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We at the Twin Towers Alliance have been fighting for an honorable and transparent rebuilding process since early 2006 — and at Rebuild-the-Towers.org for a year before that. The items archived in the pages that follow form a vibrant historical record of how hard we and others tried to get officials to “do the right thing and do the thing right.”
The golden towers above are symbolic of the golden opportunity new Twin Towers would represent for our nation – and indeed, for our world. They also depict the reality that they would not be the forty year-old buildings we lost. Their destruction is a fact that cannot be undone. But we surely still can restore their silhouette in the skyline and in our hearts. That is also a fact. 1/29/14 Note: Two years ago, when we posted this image, the vision above would have taken a huge political leap, but was still possible. As the WTC site is now configured, the updated Yamasaki Twins of “Twin Towers II” would require massive changes to the site. We are going to keep this image as the defining image of this campaign — of what the American people could have had and were cheated out of. But we do believe that Golden Twin Towers can still rise at the site, towering above the Freedom Tower, reestablishing a world-class skyline and redefining our nation. UNIN-SPIRING — THE SYMBOL OF A DIMINISHED NATION To give the crown of tallest-US-tower to the building with the obviously inferior claim made a sad mockery of all that the title is meant to honor. Celebrating a building that is smaller than one Twin Tower as if it is a triumph is deluded. To claim that a building almost a hundred feet shorter than the Willis Tower in Chicago is the tallest building in the hemisphere is pathetic. To pretend that jazzing up the antenna will raise the building’s height to 1776 feet is embarrassing. Deceiving the public and the workers who built this tower is criminal. Read more Banksy’s month-long New York “residency” last October rubbed a lot of good people the wrong way. We think it is important to put the international street-artist and man-of-mystery’s WTC remarks regarding the Freedom Tower into perspective. His proposed oped, which can be read in the coverage below, was clearly meant to get people talking and questioning, which is the very thing that officials in government and the media have been so dead set against all along. And that is the only reason we are now faced with a World Trade Center that so many of us find terribly disappointing. Read more 9/3/18 Note: The YouTube links we had posted to the 2006 Penn & Teller “Ground Zero” episode have been disabled. But it is a must-see for anyone who wonders what went wrong with the rebuilding effort, so we have now linked to an array of viewing options for a nominal cost. A lot has changed at the site since it came out, but how much real progress has been made is for each of us to decide. (Prepare for the signature Penn & Teller “blunt” talk…) “DEBACLE: Failing to Rebuild the Twin Towers” Joe Wright, a vocal supporter of rebuilding since 2001, who first dubbed the Freedom Tower “Zero World Trade Center” edited “DEBACLE: Failing To Rebuild the Twin Towers.” The collection of essays, written from a wide array of perspectives, was published “for those who want to look deeper into how politicians, builders, and activists, sacrificed the world’s most famous landmark to their own narrow interests and thus perpetuated the destruction wreaked by the terrorists.” It was released in advance of the tenth anniversary of the attacks on our nation, and by extension, the attacks on our world. This book is an antidote for the pervasive revisionist history of Ground Zero “WORLD TRADE CENTER SITE SITS EMPTY AS RIVALS LEASE UP” Crain’s New York Business published one of those rare articles where the New York media reports on the facts at Ground Zero, instead of the fluff. The fact is that “with no big deal inked since Condé Nast, all three buildings there have huge vacancies.” More IT’S TIME TO STOP FOOLING OURSELVES AT GROUND ZERO The Freedom Tower isn’t in the way of new Twin Towers — false assumptions are. That’s why exposing the giant swindle matters so much. We can’t allow the most significant construction of our lifetime to be decided by government and media corruption. Do bank robbers get to keep their loot just because they got away with it? Einstein said, “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” Trading New York’s peerless skyline for a novelty building or two that look like everywhere else says that we are a diminished people — diminished not by savage terorists but by those in our own government who cheated us out of a true recovery. “Freedom was attacked on 9/11” and our democracy has been mugged every day since by those who lied the current plan into existence. We can’t just shrug our shoulders and move on. A young man from Ireland wrote on our petition in June, 2011: “…I think the new design is a shocking disgrace. It just doesn’t look right. It would give people so much sense of hope if the towers were to return. Ever since they collapsed the world has also been collapsing a little bit each year as well. Everyone around the world has been losing hope in the future and I believe this all began at 9/11. Bring back the twin towers and bring back hope to the world that things can be good again!” Those who think this cause is just a fixation on two buildings are missing the boat. The so-called “Rise of Freedom” at the WTC is nothing but a monument to greed, deceit and the arrogance of power. This is a crucial test of our democracy’s health. We can’t rebuild the Towers or the country without trustworthy officials, an honest press, and responsible institutions. That is what the People want and America deserves. The hidden agendas have to stop. |
