Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 00:06:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Louis Epstein Subject: WTC Updates...LTTC Details Bill Hough has passed on URLs connected to positive stuff in today's New York Post: http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/52425.htm Apparently front page story,a poll says nearly half of city residents polled while half don't. http://www.nypost.com/commentary/52413.htm A pro-rebuilding opinion column. The trend is good from the last poll,though we can't settle for those numbers.I think a good deal of the opposition may be soft,as the only anti-rebuilder they quoted explaining was a young woman from Chelsea who thought that people wouldn't want to be in the new Towers.When word gets wide that many of us would love to work a hundred-plus floors up,some anti's may figure they were mistaken about other people's attitudes. (Hasn't stopped Dr. Abrajano from spouting more accept-the-destruction stuff at the CBS board though!) More letters to the Post might be a good step at this stage, the other side may well send some so we can't be caught short. The implications of these numbers and this poll question need to be thought through,in light of the process that lies ahead. 48% want the Towers back and 50% say no with 2% undecided. In pursuing the art of the possible,we need to be flexible and inflexible in the right places at the right times. We have to stay united around our common ground to defeat the antis' preferred options before we let our own differences matter.The antis are still trying to stack the deck and let their preferred options make the cut while ours don't...we need to win this stage of the game. Tuesday we learn the six proposals.The three Phase II proposals will be determined based on our and other people's reactions to the opening six.Pushed right,we should see things more and more to our liking emerge. Eli Attia's petition is up above 3250 people who want an open design competition,though many comments are not pro-Towers. Anita Solomon's nothing-commercial petition is over 4900,but he's gaining on her.Among pure rebuilding petitions Kathryn McGinley's for 111 story towers is past 1100 signatures with Vincent Franco's 121-story petition not far behind...and as noted a count for the TTT petition is not available,it may well get boosted by the Post article. Anyway,let's not get bogged down into the details between Yamasaki-to-the-last-doorknob vs. something-really-tall-new-and-bold vs. this-modification vs. that-modification...that's for when the battle against the anti's is won.Let THEM be the ones who splinter between 16-acres-clear-for-Uncle-Osama vs. grassy-footprints-and-a-fountain-and-a-stadium vs. touchy-feely-affordable-housing-on-bicycle-lanes vs. average-height-office-buildings-and-a-flagpole-park,etc. A number of us got callbacks from LTTC today,the rest of you who are registered can probably expect them soon...this is what the appeal for volunteers was for. They are now talking check-in at 7:30AM,before they said registration would start at 8 AM...sounds like they're really trying to make it hard for out-of-towners but I will take the 5:09AM train! The caller confirmed the provided breakfast but didn't mention the previously-promised-in-email lunch.We'll see. She cautioned that those who fail to show by 9:45 (that's 45 minutes after the program starts) may see their seats given to others.I don't know if they really filled the 5,000 slots available after having only 756 registered a month ago,and she couldn't tell me. She said they strongly discourage bags,there would be security checks and slowed registration,apparently... only "small purses" are welcome.So there would be a significant difficulty in our bringing in literature distinct from the participant information packages they will give us.I think envelopes will not be treated as suspicious,though! At any rate we can tell our tablemates our views, not sure if getting a special website up by Friday/Saturday would be viable.But there are stages in the process past Saturday's event,and people we advised then wouldn't see a site until after the event was over anyway! Joe Wright has inspected the various restaurant choices and sold me on the Skylight Diner,on 34th Street by 9th Avenue, as the site of the dinner.We've got about ten people comitted so far,Joe has pledged to give them advance notice when we have a number.The place has a separate area where we can have tables together for our meeting,and a broad selection of food from sandwiches to $28 lobster-and-steak entrees. Erik Sieb notes that he has revised his website at http://www.newwtcproject.com/ so if you care to look, look again! 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.