Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 17:36:21 -0500 (EST) From: Louis Epstein Subject: WTC Rebuilding #263:Lots of News...And Plans!! LOTS of stuff this time... please read it all... and please make recommended efforts... it's only by continuing our efforts that the WTC can be properly rebuilt!! In a speech today,Governor Pataki announced a December 15th deadline for a Childs/Libeskind "Freedom Tower" compromise design to be unveiled. As ever,his desire is to force a stampede...we need to be ready to react negatively and loudly to whatever flaws are apparent. Deputy Mayor Daniel "Zero chance of the Towers being rebuilt" Doctoroff has demanded a major worsening of the designs: http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhattan/wtc/nyc-wtc1029,0,3143761.story http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/131776p-117625c.html http://nypost.com/news/regionalnews/9402.htm all tell of this, as does a NY Times story. Fulton and Greenwich Streets both tearing all the way through the site isn't enough for them...they want Cortlandt Street turned from a covered galleria into a traffic street as well,east of Greenwich.They want the already diminished underground retail concourse eliminated. I URGE LOTS OF LETTERS BLASTING DOCTOROFF'S DEMANDS! In no way is his obsession for forcing people onto the streets and office workers into inconvenient third-floor lobbies good for the city. Write to letters@newsday.com, letters@nypost.com, and voicers@edit.nydailynews.com with your concerns.(Writers' postal addresses and phone numbers are recommended for the News and required by Newsday,I believe). It may also be good to send angry missives to the Mayor's office and advice to stand firm to the Port Authority. The retail operator would not have bailed out over the refusal to let them have the underground space back if above-ground space were as profitable. The underground space wouldn't be as profitable if it weren't that the SHOPPERS PREFERRED IT to what the city wants. And if the shoppers don't get the underground space they'd RATHER shop in,that means LESS sales tax revenue for the financially strapped city! In earlier developments, http://nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/9354.htm calls on Childs to show his plans soon...now Pataki's given him an excuse to delay until December. http://nypost.com/postopinion/letters/9334.htm has a pro-rebuilding letter from Tal Barzilai. http://nypost.com/news/regionalnews/9294.htm tells of Libeskind's attempts to redesign the "Freedom Tower" but the illustration online is apparently not the one printed,scanned,and posted to NYCS.The specs on the latter sound unsatisfactory...88 floors,and a roof under 1300 feet and an "enclosed" area (uninhabited?) at 1410 feet.Silverstein's 70-story limit is not addressed,nor the previous observation deck promises. There's also mention in this article of more remains being identified...that process continues as the number of people sought is reduced...there are now officially 2752,not 2792,dead in the attacks...hundreds more identified than unidentified. http://nypost.com/news/regionalnews/9524.htm tells of the hoax affecting one family (man called dead is alive,children said dead with him never existed). http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhattan/wtc/nyc-wtc1030,0,3377031.story tells of financial uncertainties...note quotes from Dave Stanke and John Dellaportas. It has now been definitively confirmed that the WTC PATH terminal's November 23rd re-opening will be marked by Governors Pataki and McGreevey riding into the station on the last train to have left it the morning of September 11th 2001. The hour has not yet been announced. WE WANT TO BE ON THE STREETS WITH PROTEST SIGNS!! This will not be a "rally" per se,but a definite media opportunity. We have to be there telling the reporters covering the reopening the truth about Libeskind's last-place finish in the polls. Before then,we're looking to meet construction workers in a morning before it opens,are any NYC-based readers willing to be part of this who haven't already been part of leaflet/petition teams? We are trying to finalize a date ASAP. 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.