- Q: How should names be listed at the memorials?
- A: Standard practice for national memorials is to have the arrangement and placement of names approved by a committee made up exclusively of surviving family members. The LMDC has not done this. A good solution is to list those that died in each tower at the respective footprint memorial, and to have additional separate memorials at the southwest site corner for the other victims, including rescue workers and responders, with memorial designs approved by the respective family members. However, there probably is no good solution with the present memorial plans, and listing of the names won't be important if the memorials are a fiasco.
- Q: Would funds be available for alternate memorial designs?
- A: Yes. The LMDC turned over its remaining $250 million to the WTC Memorial Foundation for construction of the memorials, and more money has been raised. Fortunately the memorials are only slightly into construction and only a relatively small amount of the construction money has been spent. Conventional above ground memorials could be built to high standards with the funds the WTC Memorial Foundation already has.
- Q: Why did the Pataki administration insist the old street grid prior to the WTC be restored? Isn't this detrimental to security?
- A: To provide real security for the Freedom Tower, surface vehicular traffic should be eliminated from the WTC site. That is why streets around the New York Stock Exchange and downtown police headquarters have been closed. It is interesting that the police do not allow traffic near their building, a relatively low priority terrorist target, but WTC planners require traffic be allowed through the WTC site although it is designated a high priority target. The new streets are excellent truck-bomb routes through the site. Why is the Freedom Tower a windowless concrete bunker, and not the other buildings on the site? Confusion and fear reigns. Another major issue is the old street grid was not suitable for big buildings, which is why it was removed in the first place. But without the old street grid the amateurish and discordant LMDC site plan can not be justified.
- Q: How were such bad plans selected?
- A: The planning process was dominated by political agendas, time pressure, opportunists, ego, greed, fear, and.... incompetence. Instead of substance there was self-praise and showmanship. Much better plan options could have been produced by an independent committee of building professionals unpressured by time. Instead the LMDC was staffed mostly with Pataki loyalists, suprisingly with two unrelated and distracting responsibilities: to distribute over $2 billion of federal funds to downtown groups AND to select plans for the site. These responsibilities should have been given to two separate groups. Pataki's appointees - lawyers, wall streeters, museum directors, yes men - were not qualified to select the master plan, but their financial power gave them an influential consituency that supported all their decisions. Suprisingly the northwest corner of the site is the worst location for a tall building, however due to bathtub requirements this corner is the FIRST location (other than the original footprints) where a building can be started.
- Q: Is the Freedom Tower a good deal?
- A: Larry Silverstein and nobody else wants it. It is neither a good commercial office building, nor will it work well as a symbol. Nobody wants to buy the FT, and media reports on this are bogus. This poorly conceived building could look attractive with modern decorative techniques, and the upper floors open to the public should be popular, but it does not have a functional basement or occupied lower floors.
- Q: Would it be a mistake to proceed with the Freedom Tower?
- A: Yes. The FT - and planned memorials - will ruin the site. If completed the dysfunctional FT will be sold for a huge loss or subsidized by the public.
- Q: What changes can we expect for the WTC site now that Chris Ward is the Port Authority Executive Director?
- A: His full steam ahead approach could drive the project into the ground by the next governor's election, and then there could be an opportunity to start over. A clear eyed view would show that the street plan, memorials, Freedom Tower, Calatrava Hub, and Vehicle Security Center are impractical designs, and no amount of money, delays, design tweaking, bravado, management reorganization, or new websites will change that. The harsh reality is that under Pataki everyone from Silverstein down had to conform or else. If Governor Paterson doesn't realize that PA and STV management cannot be relied on to give honest opinions of the WTC site, there isn't much near term hope.
Sally Regenhard does not see the Port Authority's recent "openness" as an indication of a more hopeful future. She says, "We have the wrong people implementing the wrong plan."
- Q: Why do so many civic groups support the LMDC-PA plans?
- A: Corruption. The LMDC paid these groups millions and in some cases tens of millions of dollars.
- Q: Is it too late? Do we have to live with the Freedom Tower?
- A: No. Fortunately the Freedom Tower foundation can be used for a shorter friendlier conventional building, and almost all other Freedom Tower materials (windows, elevators, and even structural steel) could be used for this building and other buildings on the site and south of Liberty Street. As of 2009, Freedom Tower construction was still in the foundation stage, and there was little construction of other buildings on the site.
- Q: What about the Calatrava "Transportation Hub"?
- A: It's impractical expensive nonsense. A much cheaper conventional income producing building would serve the same purpose, but the Calatrava roof will cost money to maintain. How can people object to spending $1 billion total for the two bad memorials and not object to spending $2 billion for a meaningless modern art sculpture? Which is more important? The governor should compare the two. Something stinks - just the initial design contract for the Calatrava was $155.6 million! Like the Freedom Tower, "art" has priority over functionality, and commuters will have to walk large distances since there are no reversible pedestrian conveyors (which many large airports have). Why is a retractable roof important?
Note that Calatrava's Chicago Spire will probably not be completed as planned. A twisting torso does not support large vertical loads.
- Q: What about the artistic glass dome over the Fulton Transit Center?
- A: They should scrap the plans and sell or lease the air rights over the Fulton Transit Center for something with more economic value such as quality commercial or residential development with a small park or museum, etc.
- Q: What about the Survivor's Staircase?
- A: Focusing on this, like selecting trees, is a way of avoiding the real issues.
- Q: What about the plans south of the WTC site?
- A: They're very bad too and are related to the bad plans for the WTC site. There should be an off-site automatic parking garage for tour buses. Development at the WTC site can and should be independent of development south of Liberty Street. Interestingly, one of our reps made statements about this at two PA (federally mandated) public hearings on the bus parking garage, but these statements were altered in the official record.
- Q: What about other New York City mega-projects?
- A: New York should not over-extend itself. Hopefully the Javits Center fiasco educated some people. Projects like the Second Avenue Subway section should be funded to completion or stopped now. On the bright side, Related Companies (Time-Warner Center developer) was a good choice to develop the West Side rail yards. If this could only be the rule, and not the exception.
- Q: What can be done for the WTC site now?
- A: Listen to Donald Trump; he will at least get the basics right. The governor should evaluate the desirability of the work already started. For quality development at the WTC site the following two step plan should be considered:
(1) The memorials and development at the SW corner of the site would probably be best determined by the victims' families, subject to government and public approval. The governor could poll the victims' families on the Arad Memorials, and if the memorials are overwhelmingly rejected the governor could temporarily suspend memorial and Freedom Tower construction. The victims' families should be allowed a reasonable period of time, perhaps 90 days, to propose an alternate design. It is likely the families would choose conventional memorials and development at the SW corner that could be built with the funds the WTC Memorial Foundation already has.
(2) Alternate plans for the rest of the site should be considered, without silly design restrictions such as the "imperative of [partially] restoring the original street grid." Site development should be determined primarily by the public good, not by the PA's or Mr. Silverstein's interests.
- Q: Should new Twin Towers be built?
- A: Its probably the best solution, and we recommend the site be turned over to a private consortium for development. Private investors have already expressed their willingness to finance and build new Twin Towers. It is likely these investors would choose site plans similar to those shown in fig. 5, fig. 2 or fig. 7. This consortium would design, build, own, and operate the towers. A few floors in each tower could be reserved for public space. The towers would be built under the jurisdiction of NYC building and fire codes.
- Q: Why do tall twin structures result in the best site plan?
- A: The Twin Towers gave the lower Manhattan skyline a two-thumbs-up optimism that no single structure can replicate, and new Twin Towers would restore the lower Manhattan view better than any combination of four smaller towers. Four shorter towers with four large footprints uses up much space on a site where much space is already used by the memorials, and hence less variety and spacing is available for other buildings. New Twin Towers would stimulate the economy (including tourism) far more than the four towers of the Libeskind plan. However the Twin Tower concept should be fundamently re-evaluated regarding structural design, occupancy, evacuation capability, and sway.
A less desirable alternative would be two interconnected versions of the Freedom Tower, but with functional basements and conventional windowed lower sections.
Probably unnacceptable, twin interconnected versions of the Las Vegas Stratosphere could have icing problems, but otherwise are practical, economical, and best for security, evacuation, and ground winds.
- Q: Wouldn't building modern Twin Towers add too much commercial space to the downtown real estate market?
- A: Most of the tower occupancy, other than a few public areas, would be determined by the owners and the free market, and selling and renting the space would be the responsibility of the owners. Present plans are to have commercial space on the lower floors, hotel space on the middle floors, and residential and public space on the the upper floors. It doesn't make sense that the government and taxpayer subsidize the Freedom Tower by renting expensive office space there.
- Q: Wouldn't new Twin Towers be terrorist targets?
- A: Certainly, and so would the Freedom Tower, the rest of the site, the stock exchanges, Grand Central, Washington, and other places. The Twin Towers did not cause 9/11. Either Twin Tower would withstand a plane crash better than the Freedom Tower, and interconnected Twin Towers would be safer and much better for commerce than the Freedom Tower. Restoring the super block without above ground streets is better for security and negates the need for embassy building standards. Although there will probably not be another plane hijacking in the U.S. for at least a century, lower Manhattan and Washington possibly should have minimal anti-aircraft protection, which even some major third world cities have.
- Q: Why not simply rebuild new Twin Towers at the original locations?
- A: If new plans for the WTC site are considered this should also be on the table. Rebuilding modern Twin Towers at the original locations and upgrading the rest of the site is what most societies would do, and this would save time and billions on foundation and infrastructure work. We have some basic plans similar to fig. 5 with the original towers, an open and upgraded Tobin Plaza, optional hotel, a memorial, and other public buildings. However we think moving the towers east could be a better solution: the footprint memorials would be meaningful, the better tower locations are preferred by potential private investors, there is more support from victims' families, and the site could be more attractive.
- Q: Are models available for viewing?
- A: If your organization is interested in a presentation contact info@wtc2011.com.
- Q: Could new towers have automatic dampening systems for wind?
- A: There could be a new engineering analysis of wind effects; wind on two isolated closely spaced square towers can cause high local gusts or even foundation stresses. The lower third of the towers might be stiffened, perhaps with solid vertical columns. Possibly wind turbulence could be reduced. As part of its wind analysis, NIST calculated the sway at the top of the original towers to be about 5 feet in a 100 mph wind; new towers probably would sway less. A space might be reserved near the top of each tower for an experimental automatic dampening system.
- Q: Could new twin towers be connected by enclosed passageways at the top, at each sky lobby, and above the ground floor lobby?
- A: Yes. These could be invaluable in an emergency, would be very desireable for regular pedestrian traffic, and might even help reduce ground winds. Tower structural openings could be made large enough and strong enough for 3 or 4 inconspicuous retractable pedestrian skybridges. Each skybridge could have up to 3 reversible conveyors and an attached boarding pad on each end. Click here for one skybridge concept. This type of passageway or conveyor could be a desireable addition to other buildings, for fire safety and commerce.
- Q: Are other unconventional tower evacuation methods practical?
- A: Possibly specialized elevators could be used for effective safe high speed emergency evacuation (contact us for details). Also the Escape Rescue Systems (Tel Aviv) arrangement or a similar tracked system might be practical as a limited capacity backup - note the tower tops and walls are often very windy. Lower density occupancy of higher floors is also an option.
- Q: Are the floors in the proposed new towers vulnerable to pancaking?
- A: The floors in the proposed plan use I-beam construction, are significantly stronger than in the old towers, are more resistant to pancaking, but might be problematic with the largest jumbo jets if about 6 floors are destroyed. A stronger backup design has about 26 very strong main structural floors, each 11-feet high, spaced about 44-feet apart. Each 44-foot high internal space would contain lighter custom construction, with optional column-free space. The 11-foot structural floors would provide egress and ventilation, and contain building equipment (plumbing, electrical, heating, fire fighting, communications). There could be design requirements that each fully loaded 11-foot high structural floor could support the weight of two additional fully loaded 11-foot structural floors plus 3,000 tons minimum, and that the building would stand with the loss of two 11-foot structural floors. Internal walls and columns are an option, and there would be a new engineering analysis.
- Q: Great to see on some plans that Tobin Plaza is reinstated and the site is not sub-divided. But I'm disappointed in the aesthetics of your tower facade. It looks like a typical office building. Yamasaki's design had a unique facade of closely spaced columns creating a more attractive vertical line effect. Try to change as little as possible in terms of form, architecture, and aesthetic. Use the exposed tube technology, however to strenghten the facade use solid tubes instead of hollow tubes. Try increasing the floor to floor height to improve internal lighting conditions. Can your facade be changed?
- A: Yes. The final tower design would be selected after a site plan is chosen. The tower models shown on this website were the best ones available a few years ago, but are satisfactory for site plan decisions. If new plans for the WTC site are to be considered, this tower design and other tower designs would be evaluted by professionals, government, and the public. Note the vertical line effect is restored on Gardner's latest proposed facade design as shown on the WTC2011 website (not up to date). Having a double exterior wall is only one design, and the goal of a 10 times stronger wall for the lower third of the tower might be lowered. The following two images illustrate your valid point.
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| The lower facade of the original Twin Towers. |
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| The tower facade presently shown on this website. The upper section is a little dull, but making the tower stronger might be a good idea. |
Q: I think the scale of your proposed WTC 3, 4, and 5 clutter the site and don't tie in with the aesthetic of the Twin Towers. I suggest smaller elevated buildings (see image at right) retaining the boxy form used by Yamasaki.
- A: Maybe. Development at B, C, and D can be determined at a later date.
Send suggestions, questions, comments, and report errors to:
What789646@aol.com and WTC4685@aol.com
Click here for some old WTC pics.
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