Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 01:05:08 -0400 (EDT) From: Louis Epstein Subject: WTC Related News Story A news story today: -=-=-=- WTC Site's Future Discussed By KAREN MATTHEWS Associated Press Writer June 19, 2002, 10:25 PM EDT NEW YORK -- Two widely divergent views about how to restore the former World Trade Center site emerged Wednesday at separate meetings aimed at determining its future. Although families of the victims and the New York Building Congress say they are working together, their opinions are still far apart. At a breakfast meeting of the Congress, Louis Tomson, executive director of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., and Joseph Seymour, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, stressed the primacy of planning a transportation hub at the site to spur economic development. Asked whether the entire 16-acre site should become a memorial -- a goal of some family members -- Tomson said, "I don't know how that's even possible. ... New York City is almost like a lobster that regenerates lost parts and gets itself together and goes about its business." But a woman whose husband was killed in the trade center said restoring the original street grid at the site would be insensitive. "It would closely abut the footprint areas of the tower and make it virtually impossible for those who come to pay respects, and especially the families, to do so without great distraction," Monica Iken, head of September's Mission -- an organization of trade center victims' family members, told a City Council committee hearing Wednesday. Iken said the memorial "has to come first and then everything else can be incorporated around that." "I support these efforts for the Lower Manhattan area and the surrounding area around the World Trade Center, but not on the World Trade Center site," said Patricia Reilly, whose sister died in the attack. "That is the final resting place for my sister and so many Americans." Copyright 2002, The Associated Press -=-=-=- Now,some commentary on this... Obviously,neither of these "divergent views" is what we want, but each of them can to some extent be harnessed to our purposes. This is the first I've heard(it's far from clear from the "Draft Principles and Preliminary Blueprint") that the transportation hub is supposed to be ON the 16 acre site...the Blueprint tends to stress the advantages of moving the PATH station east from under the WTC site.Beyond that,the transportation transfer options seem potentially anywhere in Lower Manhattan. The commitment to have more than a memorial is good...but the composition of just what needs to be rethought,as should the site of the transportation hub. It's good that Monica Iken doesn't want the old street grid back...this can help us save much of the superblock.However, she wants the footprints to stay cleared by order of Osama bin Laden, rather than have new Towers on them to show her husband's killers are not entitled to decide the site's future. Whether or not the new Towers use the old footprints, they have to be within the old superblock area,and the more intact it is the more options.And a memorial not centered on new Twin Towers no shorter than the old is not a memorial that does any honor to the dead. Reilly returns to the "final resting place" argument for an area from which all human remains have been meticulously removed with more care exercised than just about any cemetery relocation. She's not seeing things straight,but she's getting the press. We need the press! Has this "City Council committee hearing" got any room for input from those other than the anti-rebuilding faction among survivors? We should make our voices heard where they will do good. A couple more of you have confirmed to me that you have registered for July 20th.Now where should we hold the networking dinner? -=-=- The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again, at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.