Towering Failure: An Open Letter from Peter Slatin to Gov. Pataki and Larry Silverstein

The following is on open letter from Peter Slatin to Larry Silverstein and Governor Pataki.

Once again note the intersection of real estate development and politics. I feel like I see both sides of the argument, but at the end of the day I side with Silverstein. I am generally very sympathetic to building an even bigger, better tower on the World Trade Center site. Sometimes it seems as if some want to make a huge gravestone of it but this is Manhattan and we all know that this would never fly.

Not to sound hard-hearted, but people die everywhere. Sometimes along the highway you will see little shrines to people who have been killed in accidents at that place. It's very touching, but they cannot and do not last forever. Everything passes away eventually.

In Israel, little shrines would be erected at the site of terror attacks, but eventually those would fade away. If every place where someone was killed in a terror attack or war was designated a memorial site nobody would be able to live anywhere or get anything done. The trauma might stay with you for a longtime, but life must and does go on. Part of me feels like Americans haven't entirely internalized this, as they are not as used to death and destruction in their own backyards as Israelis, as well as Europeans, are I would imagine.

At the same time given the changes in the market it does seem like it would be better to think of new and better uses for such valuable real estate. To simply build another office building seems like a knee jerk reaction.

But suffice it to say, that I am of the belief that something MUST be built there. AT the end of the day it is prime real estate and will never be a memorial or park dedicated to those who dies in the attacks. Space is at too much of a premium in this city.

I do agree with critics that the name "Freedom Tower" is silly and Disneyfied (reminds me of the idiotic "Freedom Fries" thing right before we went into Iraq). The victims of 9/11 are, in the end, victims of mass murder. All they did was go to work, as they always did every day. Just like people who were on their way to work or sitting in a cafe or buying vegetables at the shuk (open air market) and all of a sudden bullets flew through the window or a bomb went off and they were killed - they were just going about their business not hurting anyone or fighting anyone.

Truth be told I don't really have a problem with the proposed design. The original World Trade Center was not beautiful. Most skyscrapers aren't. The original Twin Towers were just two tall rectangles relatively simple that I personally had never really paid attention to except perhaps in order to get my bearings. My understanding is that many people were against it when it was first built in about the early 1970's.

What is really important is the memory of the people who died there - which should be separated from the physical space if we are going to approach the matter in a rational way.
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OPINION | NYC 03 17 06

TOWERING FAILURE by Peter Slatin


Mr. Silverstein, Governor Pataki:

Wait! You're both right! But you're so wrong.

I'm not a big admirer of Vice President Dick Cheney. But he deserves quoting in this case. Let us all recall his blunt advice to Senator Patrick Leahy, and pass the same sentiment on to the governor and Mr. Silverstein.

Gentlemen, your mutual failure is our collective disgrace.

On the bright side, it also demonstrates your commitment and passion for doing the right thing. But neither party seems to have a clue what that might be.

These men have abdicated their responsibilities not only to the city, state and the entire country, but also to the memory of the victims they have each invoked countless times over the past four and a half years.

From the start, the governor has mistakenly and cynically seized upon this tragedy as a foundation on which to build a political legacy and platform for his future. He has tried to manipulate the rebuilding process to his advantage by promoting development of an ugly, unwelcome and unneeded building with a Disneyfied name while simultaneously quashing a program to disseminate ideas and dialogue that would have actually given substance to the same name. Mr. Pataki's forays to Iowa and New Hampshire while Ground Zero continued its downward spiral are a singular emblem of how he has managed to combine a lack of leadership with grandiose dreams, all leading to nothing.

For his part, Mr. Silverstein has also been pursuing a legacy as a New Yorker and a developer that had been eluding him for his entire career, despite past commercial successes. But he has also made the miscalculation of pursuing the development opportunity at Ground Zero as just that: another development opportunity, albeit one on steroids and in the spotlight. One can't fault his dedication and perseverance, but one can say that behind his eloquent, impassioned defense of his position is the prospect of enormous profits no matter what the outcome on the ground at Ground Zero.

There is no question: Freedom Tower must be removed from the discussion. This is a building that is emphatically the wrong thing to build, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. It is unloved by all, except for perhaps architect David Childs, the governor, and perhaps Mr. Silverstein, though

I doubt that. Its presence in the master plan distorts all other efforts on the project, both in design and planning terms and in the financial machinations under discussion.

Most significantly, those who see its construction as an imperative gesture of defiance to the terrorist attackers are simply wrong. Building something simply to build something, especially when it is the wrong something, is a losing proposition. With Freedom Tower, it would be an empty gesture, in fact and in figure.

Do away with it, and think more coherently and cohesively, and less opportunistically, about this site and what it offers for the future, not what it was in the past. Begin building other parcels, but don't rush the cranse. Turn over some of those parcels not to the Port Authority but rather to other developers to bring excitement and vision to the site. The Port is neither a retail nor an office developer, and it should have learned that lesson with the two white elephants that were the World Trade Center.

Today, the white elephants in the room are the governor and Mr. Silverstein. Please get out of our way.

READERS WRITE

I was two-thirds through your "Towering Failure, "mostly nodding my head inagreement, until you say the Freedom Tower should not be built. Admittedly, the name is ridiculous and should be changed to a more fitting WTC1. However, the twin towers were a powerful symbol and need to be replaced in some way. You make no mention of that glaring fact and you are just plain wrong to state the FT souldn't be built. Noone wants it built? I do, and many others who share the sentiment of rebuilding. Having given up on getting new and improved twin towers this is the best of the bad options presented to us.--AJ