Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2002 16:49:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Louis Epstein Subject: More on Pataki...Shoes on Feet The squeaky wheels among the survivors have applauded Pataki's enthusiastic pledge of honoring the terrorists' aims...comments after article. -=-=-=- Victims' Families Praise Pataki Vow By KAREN MATTHEWS Associated Press Writer June 30, 2002, 2:49 PM EDT NEW YORK --Relatives of World Trade Center victims welcomed Gov. George Pataki's promise that there would be no commercial development on the footprints of the 110-story twin towers. "I'm very happy with that stand," Joseph Maurer, who lost his daughter in the attack, said Sunday. "I don't think anything should ever be even thought about being built where Tower 1 and Tower 2 stood. ... That to me is like sacred ground." Pataki told a gathering of about 400 victims' family members Saturday that there would be no commercial construction on the land on which the towers stood. "We will never build where the towers stood," he said. "Where the towers stood is hallowed ground." Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who also spoke at the ceremony, said his vision is of "a soaring, dramatic, beautiful memorial that draws people there 100 years, 150 years, from now." The size and location of the monument to the more than 2,800 victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack has been a contentious issue, with some family members originally wanting the entire 16-acre trade center site to become a memorial. Each tower occupied about 1 acre. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who did not attend Saturday's ceremony, has suggested a small, graceful memorial might be preferable to a large one. Saturday's remarks from Pataki were the clearest signal yet that the site of the towers could be left without commercial development. "We're happy to hear him address the twin towers, but that's not all of what the families want," said Bill Doyle, who lost his son in the Sept. 11 attack. "We'd like as much acreage as possible." A committee of victims relatives that is advising the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. released a draft of its vision for the World Trade Center site last week. The panel would like to see a memorial complex that includes a visitors' center, a museum about the attack, a children's area, an eternal flame and a private area for victims' families. Meanwhile, a post office in Deer Park, on Long Island, was renamed on Sunday in honor of Ray Downey, New York City's most decorated firefighter and a victim of the Sept. 11 attack. Downey, 63, of Deer Park, was special operations command chief and an expert on urban search-and-rescue. He was one of three top fire department officials lost at the World Trade Center. -=-=-=- Those of you WHO ARE SURVIVORS OF PEOPLE LOST SEPTEMBER 11TH, I would urge to try emailing kmatthews@ap.org (the reporter's probable address following AP practice) with your perspective so it might be included in subsequent revisions. I attempted to send a letter to Governor Pataki yesterday but found that his published email of gov.pataki@chamber.state.ny.us is no longer valid.I have sent an email to the McCall campaign expressing my views on the Twins and hoping he will be more friendly to their rebuilding than Pataki of elected governor. (State Comptroller H. Carl McCall is the Democratic organization's candidate to oppose Pataki,his site is www.mccall02.com and has a contact form that emails a campaign aide...he will almost certainly be in a primary September 10th against Andrew Cuomo,whose criticism of Pataki's handling of September 11th was itself widely reviled,but whose views on rebuilding Lower Manhattan are not clear as far as the Towers are concerned,nor are McCall's;see www.andrewcuomo.com for his campaign). This is really an issue of "to the claimer of the Victim title go the spoils",I fear...without minimizing the horror of the mass murder,we have to press the case that those of us who lost the Towers are being victimized,and those who champion emptiness of the site are the unreasonable extremists. As I've said,the new Towers may very well have to be off the old footprints,but we have to promote discussion of the issues involved. Talk about the "complete" surrender of the "entire" footprints, making clear that the other side is grabbing a lot...don't let it look like they're the generous ones letting us have some piece at the other end of the superblock. We can live with the footprint issue being settled in their favors as long as the new Twins are somewhere on the old superblock...but they should be seen as having driven a hard bargain,not granted their universally acknowledged due. Pataki appointed half(initially most) of the Lower Manhattan board,and half the Port Authority board.McGreevey has filled some Port Authority seats but most of the New Jersey commissioners are holdovers from previous governors.Giuliani and Bloomberg have appointed the rest of the Lower Manhattan board but the chairman and president(Whitehead and Tomson) are Pataki men, as is the PA executive director.Port Authority Chairman Sinagra was a parting gift from former New Jersey Acting Governor DiFrancesco. I am not sure how easy it would be for a new Governor to remove Pataki appointees on taking office in January, at which point the final redevelopment plan (Phase III) is supposed to have been provisionally selected but work on it will not have begun. One day to the release of the six "Phase I" options, twenty days to Listening to the City II. I hope as many of you as possible will be at LTC II, and we still need a site for our networking dinner! Rayden Tron spotted a new New York New Visions offering at http://www.nynv.aiga.org/ (unfortunately in the form of PDF downloads,and the only computer I have ready access to that handles that proprietary format or can run the program for it had its LAN card fried in a storm last week). Those who read the report can send responses to director@newyorknewvisions.org and of course I recommend urging that rebuilt full-sized Twin Towers (or whatever number of inhabited buildings not one inch shorter than the old Twins some of you may prefer) be seen as an absolutely critical part of any redevelopment. Keep in touch,keep writing,keep fighting! -=-=- The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again, at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.