "But they did show a variety of ways the site could have commercial development and a memorial without looking like a mess." A major downtown landlord took a harsher view. "They should've stuck to urban planning, not architecture," he said. "A lot of it is abstract. You can't build that stuff. Ultimately, the market is going to dictate what's needed and when it's needed." Douglas Durst, a developer who built the first of four skyscrapers in Times Square under a state-sponsored redevelopment plan for that neighborhood, said he had a pretty good idea how it would all work out, whether the developer is Larry A. Silverstein, who currently has the lease for the trade center site, or other builders. Although the Times Square design guidelines were not the result of an international architectural competition, Mr. Durst said he expected the process downtown to be similar to what happened on 42nd Street. "The Times Square development guidelines had been discarded," he said. "At the trade center site, I would expect the developer will negotiate what the buildings will look like. Ultimately, it would resemble the conceptual plan only in spirit." Mr. Durst said that no developer could build without a tenant, and the tenant will play an important role in determining the size and shape of an office tower. An investment bank usually wants huge, column-free floors for trading, while law and accounting firms prefer smaller floors with as many windowed offices as possible. Many developers believe that a building taller than 60 or 65 stories is both expensive and hard to market, given the public's current fear of tall buildings. With as much as 17 million square feet of vacant or available office space in Lower Manhattan, no developer is rushing to build a new tower soon. The situation is even worse in the area surrounding the trade center, where one out of every four floors of office space is empty. "It'll probably take a decade to fill the space that is currently vacant," said Robert D. Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association. "We should spend the next decade building transportation improvements, public spaces, parks. Then the private sector will come because it's the most interesting and accessible business district in the world." The architects' plans yesterday depicted anywhere from 6 million to 10 million square feet of office space. The Port Authority originally wanted to replace the 11 million square feet of office space at the trade center and include 600,000 square feet of retail space. But critics said that this was too much. In a speech last week outlining his vision for downtown, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg talked about investments in mass transit, tree-lined boulevards, parks and new housing, as well as a one-seat ride to the area's international airports. Those investments would justify the development of 10 million square feet of space in Lower Manhattan, he said. Mr. Bloomberg proposed the creation of a federal tax incentive zone to attract foreign multinational corporations to downtown. Barry Gosin, vice chairman of Newmark & Company, a real estate firm, said that he agreed with the mayor's priorities. "What downtown needs is a 24-7 environment: more housing, more retail, street life and better transportation," Mr. Gosin said. "The office buildings will follow." Copyright The New York Times Company _______________________________________________________________________ The Times spin in that story is evident...but the fact that the real plans are still not discernible is clear. The "realism" the bureaucrats promise can damage any world's-tallest vision. Also that day,two items from the NY Post: http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/65070.htm addressed victims'-families activists' views (Lee Ielpi has been yelping about the site needing a mausoleum). http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/65075.htm was an overview of the designs. A Post editorial was rather too complimentary about the options offered...I sent a letter questioning this given the lack of plans bearing more resemblance to the old layout,since this was forbidden: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/65028.htm Their real estate columnist Steve Cuozzo weighed in: http://www.nypost.com/commentary/65064.htm Today in the Post: http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/51815.htm referred to a poll they've been running (and the preference of many for "none of the above",not an option) http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/51830.htm reflected official skepticism of building very tall. Columnist John Podhoretz knocked the designs: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumists/51758.htm The Letters page was led off with a pro-Towers piece by Gary Taustine longer than they usually print: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/letters/51755.htm A message board the post runs is generally pro-tall-towers: http://www.webforums.com/forums/f-read/msa154.70.html (had to cut my comments into three pieces to beat length limit,and interrupt myself from another computer to put in all I had to say!) By all means chime in there and make it more pro-towers! The New York Sun has slammed the idea of building tall: http://www.nysun.com/sunarticle.asp?artID=420 But today,Business Week has a commentary urging the return of the old Twins: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/dec2002/nf20021220_3062.htm I can't say I applaud his specific rejection of the idea of improvement, but the point should be made that the only improvements are reinforcements and not repudiations of what was there before,spiritually and structurally. We're in a delicate situation at the moment. The idea of building a world's-tallest (as the old Twins were built as), even two,has come onto the scene,center stage.Jonathan Hakala says it seems to be "a given" now,and in his interviews has concentrated on fighting the efforts to carve up the superblock. But given the nature of the designs for world's tallests, could this be aimed at discrediting or dividing us? The opportunity is being taken to put us on the defensive, and to present the idea of a world's tallest as unrealistic and represented by odd experimental designs rather than straightforward skyscrapers.And the different takes on it run the risk of our being divided among ourselves. OUR ACTIONS HAVE TO CONTINUE TO BACK OUR SHARED GOALS, REGARDLESS OF FAVORITE DESIGNS.What helps the principles of building tall,helps all viable ways to do so. The Associated Press has come out with a story today that shows bias...headlining people's skepticism of tall designs. The exhibit coverage on WCBS radiotoday had different sound bites the different times I heard it,WNBC television had people commenting with a general implication that building very tall wasn't that important. We need to combat this spin. http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nywtc203054434dec20.story reveals that Listening To The City is apparently going to be crossed with Imagine New York!Details of course are at http://imagineny.org/ but in a nutshell they want people to discuss the new proposals in LTTC fashion,ten at a table.We should try to be involved without letting them frame the discussion without regard for our principles. Events missed thanks to my delays pulling all this together were this morning's press conference by Team Twin Towers,with Jonathan Hakala addressing press...any reports?...and a 10:30 family press conference on "sculptures" from salvaged WTC steel,which were 5-by-4-inch blocks made by a sign company,according to the news! I will be petitioning tomorrow with Andrew Oliff...close to the WTC site.I'm the one with the beard,if you're there and spot us. -=-=- The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again, at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.