If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost.

That is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

— Henry David Thoreau

The comprehensive plan on the next page can only be understood by first reading this account of what actually produced the current development. Everyone should know what happened in the years after 9/11, because it is powerfully broadcasting who we are to the world, whether we know it or not.

The world needs the Twin Towers return to the World Trade Center more than we know. That statement will seem naive and far-fetched to most who read it, but we trust that the following presentation will support the belief that a better World Trade Center is not only possible, but essential to a better world.

Chief Architect of the World Trade Center Minoru Yamasaki gave us a prime example of how successful building castles in the air before laying their foundations can be. In a 1963 interview in TIME Magazine, he said: “I feel this way about it…”

World trade means world peace and consequently the World Trade Center buildings in New York … had a bigger purpose than just to provide room for tenants. The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man’s dedication to world peace … beyond the compelling need to make this a monument to world peace, the World Trade Center should, because of its importance, become a representation of man’s belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and through cooperation, his ability to find greatness.

Following the devastation of 9/11, the guiding rebuilding principle was fear-based: Fear that what we built would be hit again; fear that tenants would never return to the World Trade Center. Yamasaki’s vision of a bigger purpose was quickly replaced with the goal to just provide room for tenants.

A widower of one of the WTC victims wrote in 2002: “Just as I want my wife back, people want their towers back. Don’t let today’s fears control tomorrow’s dreams.” But that is just what officials did. No Field of Dreams for the Port Authority, where the Directors feared that if they built it the public would not come. And that mindset warped the Memorial as well.

People who labored on the rebuilding project put their hearts into it — as visitors do at the site — because they knew of no alternative. That is proof of how effective devious “public relations” can be at short-circuiting democracy. There is ample proof that business-as-usual crowded out democratic principles when the plans were made to rebuild Ground Zero.

So that begs the question: If Corporate priorities and political Special Interests can manipulate public opinion by selectively airing information — even at the World Trade Center — whose country is it? If we do not know and approve of what drives decisions made in our name by our public servants in our country spending our money, what makes it ours? And where is that more defining than at the World Trade Center?

Architecture critic Paul Goldberger, who later received a Pulitzer Prize for his report on the early rebuilding protocols wrote in his 7/29/2002 New Yorker column “Up From Zero”:

Governor Pataki, who, along with Governor James Mcreevey, of New Jersey, controls the Port Authority, is fond of using words like “hallowed ground” when he talks about the site. But the people who report to him talk about “obligations to leaseholders” and “obligations to bondholders”.

In fact, if there was ever a piece of land that should be treated as part of the public domain, it is this one… the Governor should be pressing the Port Authority to operate with a greater sense of civic responsibility.

The World Trade Center is proof of how easy it is to make the public low man on Democracy’s totem pole. Exposing that influence and showing how it is still possible to make the World Trade Center shining proof of the quintessential American Spirit is what drives this proposal.

Until we correct the flaws in what is standing on the World Trade Center’s hallowed ground, it will always be where Democracy in America was subverted. That will be substantiated and documented many times over on the pages ahead. Fortunately, by building on what is already there on the site, it can still live up to its lofty purpose.

Charles Wolf’s observation that “People Want Their Towers Back” was demonstrably true. Of course, that did not mean all people. There was a lot of fear of another attack in 2002 — as well as people who never liked the Twins. But the beauty of democracy is that it allows a collective voice to be heard and respected above all — to fairly decide every matter, large or small.

At the World Trade Center, that voice was deliberately muffled and ignored. This New York Post cover deserved national attention. The whole country and the Free World were attacked on 9/11. But ten months later, when a report based on a significant sampling found that half of New York wanted the Towers rebuilt, the story was buried — even in New York.

That was news everyone deserved to know and discuss. Especially since the other half was splintered into preferences with low single-digit support. Ghosting the report within a week of officials “Listening to the City” extravaganza at the Javits Center was proof that the New York Times no longer adhered to its founder’s pledge to deliver “all the news”…

“impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved; to make the columns of THE NEW-YORK TIMES a forum for the consideration of all questions of public importance, and to that end to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion.”

If only the New York Times had been true to that promise — even if nothing else changed — the people would have been passionately engaged in the process of rebuilding and the site would look nothing like it does today.

But when the paper of record “curated” WTC news — shutting out the voices that were not in agreement with the powerful political and cultural special interests — the national and international media followed suit. And the fiction that the current WTC is the result of the democratic process spread around the world.

The public paid to first purchase the land through eminent domain. American taxpayers funded the rebuilding. And the ultimate price each victim paid is beyond knowing. But, when some 9/11 Families vehemently disagreed with the official plan, their voices were marginalized and their concerns were misrepresented.

Efforts to discredit those 9/11 families who objected to the corporate priorities of the project while overrepresenting the opinions of family members who agreed with their agenda was an insult to every American.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg shutdown efforts to poll every next-of-kin — as if some victims could possibly matter more than others — because he must have known they would reject the official plans.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Mayor Bloomberg, and New York Governor George Pataki, had tremendous legitimate concerns and responsibilities to consider. But nothing mattered more than honoring the will of the people. Knowing that, they nevertheless conspired to undermine the public’s influence. And a full reckoning is overdue.

The compromise at Ground Zero left us with a skyline that echoes the butchered site when the North Tower stood alone for half an hour before it also collapsed. It is focused on a sanitized plaza where every vestige and relic of the attacks was forced indoors or below ground level.

An early TTA petitioner put it perfectly: “Nothing has rewarded the jihadists more than the ongoing sight of a world landmark wiped off the face of the earth.” For those who celebrated around the world, it is the gift that keeps on giving.

The inspiring Sphere that survived hell-on-earth sits in exile across the street. And, many victims’ families are deeply distressed that the victims’ unidentified remains are locked in the museum instead of in the center of a noble, above-ground vault. The brother of Captain William F. Burke, whose brother’s example is fully honored on the last page of this proposal, is still fighting the good fight.

This excerpt of Michael Burke’s 6/21/26 Facebook post was posted in between a chorus of oohs and ahs about how touching the memorial is to those who visit as spectators of something that is in the past, not as citizens whose country is in an ongoing war for

It fails in its first, essential duty: to demand that visitors confront the attacks, the crime that was committed here and brutality murdered those thousands whose names line those ledges. And that we resolve in their name, never to let it happen again. By design, the memorial eliminates all reminders of the attacks, so that visitors might, in the words of the architect, think about the attacks “or not.”

We have more to do here than feel sad, or emotional or “reflect.” As at Hiroshima, Pearl Harbor, Auschwitz, etc, authentic artifacts speak directly to those histories. At the WTC site, “Ground Zero,” authentic artifacts was banned and history was willfully and deliberately erased.

Once people realize that the current WTC “campus” is selling America short, they are likely to cross every divide (as everyone did after 9/11) to insist on making the WTC site a fitting tribute to Democracy. At the site where thousands of Americans were slaughtered simply for being Americans, what could matter more?

Finally, no one would dare to say that the Lower Manhattan skyline comes anywhere close to the dramatic, stunning effect of the incomparable Twin Towers — because that is so obviously not true. We are confident that everyone who reviews the following plan will see how much more awe-inspiring, respectful, and noble every aspect of the World Trade Center will be when the Twin Towers are finally back where they belong.

Shortly after we launched the Twin Towers Alliance in March of 2006, we spent a day visiting fire stations and police precincts with a packet of information.

After dark, a firehouse on the East Side of Manhattan was the last stop of the day. We told the fireman who answered the door that we were trying to raise awareness of the public’s broad support for rebuilding the Twin Towers. He could have just taken the packets and thanked us, but what he said has fueled this twenty-year-long mission:

“There is nothing the guys upstairs would love more…”