Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 22:52:14 -0500 (EST) From: Louis Epstein Subject: WTC Rebuilding #179:"Finalists" to Reject! You've probably seen the news reports touting the officials' choice of only the Libeskind shards overlooking a pit and THINK "World Cultural Center" of inhabited abstract sculptures jammed into gigantic springs as worth further development. Whether we (our numbers newly augmented by scores of new addresses contributed by Erik Sieb) are Sieb-ists,Turner-ites, Yamasaki-holics,or other in our design preference,I don't believe that either of these plans suits our shared goals of tall new TOWERS on the World Trade Center site. And I don't believe that we have to put up with these submissions as they are...portraying their bad choices as signed,sealed done deals has been the officials' tactic for over a year,and we have been able to push them very far already. WE MUST KEEP PUSHING. ==>ANYONE CAN BE IMMEDIATELY AND PERMANENTLY REMOVED FROM THIS EMAIL LIST ON REQUEST.<== Some New York Post articles on the design choices: http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/68484.htm tells of politics surrounding the decision...Pataki staying away from the announcement and Silverstein not invited... the Port Authority and Bloomberg with agendas not addressed. http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/68493.htm is about the announcement itself and how the plans could be modified.(It calls the THINK springs "the tallest structures in the world" but they wouldn't be,though taller than any buildings,they are not buildings and there are other structures that are taller). http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/letters/68404.htm has reactions,at least one from one of us. The Post's poll has no option to vote against both plans, though their linked message board at http://www.webforums.com/forums/f-read/msa154.69.html is there for people to post their views on. As for polls where one CAN vote against both, http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/02/04/wtc.finalists/ has a poll... http://www.ny1.com/Polls/ has a poll... http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/wabc_020403_wtcplans_poll.html has a poll... http://www.gothamgazette.com/rebuilding_nyc/newplans/finalists.shtml has a poll... all with a "neither" or "none of the above" choice. BE CLEAR,HOWEVER,that none of the above votes can be spin-doctored into votes that these are too tall.Look for places to raise your voice to the effect that you WANT OCCUPIED BUILDINGS at least as tall as the old Towers. Outgoing development corporation president Tomson last night said on a New York 1 cable show that many public comments at the Winter Garden exhibit had urged the rebuilding of the old Towers instead...but tried to minimize the importance of this, and ducked the relative popularity of the chosen two plans. The Foster plan is believed to have been the most popular of the nine bad plans,and I had an email from Joseph Nappi this morning repeating his view that we should have tossed our general principles aside,allowed our adversaries to dictate the terms of the debate,and supported it. I disagree,but like the United tower,Foster's was certainly better than the two now-officially-chosen plans. Perhaps they might be induced to enter our own architectural competition now,so as,if named finalists,to earn a "rematch" in our public poll of ours against the official products. Team Twin Towers has issued a statement that while not espousing any design as such indicates that the silhouettes of the THINK WCC towers seem a sign of hope that something with such profiles,but occupied,could rise...the statement slams Libeskind's design rather unequivocally,with its open pit and slender shards. Libeskind will be a guest on the Gotham Gazette java-Chat next week....I will announce particulars as soon as known.Questions for him can be submitted in advance to rebuilding@gothamgazette.com. In the meantime,I repost the "finalist" architects' email addresses... Libeskind info@daniel-libeskind.com THINK Frederic Schwartz fschwartz@schwartzarch.com Shigeru Ban sba@tokyo.email.ne.jp Ken Smith ksla@earthlink.net Rafael Vinoly rvinoly@rvapc.com Correspondence with them urging that they modify their designs in the direction of greater occupied height is useful, while anything that simply slams their designs and demands that others be developed instead is clearly useless and better sent elsewhere (perhaps to Whitehead's people or to Silverstein). Urge these architects to appease Silverstein by adding more office space,but insist that they do it vertically regardless of his inappropriate preferences. Silverstein,you can send letters I sent Silverstein the following letter: ============ February 4,2003 R.D. 2 Carmel,New York 10512-9786 Mr. Larry A. Silverstein Silverstein Properties, Inc. 530 5th Avenue, 18th Floor New York, New York Dear Mr. Silverstein: Any city that no longer builds as tall as before has indeed "passed its heyday",whatever claims to the contrary may be offered.The destruction of the world's largest office complex must indeed be answered by the rebuilding of the world's largest office complex,but for the new buildings to be any shorter than the old would be a shameful error. Buildings now rising in Taipei and Hong Kong will be taller than any now standing...work on another in Shanghai will resume this month.Your claim that "it is not practical to build super-tall office buildings in the post-9/11 world" falls of its own weight,as work on such buildings proceeds. As to the claim that building under 70 stories is safer,I urgently commend to you the words of Eli Attia:"As an architect who has devoted his life to designing tall buildings,I can state without reservation that any 100-story building is in every respect safer than any 50-story building." He goes on to explain that this is because the taller buildings must necessarily be built stronger to withstand wind and potential earthquake loads that increase exponentially with height. You may feel that building in that additional strength is an investment not worth making,and my advocacy of new towers at least as tall as the old does not demand that you be stuck with all the bills...all financing options should be explored to ensure that the new towers are awe-inspiring in both scale and safety.Quite likely bonds could be sold based on the appeal of the record height of the new structures. Certainly designs other than those emerging from the official process merit consideration,but the office structures provided in new site plans need to be taller,as well as containing more volume,than is currently proposed.This provides more space for all other purposes and should be seen as advantageous in every respect. Fire personnel and equipment could perhaps be stationed inside,given the large number of people they had to protect...with rescuers based on the 80th floor,no part of a 120-story structure would be more than 40 stories away from surface or inside emergency personnel. As for the claim that building under 70 stories is catering to tenant demand,where tenants had 110 stories 97% leased before,I know you have met Jonathan Hakala,who wishes to return to a 77th-floor office such as he had before but only if the building is no shorter than before...I can not believe that he is alone among tenants in sharing this attitude. That the tourist appeal of the buildings is based on their remarkable height is too obvious to bear repeating;no one would dine at Windows on Brookfield's Neighboring Buildings.The piggyback appeal of memorial visitors can not be trusted as a long term prospect...people know about the Titanic sinking,but nowadays who bothers visiting New York's Titanic memorial?As I stated at the last public hearing,only 150 people attended the latest Pearl Harbor anniversary ceremony. As to the seductive security blanket of building in response to market demand...if Frank Woolworth had kept his ego in check downtown would never have had an icon.If the developers of what was called the "Empty State Building" had not dramatically outdone the Chrysler Building then Midtown would not have had its signature structure.And if the Port Authority had timidly built a World Trade Center only large enough to meet the short-term demand,it would never have inspired your oft-quoted "lust".Nor would it ever have been capable of producing the revenue that can derive from one of the scale that was built. To build only as large as makes sense to beancounters is the normal thing to do...it produces structures of the scale everyone else is building, not ones that are dramatic and remembered. Lastly...the symbolic implications of this rebuilding can not be overstated.The terrorists who slaughtered thousands of good people on September 11th 2001 had two goals...to symbolically "cut us down to size" and to inflict fear upon us.It is vital that they succeed on neither front. Do not shrink from reclaiming the entire scale of the structures that were destroyed,but allow the dreams of working,dining,sightseeing every bit as high as before to be redeemed for new generations to enjoy and follow in the footsteps of those who fell. Do not cater to the fears of high places that the killers sought to leave behind,do not fear the short-term risk of vacancies whose assumption has been the reason buildings became famous.Show that the killers could NOT end the age of the "super-tall office building" in New York,and people will flock to the new towers.Bend to the killers' will in this matter and you will make people ashamed. Sincerely, Louis Epstein ============ While I believe he could do with letters that raise these points in response to the ones he sent Whitehead,don't clone my letter... write about what matters to you,and write from different angles. If you're a potential tourist,tell how your visits to the towers would depend on their being super-tall. If you're a potential tenant,stress that you'd PREFER to work above the 70th floor. If you have ideas on financing...give him those ideas. If you have ideas on building technology...give him those ideas. If you have ideas on safety...give him those ideas. If you have arguments on why the economy will be better off with very tall towers...make those arguments. If you want to get through to him on the importance of not going down in history as the man who insisted the killers get what they died for and the victims died not wanting, do your best. If you are a survivor of the 9/11/01 attacks... your preference for super-tall buildings is ESPECIALLY important to make clear to him. BUT MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD...the voice not raised is the voice whose concerns go unnoticed. His (company's) fax-number is (212)687-0067. I have updated the resource webpage at http://www.put.com/wtc/ in light of recent developments; http://www.put.com/wtc/archive.html continues to have all but the most recent list mailings. 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.