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The scoreboard above links to our gallery of Twin Towers logos that are typical of those still to be found all over New York — as if the owners are hoping that officials will come to their senses and do the right thing. The Twin Towers are embedded in the culture of New York and the nation and they can’t be airbrushed out of our hearts the way Hollywood ciphers have tried to airbrush them out of film archives.
Back in 2007, when the TTA was just a year old, we held a contest and gave away a pair of Yankees-Red Sox tickets to get people engaged in the idea of sending in the Twin Towers reminders they come across on a daily basis. We thought that creative ways of showing how much the Twin Towers still mean to New Yorkers would make an impression on officials. We know better now. But we still encourage New Yorkers and visitors who come across the Towers on a building or vehicle or napkin or on someone’s back to snap a quick photo and then email it to sidewalks@twintowersalliance.com so we can add it to the gallery.
The image above is of the famous Shea Stadium scoreboard. It now sits above a concession at the new Citi Field. Shea Stadium and the original Yankee Stadium will be torn down because something more profitable came along to replace them. But just imagine the outcry if the new Yankee Stadium were a totally irrelevant invention, instead of paying such obvious homage to the original? It is a perfect example of how 21st-century Twin Towers could be brand new and exciting and still warm our hearts.
If an entire stadium can be demolished for purely mercantile purposes — let alone tearing down two of them – then that surely puts in perspective the ease with which an incredibly depressing, incredibly offensive, incredibly unpopular, and incredibly inappropriate project can be replaced with What the People Want, What New York Needs, What America Deserves! One of these days it’s going to happen. The question is how much more of the public’s time and money do officials intend to waste before they accept the inevitable?
The “Restoration Alternative” was the manipulative name officials gave to the option of rebuilding the Twin Towers — no doubt trying to suggest that new Twin Towers would just be the old Twin Towers. — kind of like just rebuilding the old Yankee Stadium all over again. Of course, the true Restoration Alternative would restore the skyline, not 40-year-old buildings.
But, Gov. Pataki explained last year on national TV that he and Mayor Bloomberg thought the THINK plan was “just terrible.” So the real winner (according to the accepted usage of the word,) which was also the closest any of the “innovative designs” came to twin towers, got trashed and Libeskind it was. Of course, just as the elements of the Libeskind design went through signifiant redeisgns, THINK plan redesigns might have brought us even closer to what it was we lost. But, so what? Libeskind won and the “democratic process” lost. And the press played along — and is still playing. There is plenty of shame to go around.
“What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
This illustration from the LMDC home page — with the TTA image inserted for contrast — clearly shows how unworthy the current plan is. It would be like a flashing neon sign calling attention to a feeble recovery. It may impress at street level, but from across the river, across the ocean, or across the years there is no comparison. Unless one is standing too close, it just doesn’t measure up. The Twin Towers were all about firing the imagination. They were telling us that life is big, we are big, and the sky’s the limit. Now, next to no one is getting excited, because there is nothing to get excited about.
What do we want to see when we drive, fly, sail into New York: inspiring new Twin Towers or something that is merely the byproduct of commercial interests and elitist tastes? This new site is going to make it easy for official New York to wake up to the reality that not only is it the natural thing to do, and, as everyone knows, the popular thing to do — but, it is also the smart thing to do and the fiscally sound thing to do — so officials can stop covering their “tracks” and get on with it.
We know how to aim our slingshots – just give us the shot.
“The city so nice they named it twice” needs its Twin Towers back!
Even Twin Freedom Towers would be better than the current anti-WTC — at least the downward spiral would be arrested — but it would still be morbid because obelisks are fixtures in cemeteries around the world.
The Israelis make a point of quickly rehabilitating terrorist targets back to their pre-target state as the best relief for the victims and the best demoralizer for the victimizers. Why are we doing just the opposite — making the physical proof of the attacks permanent and giving our enemies the most gigantic terrorist trophy the world has ever seen?
Instead of making the footprints a trophy, the “Twin Towers II” memorial — incorporating the spectacular carillon of orchestral bells from the “World Memorial”, both of which have much more support than the official “Reflecting Absence” among 9/11 Families — does not build on the footprints, but neither does it glorify them and make them the focus of the remembrance.
Preserving and fixating on the footprints is an obscene gesture of recognition of what the attackers did that the Israeli’s would find outrageous and offensive. So why the double standard? Because George Pataki’s ill-advised pledge not to build on the footprints following the attacks perverted the whole memorial. Osama bin Laden and his culture of death are the ultimate in morbid. That is no way to remember the beautiful, sparkling people who loved life and were so loved. But it’s not too late…
We at The Twin Towers Alliance are convinced that the only way to displace the current development is with something better, not something theoretical. As the information at www.WTC2011.com makes clear, we can still choose to build a World Trade Center that connects us to the past and improves upon what we lost — instead of the currently planned downgrade. The Twin Towers II option is better in every way and can put us ahead of the existing schedule – including a memorial that eclipses the current morbid plan.
That is why the Twin Towers Alliance is solidly behind the Twin Towers II plan, which has elements of greatness. The site plan is breathtaking and thought-provoking for anyone with an open mind. It clearly is an improvement on what passes for a WTC master site plan today. And the uplifting way it handles the memorial is favored by many of the people who lost loved ones on 9/11 and bitterly object to the current, dispiriting design.
The current plan is the result of manipulation and misrepresentation. Not only do people across the country and around the world think that the “Freedom Tower” is the first of two, and that we are just taking a very long time to rebuild the Twin Towers, but it is common to actually hear New Yorkers say the same thing! An example of the deception was the use of the Towers in the logos of anti-Towers efforts. Even at Ground Zero, the official image of the Twin Towers wrapped in the flag was still plastered on poles and equipment at the end of 2007, as a subliminal suggesting continuity — clearly a false impression…
Someday we will get to the bottom of what took place. Why has it been up to private citizens to work so hard every step of the way to bring the Twin Towers back to life? It makes no sense. Why did Gov. Pataki and his LMDC relegate “The Restoration Alternative” to some sort of No Man’s Land? What was behind the arbitrary rules that effectively barred new Twin Towers from their phony competition — in spite of what the majority clearly wanted? Who was pulling George Pataki’s strings?
The people are entitled to answers. Beyond the dullness and inertia of the status quo was a deliberate effort to mislead the public about what was happening at Ground Zero. Who was behind that and why? Time will tell, but the pressing need now is to overcome all the machinations and spin by simply showing how much better we still can do, if we summon the will. When people see how poorly the current proposal compares to the Twin Towers II plan in every way, it will be impossible to sustain.
Much of the groundwork that has been done at the site had to be done anyway so it would be misleading to suggest that it would be wasted under the Twin Towers II plan. When the Towers went down steelworkers offered to work for free to put them back up, entrepreneurs wanted to invest in the project, and visionaries offered to rent the top floors of new towers. Support will quickly appear when we switch tracks and we will make it to our destination much more quickly than is now planned because the project will take on a life of its own.
If officials had only had some respect for the people’s common sense, we wouldn’t have wasted all these years — only to find ourselves forced to pour more time and taxpayer money into shuffling state and federal workers around to make up for the private sector’s lack of interest in the ironically-named “Freedom Tower”. But, so far the General Services Administration has gone no further in converting its non-binding contract into a secured commitment. No doubt the imprudence of promising to lease AAA space with taxpayer funds in a building that is not popular with the people is being resisted behind the scenes.
In addition to the specifics at WTC2011.com, detailed site comparisons and informative FAQs on the Twin Towers II plan are posted at the triroc.com/wtc site.
There have been a number of very promising efforts made over the years to imagine new Twin Towers. What sets Twin Towers II apart is the dedication that Kenneth Gardner has shown by persevering in spite of the odds and the degree of the planning. The sacrifice and faith required to continue to develop and improve upon something that prevailing “wisdom” thinks is going nowhere deserves a great deal of credit.
When all is said and done, as Keith Edwards, the creator of another very imaginative Twin Towers plan noted: “We Cannot Fix the Big Apple With a Lemon.” Now, ain’t that the truth?
