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Twin Towers Alliance Telegram to Larry Silverstein on 9/7/07
“Please just build the towers back… I wanted to see the twin towers in person, and if they are not built back, I have no reason to ever visit New York City. I hope you take this into consideration because I know for a fact that I am not the only person that feels this way.” – Posted on TIME Magazine’s site on September 19, 2007 in response to the article below…
TIME Magazine’s books, art and architecture critic, Richard Lacayo, wrote a scathing review of Larry’s Lemons.
Even less forgiving were most of the public comments that followed. We’ve only found one name that is on our petition. The most damning was one of the shortest, posted on 9/11/2007: “I’m speechless with disappointment,” wrote Tiffany Chen.
Mr. Lacayo is no pro-rebuilder and there is much he obviously thinks important that we do not. But his criticism of what he calls the “WTC triplets” underscores and expands on all the professional criticism we’ve read so many times before.
Of course, the root of the problem wasn’t of Silverstein’s making. The only competition that Pataki should ever by rights have held was a competition for the best Twin Towers imaginable.
Restoring the World Trade Center was never a job for “world-class architects,” because even the ones who have already made a name for themselves are out to make a name for themselves. That was not what was needed here. We know what The World Trade Center is supposed to look like – as Mayor Koch said in his inimitable style – we have the plans… Of course, what we are advocating is stronger, safer, greener, breathtaking new Twin Towers.
There’s nothing really wrong with the “triplets” and sprinkled around New York they would probably add to the skyline and to the reputations of their creators. But clustered there as pretenders to the throne, they come off looking cheap and like what one recent comment called “a Disneyland replacement.”
It would be interesting to ask Mssrs. Foster, Rogers, and Maki how they would like it if their most prominent creations on earth were destroyed by an act of war and then abandoned to their fate like just so much used up junk. People have gotten into the habit of saying the Towers fell, instead of saying that the Towers were destroyed. They evoke two very different emotions.
Mr. Silverstein had rights, but they did not supersede the public’s rights to the World Trade Center we wanted — or our right to not be talked down to by the officials we elected and the officials they appointed. He would already be renting out space in his new Twin Towers, if he had only backed the right side in this debate, because the people would have supported him against the Governor. Now he can’t buy enough propaganda to win this one, while this movement gains in strength every day.
Six years of badly slanted news succeeded in lowering peoples’ expectations, but did not change their fundamental desire to have their Towers back. It’s a hard fight, but one we are prepared to win.
Speaking of good taste, as we have pointed out many times in many places (because we never know who sees what) the Architects Institute of America conducted a poll that established that the Twin Towers were in the Top 20 of “America’s Favorite Architecture.” And of the 150 finalists, 33 belong to New York, including the only two that no longer exist — the majestic Twin Towers and the magnificent Pennsylvania Station. The parallels between the two are unmistakable and we reprint here a letter that David Kelly, the Media Director for Team Twin Towers, recently submitted to the New York Post:
In 1963 a group of architects came forward and protested the impending demolition of the original Penn Station. Unfortunately, New Yorkers and most of the news media at the time turned a blind eye to the outcries of these few who felt the station was worth preserving as a city landmark. No sooner was the building destroyed when people in shock began to ask “How Did We Let This Happen?” If we can’t correct our mistaken course, and champion the Towers, I believe history will repeat itself if the lackluster Freedom Tower and its adjoining buildings begin rising, replacing the mighty Twins. People will once again stare across from Brooklyn and New Jersey and again ask dumbfounded with open mouths “How Did We Let This Happen?” But it’s not too late to do the right thing. Will we?
