Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2003 22:40:07 -0500 (EST) From: Louis Epstein Subject: WTC Rebuilding #181:Write to the Daily News!...and more Gary Taustine sent me a link to the op-ed piece http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/58245p-54554c.html in which Silverstein sets out his goals. PLEASE...READ IT. Then WRITE to voicers@edit.nydailynews.com with pro-Towers letters...latch onto his quote saying the "rebuilt WTC must incorporate an iconic tower or towers that soar to the heavens and redefine the skyline" and praise that, but make clear that means they MUST be AT LEAST as tall as before. His preferred 13.5 foot height/floor ratio and 70 story maximum mean 945 feet...well over 400 feet too short! Make clear that the height of the new towers is MUCH more important than what he calls the "universal demand that Greenwich St. be reopened" (Note that on the DowntownNYC board [see the link from our resource page at http://www.put.com/wtc/ and under "Give Your Input"] when they asked for comments on this EVERY comment was AGAINST reopening it... and the Civic Alliance quietly deleted the link to DowntownNYC from their home page). The NY Times printed a letter yesterday from a Californian who lost friends on 9/11/01 who says he wants the Twin Towers back exactly as they were...so the News may well print some pro-Towers letters if it gets enough of them...we know the Post does! http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/letters/30104.htm is the Post's most recent letter column reacting to the "finalists"...not enthusiastically! http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/54159.htm is a news story there about Sivlerstein smoothing things with the architects. The Post's poll board continues to have many pro-tall-towers postings. The Gotham Gazette is planning a Java-chat with Tara Snow, one of Whitehead's vice presidents who deals with communuity and government affairs,on February 12th at 1 PM Eastern. No date or time yet for their chat with Libeskind. http://www.ny1.com/ny/Polls/index.html is a poll I mentioned previously... Over 27000 votes,67% say neither but that's been falling from 70% recently. As I've noted...we want to underline the unpopularity of the ornamental but not functional height of the new plans,but we have to be wary of the spin! It's easy for tall-tower opponents to say "see,the public vote was for a world's tallest building,but when the plans for stuff like that came out they didn't like them!...time to rethink and build short!" We need to underline our desire for very tall REAL BUILDINGS. They offer nytonight@ny1.com for explaining what you DO want and I urge you all to spell that out! THINK's message board at http://www.rvapc.com/opinion/ is certainly full of pro-tall-towers postings now,though as I've said...if you want it to be something they can possibly listen to or act upon,it has to be keyed to altering,not discarding, their design.Stuff saying to junk their whole idea needs to be directed to other decision-makers. I note that a LOT of people who have posted there have identified themselves as members/supporters of Team Twin Towers,and I wonder if this will actually lessen their impact...making it look like an attempt to skew the appearance of public opinion by one organized faction.Make sure that pro-Towers opinion doesn't seem to come just from TTT! Note that the giant springs full of lumps that dominate their plan ARE offset from each other,since they are OVER the original offset footprints...that shouldn't be suggested as if it were a change in their plan. The email addresses of the THINK leaders,again: Frederic Schwartz fschwartz@schwartzarch.com Shigeru Ban sba@tokyo.email.ne.jp Ken Smith ksla@earthlink.net Rafael Vinoly rvinoly@rvapc.com And don't forget Daniel Libeskind: info@daniel-libeskind.com And keep your eyes on the prize in the skies. 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.