“Twin Towers II” / TTA Press Release 9/15/09

Last week’s press conference was indeed a watershed and has given us a great deal of ammunition for the battle. We hoped it would be better attended, but we were not surprised by the lack of media moxie. What is clear is that the principles at the heart of this movement matter no less now than they did to begin with — in fact, they matter more.

Those of you who have written us worried emails over the past week can be sure that we have never been more committed to seeing the Twin Towers rise at Ground Zero. After spending thousands of hours and thousands of dollars fighting a corrupt and disheartening plan, we are not walking away from the struggle. What has changed is that we are now in favor of twin World Trade Centers – one on either side of the river — and hope that the idea will catch on elsewhere. We are envisioning the Twin Towers in Los Angeles, and Chicago, and Atlanta, and all over America. Given the economy of their construction and the rich significance of their symbolism, what could be more appropriate? What a stimulus that would be!

When we sat down with Executive Director Ward in his office a year ago, and made him aware that the popular choice would also be the smart choice, the only legitimate action for a public servant to have then taken was to order a feasibility study to prove us right or wrong. If he were his own man, we think he would have done that, but, for whatever reasons, Mr. Ward chose instead to expend tremendous public resources to reach a point of “Too Bad — It’s Too Late…” and that is what Ken Gardner’s statement acknowledged.

After the failure of the “Gracie Mansion Summit” to produce a solution in June, Ken originally intended to host a series of meetings that would let-the-cat-out-of-the-bag by acquainting community leaders with the clear superiority of “Twin Towers II.” That changed when the activity at the site rendered the transition plan no longer practical. But what was most significant about Ken Gardner’s announcement was the pledge that the Twin Towers are much too important a symbol to allow the rogue officials who are doing their utmost to keep them down at Ground Zero to also keep them from rising anywhere else.

The enormous profitability of building a World Trade Center and convention complex along the I-95 corridor should prove irresistible to investors — and if the Towers are built in New Jersey, they will still be visible in the metro New York skyline. But the idea that has been floated about siting the Twin Towers elsewhere in Manhattan is not something we can support. As Ken recently remarked, that would be like inserting an exclamation point inside a sentence!

If New York fails to raise them at Ground Zero, we believe it would effectively disqualify the city from hosting them anywhere else. But we are a long way from that point, because, without massive public investment, officials have NO way of delivering the World Trade Center they have been trying to force on the country for the last seven years.

So it is time to get our booklet laying out all the options circulated and we will dare anyone to justify the current plan in the face of the more popular and sensible alternatives. We think that once our YouTube is finished and posted, people are going to be looking at and discussing the range of options that are available, and, in spite of officials’ efforts to narrow our possibilities, anything could happen.

As we concluded at the press conference, it is down to the wire and up to the people. We WILL get the World Trade Center we deserve. When people start looking at what is actually possible at Ground Zero, we expect the good sense that is in such plentiful supply across the land will overpower the current irrational agenda. And that will be a real summit, because in this country, the real heads of state are sitting around the kitchen tables of America.