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JOINT STATEMENT OF "TWIN TOWERS II" AND THE TWIN TOWERS ALLIANCE "We build too many walls and not enough bridges."— Sir Isaac Newton
If some people can run into burning buildings to save lives, isn't standing up for the good of our country the least the rest of us can do? Now that the official plan has failed in every respect, the future of the World Trade Center is looking brighter than at any time since 9/11. Be part of something great. Rebuilding the Twin Towers matters as few things ever do.
"To watch the steel structures of new Twin Towers pierce New York's skyline floor-by-floor – after all New York has been through – would be to experience one of the greatest moments in modern history." — Nicole Gelinas | New York Post 5/18/04 "America is too great for small dreams." — Ronald Reagan "There is nothing wrong in America that can’t be fixed "The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem." — Walt Whitman Although there is no longer an MSNBC link to the poll, it is still open for ongoing voting and has consistently run close to 90% for new Twin Towers since it first appeared in January. Our YouTube Tribute to the Twin Towers is a reminder that nothing could
Why build new Twin Towers? Because they were synonyms for America. Where the Empire State Building says "New York" and the White House says "Washington" the Twin Towers said "America." That stands out to people in other lands more clearly than it does to some of us here – and the failure to rebuild true icons alarms them. In a world divided by language and customs, the universal language of symbols is the common ground that can bring us together. A recent comment on our petition captured that recognition perfectly: "Nothing less than rebuilding the Twin Towers exactly as they were is acceptable to any world citizen who values freedom and democracy. When the Campanile of St Mark’s Square in Venice collapsed in 1902, the city authorities and the citizens of that other great republic were of one voice when they considered a replacement: 'DOV’ ERA E COM’ ERA' – 'HOW IT WAS, AND WHERE IT WAS'." On February 26, 1993, a bomb exploded in the WTC Garage. It was meant to send Tower One crashing into Tower Two, destroying both of them and the tens of thousands of people inside. The diabolical fixation that Al Qaeda had with bringing those towers down makes their resurrection a national imperative. Most Americans know that in their gut. To use public funds to defy the will of the people is un-American. For officials to just ignore what the rest of us believe is right, and to use our own tax dollars to kow-tow to our enemies is utterly corrupt. Freedom was attacked on 9/11 and then Democracy got mugged. Americans know how to get things done. It's time for common sense and good will to prevail. In October 2001, Osama bin Laden gloated: "The values of this Western civilization under the leadership of America have been destroyed. Those awesome symbolic towers that speak of liberty, human rights, and humanity have been destroyed. They have gone up in smoke." In October of 2008, Austin York added this comment to the TTA petition: "I have loved these buildings for longer than I can remember. They were in my childhood books, the movies, and the magazines. They were the exclamation point at the end of a wonderful New York. There to welcome you when you arrived, and to bid you farewell when you left. I was 10 when they were stolen from us. You cannot replace the lives lost in 2001, or in 1993. But you can still replace these magnificent buildings. What's happening is a shame." How this is handled from now on is going to establish if Bin Laden's diseased world view was an accurate post-mortem or just the hollow boast of a delusional thug. The Spirit of September 12th showed what we can do when we are united and resolved. Beating the odds is what Americans do best. It is time to take control of our destiny again – starting with Ground Zero. American-Know-How used to mean something. It can again. It's time to stop following the followers. It's time to start leading the leaders.
The statement we make at Ground Zero is going to reverberate through the years. It is clear to virtually everyone that the current plan is broken, but ongoing efforts to repair it fail to take into account that what it lacks above all is greatness. It doesn't measure up. It never will. The attacks of 9/11 were aimed at our people, our property, and our core ideals. Muzzling the public to ram through an unpopular, uninspired, and unworthy World Trade Center is not acceptable – under any circumstances. In a 2004 New York Post op-ed entitled "World Trade Sellouts," Nicole Gelinas wrote: "Osama bin Laden gave the order to destroy the World Trade Center – but Gov. Pataki & Co. are paying for the funeral." Actually, the taxpayers are the ones paying for it – as usual – but Gov. Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, Sen. Schumer, Congressman Rangel, among others, didn't have to agree to be pallbearers. It's not too late for people of good will to prevail over a selfish, cynical, and arrogant power structure. If we don't fight such a brazen abuse of power in deciding the future of this publicly-owned property and taxpayer-subsidized effort, particularly when it means so much to all of us, then we won't just be giving away sixteen acres in New York City – we'll be letting go of a big chunk of our country as well. People are always asking how a "no-brainer" like rebuilding the Twin Towers could have been so mishandled. Watching any documentary on the destruction of the World Trade Center provides a big part of the answer. Find one word about the popular support for rebuilding the Twin Towers. It's downright creepy. Is that the kind of country we want? It's a good bet that all the "experts" who love to cluck that building the original Twin Towers was an act of "hubris" would not characterize putting a man on the moon in the same jaundiced way, even though the spirit behind both was identical. The arrogance of those who feel free to misrepresent how much most people loved those towers and want their profile back in our skyline is the real hubris. Thinking that some people's opinion should carry so much more weight than others is what drives the self-appointed elite to manipulate facts and manage opinion for our own good. We can't let them get away with it. We can't afford the price. It is alarming that some of those who were hired to run our government – and who are trusted to keep the flow of information honest – sold us out. Dedicated patriots fought an empire to break free of that sort of high-handed governance and forged a great country. Political expediency be damned. We will continue to oppose the current rotten plan and fully expect to defeat it in the end. If we had no alternative but the grim options that are being floated in the media, it would be awful. But it looks like a new day is breaking and, once the politicans wake up to what is possible for the WTC, and what it will do for this country, we know they will embrace it, too. Please Note: Some are under the mistaken impression that redeveloping the World Trade Center is primarily a matter of private property rights. NOT SO. The contract that Mr. Silverstein signed to lease the Twin Towers required him to rebuild the Towers if they were destroyed. The Port Authority released him from that obligation. There is no conflict between Twin Towers and his contractual right to 10 million square feet of comparable space in comparable buildings. And, especially given the irregularities of the privitization to begin with, no one has a superior or even equal claim to the property than the public. The Executive Director of the Port Authority pledged at the time of the transfer: "We will continue to protect this outstanding public asset so that it can continue to flourish." That was an irrevocable promise. Eminent New York Times architecture critic, Herbert Muschamp, until he died in 2007, deplored the Libeskind Plan for the WTC. In Back to Basics: Twin Towers II, an opinion he wrote in 2004, he endorsed "abandoning the flawed ground zero design process altogether in favor of reconstructing the twin towers more or less as they were... The reduction to essentials is a great New York tradition, evident in our engineering and in our art. It is the correct tradition to invoke here." Now, more than ever, all logic and respect require officials to look at this option and evaluate it honestly while there is still time to do the right thing. "New Twin Towers? It may not be too late." "Ground Zero of National Paralysis" This site isn't just another petition – it's a snapshot of America – and of our friends around the world. The story that the Twin Towers Alliance is telling doesn't depend on how many have signed, as much as on what they have said. Many of the comments people have shared are particularly heartfelt and clearheaded. Most people have yet to learn of what we are doing, but those who have found their way to this site run the gamut: young and old, conservatives and liberals, black and white, rich and poor, North and South, East and West, who share the core belief that it is our duty as citizens to speak out to prevent a truly historic blunder from going forward in our name. We can succeed and we will.
Please Note: We are aware that some people object to the term "Ground Zero" and therefore, out of respect for that viewpoint, we use it more sparingly than it is used in the mainstream media. But sometimes we think it is the best way to refer to the WTC.
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