Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 14:07:58 -0400 (EDT) From: Louis Epstein To: "Lumea, John" Subject: More WTC Input Resources On Mon, 3 Jun 2002, Lumea, John wrote: (John,in all the months I have been sending emails to my list,you're just about the only person who has sent a response to the whole list,rather than to me. I worry that if people do this many people will no longer want to be on the list...I can incorporate email I get from list members in mail to the list if intended for distribution,but this holds down the traffic). > Louis, > > The problem with the WNBC poll is not the 23% result for rebuilding the > twins. I'll note that at last check the Twins had moved ONE VOTE past the "Memorial" choice...2880 to 2879... both at 24%. Better than the 26 to 23 percent lead the Memorial had when I discovered the poll. Impossible to tell how many of the 48% supporting "mixed memorial and commercial-use space" would be amenable to the Twins being part of the commercial space. > In cultural terms, one has to view a nearly one-quarter share of support > for a second-generation WTC as a respectable showing, perhaps even a > modest success, especially given what we have witnessed - including, in the > weeks and months immediately following September 11th, the news media's > incessant (and sensationalist) broadcasts of the moments of impact and > the towers' subsequent collapse. > > No, the problem with the poll is that it defines too narrowly the prospects > for building tall somewhere on the 16 acres, as if resurrecting the twins in > some form were the only available solution. In fact, there are any number of > ways one might imagine restoring height to the area. I realize that my mailing list intentionally represents a wide spectrum of support for "restoring height to the area",from your kind of "build *something* taller" to people who want every building of 1-6 WTC reconstructed down to the last detail. However,I think the major problem in recent redevelopment thinking is that it defines prospects too WIDELY...that it allows thinking out of a box that it has no business leaving, namely the necessary construction somewhere on the 16 acres of two buildings of at least 110 stories and at least 1368 feet in height. > In a recent letter to Larry Silverstein, I suggested, for example, that he > consider a redesign of 7WTC that puts its height at closer to 950 feet, > rather than the 750 recently reported in the New York Times. Here's why: The > three tallest towers of the World Financial Center - 1, 2, and 3WFC, at 577, > 645, and 739 feet, respectively - nestle around the western border of the > site, suggesting a kind of upwardly sweeping arc on the skyline. A taller > building at 7WTC could continue this arc around the northern border, > pointing to a signature skyscraper at the northeastern corner of the site. > > This signature building would have a roofline of, say, 1100 feet, and would > use a sculpted element - a crown or spire(s), perhaps - to reach a peak of > about 1500 feet. As echoes of the 1050- and 1455-foot observatory and > antenna heights of the Empire State Building, the 1100- and 1500-foot > heights of the new tower would be significant. Just as the Empire State > symbolized our hopes for the twentieth century, this building would anchor > our hopes for the twenty-first. > > South to north, then, this arc of five towers - including the three at World > Financial Center - would ascend gracefully through peaks of 577, 645, 739, > 950, and 1100/1500 feet. > > Of course we want to restore the skyline. But let's be careful that the > language of "restoration" does not limit us to simply putting things back > the way they were. Again...I am afraid that the opposition we face comes from just the opposite problem. Explicit dedication to undoing the destruction should drive our actions,however different a form the new twin towers may have to take.(A roofline hundreds of feet lower than the old Towers,even if a spire crept taller, would be a retrograde step!) > Given their assignment more than 30 years ago, the World > Trade Center architects designed the most beautiful, ambitious, and > technologically sophisticated towers they could imagine. Thirty years hence, > we owe no less to the memories of the dead, to ourselves, and to future > generations. > > We must not simply restore the skyline. We must reimagine it. I can understand where you're coming from...the spate of efforts to rebuild a new Titanic a few years ago(none have cut steel yet) had to confront the fact that resurrecting that ship's body would not be resurrecting its spirit.Copying a ship designed as a state- of-the-art zenith of size and luxury would make the smallest,most crowded ship on its route,with antiquarian finishes. However,where the Twin Towers are concerned,incorporating newer technologies would not change things drastically...building to be tallest in the world,as the original Towers were,would involve an incremental increase in height,and recapturing the title for most stories would only require adding one. (Some folks at skyscraperpage.com have urged a "modern" height-to- floor ration that would let a mere 92-story building be 1380 feet; but I think the Yamasaki WTC design uses vertical space more efficiently, a 1380-foot building would be 111 stories,with that 111th floor full- sized.) Strength and safety modifications that will impress the world will be important to stir confidence in the new buildings.Design details can be argued as a matter of taste,but I think an appearance strongly reminiscent of the old Towers is to be preferred for symbolic reasons beyond any alteration needing to be justified as an improvement. What finally gets built will likely not please all of us, but we need to work from what was lost as a baseline and reject anything that represents a retreat. [end response to John's message] TODAY IS THE DEADLINE for commentary to petra@rpa.org on the "Framework" document that can be downloaded at the www.civic-alliance.org website. WEDNESDAY is when the Whitehead group have planned to release a revision of the "Draft Principles and Preliminary Blueprint for the Future of Lower Manhattan"...will it take note of the public comments urging reconstruction of the Towers...in any case this document will drive the next round of commentary regarding the "Phase I RFP",for which the deadline is June 26th. ANOTHER IMPORTANT URL TO SEND COMMENTS AT: http://www.imaginenyideas.org/Projects/Imagine/narrativeSubmissionForm.asp ("Imagine New York" will be web-publishing the results of their recent "summit" on June 10th,but this is an additional channel to them). REGISTER NOW for the July 20th "Listening to the City II" if you have yet to do so,and get every Twin Towers supporter you know to do likewise...call 800-862-3154! ON July 20th,I'd like to get Twin Towers rebuilding supporters together for a NETWORKING DINNER after the LTC-II event at the Javits...find some moderately priced Manhattan eatery. > -=-=- > The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again, > at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.