Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 00:39:39 -0400 (EDT) From: Louis Epstein Subject: WTC Rebuilding #511:Write to Silver,DB Site Sale Nears OK,I was intending to begin this mailing with the same networking appeal as the last,but the Digg link has disappeared from the twintowersalliance.com site (which keeps updating,keep visiting it). So I'll just reiterate that those with Livejournals should join the "wtcrebuild" community. Otherwise,a number of news items... Joe Wright forwarded and article pointing out that the theater company slated to be based at the performing arts center planned at the WTC site has pulled out...yet more evidence that departure from what was there before is not what's wanted. The Battery Park City organizations have continued to oppose the efforts to retain the "Survivors' Staircase" (ideally it should be restored as part of making more things at the site echo what was there before) but those efforts continues...and perhaps as a measure of poetic justice it has been proposed that the Staircase be stored in BPC while people are deciding what to do with it.Their reaction to this is to appeal for protests to Speaker Silver,and he seems to be listening to them: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/04/03/2007-04-03_silver_balks_at_plan_for_wtc_stairs-4.html He needs to hear contrary views!! speaker@assembly.state.ny.us is his public email address. Obviously,we have no particular opposition to the school they want, but preservation and RESTORATION must come ahead of surrendering to the hideous official plans...doing the wrong thing fast is not the right thing to do. There have been a pair of "anonymous identifications" of WTC victims' remains... http://nypost.com/seven/04032007/news/regionalnews/tragic_wait_ends_regionalnews_stephanie_gaskell.htm Why families are withholding names of those who have been identified is unclear...I have to wonder if any of them have publicly complained of their having no remains and not wanted to lose that leverage for activism.But the more identifications,the more closures,the better. Finally,both Cecil Shepherd and Joe Wright forwarded the following article from the front page of the Metro Section of the Wednesday NY Times: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 05:55:13 -0400 From: Cecil A. Shepherd April 4, 2007 Chase Is Said to Plan Tower Near 9/11 Site By CHARLES V. BAGLI JPMorgan Chase is in negotiations with state and city officials to build a 1.3 million-square-foot skyscraper near ground zero and bring thousands of employees downtown from Midtown, according to government officials involved in the negotiations. If the deal is completed, it will represent a remarkable turnaround for a neighborhood whose future seemed so dismal after Sept. 11, when many experts predicted that the business district would never recover from the terrorist attack. Chase wants a hefty incentive package, or subsidy, to build the 50-story tower on the site of the Deutsche Bank building, the officials said. The building would have to cantilever over a planned park along Liberty Street to accommodate large trading floors, and that could stir community opposition. But officials say the bank has already agreed to pay the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as much as $300 million for the development rights on the parcel at the corner of Cedar and Greenwich Streets. The Deutsche Bank building, which now sits on the land, was heavily damaged in the attack on the trade center and, after a series of delays, is being demolished. City, state and Port Authority officials appear eager to complete the deal, something that could be accomplished in a couple of weeks. But few officials were willing to discuss the matter for fear of disrupting the talks over the incentive package. "We're continuing negotiations," Stephen Sigmund, a Port Authority spokesman, said in a terse statement. "Any agreement would need to bring substantial value to the Port Authority and be good for Lower Manhattan and the region." Michael Fusco, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, declined to comment. Eric J. Deutsch, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York, a business group, was ebullient. "It's enormously encouraging for Lower Manhattan," he said. "It proves that this is an ideal location for major financial services firms. Only a few years ago, many were concerned about the viability of Lower Manhattan as a central business district." After Sept. 11, downtown stalwarts like Lehman Brothers fled the area for Midtown, prompting many urban planners and landlords to wonder what would become of the city's historic financial district. More than 12 million square feet of office space was destroyed in the attack, and an additional 13 million square feet was later converted to apartments. As a result, Lower Manhattan slipped from the third to the fourth largest central business district in the country, behind Midtown Manhattan, Chicago and Washington. Only a year ago, with commercial vacancy rates downtown still relatively high, rebuilding officials suggested that four new office towers on the World Trade Center site were more than enough; the Deutsche Bank site, at 130 Liberty Street, could be used for a residential tower, they said. But as office rents soared in Midtown, downtown became a more attractive alternative, and the vacancy rate dropped. The Freedom Tower is under construction at ground zero, and Goldman Sachs is building a new, two-million-square-foot headquarters across West Street, in Battery Park City. Real estate executives say that Merrill Lynch, another downtown investment bank, is considering expanding at Battery Park City, by building enlarged trading floors on land behind 2 World Financial Center, or moving to a new tower at the trade center site. Last November, JPMorgan Chase approached the Port Authority about building a skyscraper for trading, investment bank and research operations on the Deutsche Bank land, which is known as Site 5. Officials say that the bank would bring thousands of employees downtown, from the 51-story tower it occupies at 277 Park Avenue, at 47th Street, and consolidate some offices downtown. The bank's headquarters would remain across the street at 270 Park Avenue. Officials say that the bank initially said it wanted an incentive deal comparable to the one given Goldman Sachs in 2005. In return for building a $2 billion tower, state and city officials gave Goldman Sachs the right to sell $1.67 billion in tax-free bonds and tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks in what critics described as an egregious example of corporate welfare. Both Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Gov. Eliot Spitzer have told companies that that they will never duplicate that level of benefits. Officials say that talks are continuing. Only six years ago, Chase agreed to sell its tower at 60 Wall Street, and was leasing space at 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza downtown to other companies and moving employees to Midtown and Jersey City. But Midtown has become very expensive. The bank, however, has chosen the smallest of five possible building sites downtown. Officials say JPMorgan Chase was not interested in two other sites at the trade center, where the developer Larry A. Silverstein plans to build three office towers, preferring to control its own building. But some real estate executives complained that the Port Authority had effectively undercut Mr. Silverstein by allowing the bank to buy another site, which will not easily accommodate trading floors. Because the site is relatively small, some upper floors of the proposed tower would have to jut over a planned park and church on Liberty Street, as well as over Cedar Street. It would require public hearings and a change in the plan to rebuild Lower Manhattan. Julie Menin, the chairwoman of Community Board 1 in Lower Manhattan, said she had not seen the plans, but would object to a tower that overshadows a rare bit of parkland downtown. "We have a dearth of open space in Lower Manhattan," she said. "Anything that throws shadows is of concern to us." Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company ---------- End forwarded message ---------- Repeat... "It would require public hearings and a change in the plan to rebuild Lower Manhattan." WE MUST BE PREPARED TO PARTICIPATE! They may not want to open the door to plan changes as drastic as are needed,but this seems a clear opportunity. Of course,we want to maximize the size of the buildings built on the 16 acres,regardless of what happens across the street...but the evidence of an office market far stronger than was predicted is good for that. (Morgan Chase actually sold their newest building to Deutsche Bank, 60 Wall Street was newer than One Chase Manhattan Plaza or the old Chemical and Manufacturers Hanover buildings at 270 and 277 Park, as well as the old Irving Trust building Deutsche acquired with Irving and is now being demolished). Perhaps if Merrill Lynch and Morgan Chase were forced to move into a single new building on the WTC site proper it would be big enough... but pressure for upsizing must be brought to bear! On Friday I will be in Manhattan to be interviewed by a New Zealand documentary crew doing a film on Derek Turner. Keep fighting! -=-=- The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again, at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.