October 12, 2009

Dear Harley,

Thank you for the wonderful letter. We’ve explained our position following the press conference, but obviously did not do a good enough job reassuring supporters, because messages of concern keep coming in. So I will try to make it clearer. Then I am going to post the question and answer on the TTA site to hopefully raise peoples’ spirits. We hope that the new United We Stand page will also clarify our position and show where we are headed.

First of all, Ken Gardner has devoted more of himself, day after day, year after year, to make Twin Towers at Ground Zero possible than anyone else. Without the incredible lengths he went to to create a full set of design drawings, there would be no chance of seeing the Twin Towers rise at the World Trade Center. It would all have been theoretical. There would have been no meeting with the head of the Port Authority last year, no appearance by George Pataki on MSNBC, no polls giving people something to support in overwhelming numbers, and nothing that officials could back instead of the status quo, if they choose to support new Twin Towers.

As it is, the politicians who carried out the heist of the public’s property (and all the editors who drove the getaway car) have exposed themselves – particularly George Pataki, who divulged on national TV in February that he and Mayor Bloomberg chose the Libeskind Plan over the design that was ahead in the polls. The THINK design was a Twin Towers variant that would have been redesigned through the years, just as the Libeskind plan was. In other words, the democratic process Gov. Pataki kept insisting produced the current plan did not – he produced it.

So everything that followed was like building on quicksand – it had no foundation in the legitimate will of the people – and the media was unbelievably negligent in not reporting that fact. Leaving the Twin Towers out of the competition, in spite of the singularly strong support officials knew they had received at the “Listening to the City” forums and other venues, rendered the competition irrelevant from the beginning but the way it ended was vintage “Tammany Hall.” If Gov. Pataki had been free to make an “executive decision” he would not have staged the sham process – but he needed it for cover – and that is what the media gave him.

Now, there is still no one who would be happier to see the Twin Towers back where they belong than Ken Gardner. What he announced last month was simply a recognition that the illegitimate efforts of rogue politicians has taken what a year ago would have resulted in a savings of billions of dollars and probably nullified much of it. There is no way of knowing for sure because there are no verifiable numbers – just the Port Authority’s and Silverstein’s questionable math.

But that doesn’t mean the transition is still not well worth it, even if what they have put in place has to be torn down, because even with some deconstruction, the project would be done years before their current estimates. Silverstein is now saying that if he wins the arbitration the project will be complete by 2016. Of course if he wins, the public loses, and if the Port Authority wins, the public loses. But we think there is a chance that what we are sending to Washington will find some receptive public servants. And if the President were to get behind it, the way President Kennedy sent us to the moon, the Twin Towers could still be topped off by the 2011 anniversary. There is no doubt about it.

So, what Ken Gardner was saying is that those who are determined to keep the Towers from rising at Ground Zero cannot keep them from rising elsewhere. And we are not being facetious when we call for twin Twin Towers. They would be fabulous over in Jersey, a tremendously rewarding development, but that would not keep them from rising at Ground Zero if the people demand it. What you are responding to in them is not as much their pathos, as their promise – not their tragic end, but the memory of their glorious presence. It is vital and essential and those who don’t feel it are a minority – but, unfortunately for the rest of us, a powerful minority that we have to make every effort to win over – because that is what the Twin Towers represented: cooperation and reconciliation.

As for the memorial, you probably wouldn’t be as happy with it if you realized how much most 9/11 families preferred the Twin Towers II memorial and detest the pompous, impractical design that is in the works. Mayor Bloomberg is raising the private funds for the billion dollar spectacle that will circulate 40,000 tons of water an hour! What is truly awful is that people will have to shout over the roar that will mimic the sound of the crashing Towers, while costing $50 million dollars annually to run.

It’s mind-boggling how improper the whole thing is. And when the day comes that the public no longer wants to donate to support such a extravagant, morbid spectacle, it will be shut off for good – unless Mayor Bloomberg wants to endow it forever. But if officials were to wake up to the vanity of the morbid memorial, the real progress that has been made at the museum would not be wasted – that is an important distinction because that is where the real work is.

But, as you note, the Towers could still rise on the East side of the site, even with the current memorial. And if the book we send to Washington fuels the imagination of our representatives, it won’t be hard to evaluate our legitimate options. The official plan is completely indefensible because they didn’t even try to persuade us, they just imposed their will as if we are a nation of half-wits and “because I said so” is all we need to know. That is why, if it is determined that the structure above the Freedom Tower base has to come down, it will be a triumph for democracy.

Which brings me to the Kitchen Table Summit… You didn’t ask but others have, so let me elaborate. The press conference was very poorly attended. We spent hundreds of dollars distributing a very credible invitation/press release and hundreds more on the event – but it was worth it to show how “captured” the media is by the inevitability of an indefensible plan.

We want to post a transcript of the event as soon as we get the book out, and we plan to convert the video tapes we were given by the two videographers into a DVD format and include some of the footage in the YouTube we have planned. But the video will also include interviews with people on the street that we are planning in the weeks ahead. We are hoping that all of our efforts will finally come together and generate the kind of national debate that never took place and is long overdue. That is the real Kitchen Table Summit that we hope to initiate. It’ is just taking longer than we expected. (Almost everything does.)

So, in answer to your question about “the possibility of it happening:” We take your support very earnestly and would never give anyone false hope. But we truly believe that the problems at the site and the political climate in Albany, Trenton, and Washington make the prospects for new Twin Towers more promising than ever before. That’s the truth.

Thank you for your dedication to our common goal. Please forward our two new videos on to others and do all you can to wake people up to the campaign to rebuild.

Sincerely,

Margaret Donovan | The Twin Towers Alliance

The World Is Watching… What Are YOU Doing to Rebuild the Twin Towers?