If a picture’s worth a thousand words, then the images above tell us all we need to know. Why would we trade in a world-famous skyline for something that looks like everywhere else? The image on the top left is the Shanghai World Financial Center and the top right is the pride of Astana, Kazakhstan. On the bottom left is a Silverstein shot from the east, and to the right is a Silverstein shot from Midtown – trying to suggest twin-like buildings.

The current plan has been built on a foundation of manipulation and connivance. Powerful special interests, who wouldn’t have dreamed of speaking ill of the dead, saw the victimized Twin Towers as fair game. They behaved as if Bin Laden had done them a regrettable but very convenient favor. They will no doubt be offended by the charge, but their actions are on the record and speak loud and clear.

As for Mr. Silverstein, he doesn’t seem to have any windows that open onto the real world. He admitted receiving thousands of appeals after 9/11 from all over the world asking him to rebuild the Twin Towers. Too bad for him he didn’t listen, because the public would have backed him up and he’d be open for business today.

But the public and markets rejected the ersatz World Trade Center he chose to build instead, one that would turn Lower Manhattan into an annex of Generica. It’s a turn-off. Even its backers apologize for their support by saying they’re making the best of a bad situation.

In contrast, there is nothing lukewarm about the people’s connection to the Twin Towers. The following comment comes as close as anything could to explaining Twin Towers II, but it is just one of hundreds of others, representing millions of people who feel just as strongly.

“Everytime I see the Towers in the skyline of New York in an old movie or television program I get a lump in my throat. Everytime I see a new movie or television program without the Towers, I feel even worse.” — Kelly Dee | All Other Americans

Ken Gardner’s superhuman effort to keep plugging away at a project that looked like a fantastic longshot makes Don Quixote look down-to-earth. One thing that gave him inspiration was remembering the thrill of seeing the lights of the Twin Towers turned back on in 1993, after months of being dark following the bombing.

What fueled him year after year was the belief that the only way to heal our spirits would be to restore the iconic skyline. And he knew that could only happen if there were a plan ready to go when the official plan failed — as a New York real estate guru (not Donald Trump) assured him many years ago it would, urging and encouraging him to keep at it.

It’s not really Larry Silverstein’s fault for pursuing his own narrow interests, as did so many other “stakeholders” in the process. Managing competing interests in a way that best serves the public is what we hire Governors for and why we ask them to take an oath. But George Pataki was just one more special interest who didn’t have the sense to see that rebuilding the Towers would have been his fast track to the White House – instead of wherever he is now.

The only design competition Gov. Pataki ever had any business running was for “best new Twin Towers” to replace the majestic ones we lost. But, instead of giving our wounded country a sight for sore eyes and sore hearts, he gave us gimmicky mediocrity – and had lots of help.

The prime movers behind the official plan were a small, unelected group of people who believed that reverting to the pre-WTC street grid — just when the moat of protection around the superblock was most needed – justified overriding the will of the people. But while they obsessed about reconnecting streets in a grid, they were carelessly disconnecting all the rest of us from our past.

Why didn’t our Governor stand up for us? Or the one who came after? Or the one after that? And why didn’t the press? Our land, our billions – why not, our choice? As we have shared many times before, the LMDC received this message on a Public Comment card in 2002:

“Just as I want my wife back, people want their towers back. The main difference is the latter is possible, the former, not… don’t let today’s fears control tomorrow’s dreams.”

Ken Gardner has remarked that there are few undertakings in the history of our country that have been such a complete and utter failure as the current plan. But then, it’s not a plan — it’s an embarrassment. A New York Observer column that appeared in mid-July, asking “Is There Life After Larry” reported that a “city official” predicted: “‘They’re headed for a train wreck.”

Train wrecks are the result of engineers looking away. If those in charge will just open their eyes, there is still time to stop this train and get it headed where most of us have always wanted to go. Eight years after 9/11, it is still not too late to do the right thing!