Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 00:37:53 -0400 (EDT) From: Louis Epstein Subject: WTC Rebuilding:Beware the Downsizing Risk! The petition/literature table volunteers(if you're in NYC why not join them?) are meeting tomorrow at Gary Taustine's on East 19th Street,as previously noted...Mexican theme potluck.Soon the table should be set up and running,not sure if any leafletting was done today. Right after sending last night's emails I discovered that the Online-LTTC "Theme Team" had released new votes on rebuilding and other issues,and managed to omit the issue of how tall the buildings should be! NOTE++>I may have spoken too soon about their having closed the loophole that let those of us prevented from joining groups after registering from voting in polls.If you are one of the excluded, log in to http://dialogues.listeningtothecity.org/ and try voting! Erik Weingold is trying a poll of his own of Online-LTTC participants, I think it ends on the last day of the dialogue. Tomorrow is the formal announcement of the new downtown subway/PATH hub plan. Today's weekly NY Post rebuilding-letters special (at http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/letters/20394.htm at least until tomorrow when the URL might lengthen) again has a strong pro-Towers majority,though it ends with a flat-out statement by a Patricia Reilly (is she the anti-rebuilder "Patricia" of Online-LTTC?) that "All these people who want to have the Towers rebuilt would never work on their top floors"...maybe we should stress that we WOULD in submissions for next week: 150 words or less,no poems,to rebuild@nypost.com. Bill Hough has sent me a very disturbing article from the NY Times. Edward Wyatt,the reporter who has done most of their WTC-related stories(he can apparently be reached at wyatt@nytimes.com though criticisms of the article should go to letters@nytimes.com with your postal address and phone number if you want them published), reports that the Port Authority is looking to move its headquarters permanently out of the WTC and find a new home for the Customs Service,which would reduce the office space by 1.5 million square feet...and the Whitehead clique would but the Deutsche Bank building and swap it to the Port Authority,which could build 1 million square feet there rather than on the WTC site,for some WTC land to be used for memorials. Deduct 2.5 million from 11 million and you're left with 8.5 million square feet.The Twin Towers alone were 9.5 million square feet. Obviously,if we are left with a development with less office space than the Twin Towers held,it would be harder to have structures with the height or volume of the Twins,whatever they were used for. Taller buildings are safer than shorter ones. Wider buildings are safer than narrower ones. Small buildings are a bad idea. Wyatt refers to the PA desire to keep the full former offic space capacity as "the biggest criticism" of the six Phase I plans (send in your comments on them yet,everybody?...see http://www.put.com/wtc/ for where to send them)...this can't be based on LTTC or Online-LTTC,both of which have complained more about the buildings proposed being too short,not too large! We need to confront this spin.If Wyatt is the man on the story, perhaps we should try to influence/educate him more specifically. The PA and others seem to be reacting to the media claims, so they would act better if there were different stories! Silverstein is keeping a low profile,saying whenever initiatives are brought to his attention by the city that he's committed to doing whatever is best for New York and will work with those he has to work with. Of course,new buildings a minimum of 1368 feet tall are what's best for New York! Prediction:reconstruction webcams would be very popular, with countdowns to the achivement of the old height level. I know I'd check construction status constantly,while I'd pay no attention to the building of shorter structures at the site once I'd gotten a ballpark cost estimate for their controlled demolition and replacement by taller new Towers, so I could campaign for this and castigate those who wasted money putting up the buildings that would have to be removed. 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.