Rebuild the Twin Towers

Trump: rebuild Twin Towers at Ground Zero
04:21 PM EDT on Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Associated Press

NEW YORK — While architects work to redesign the skyscraper being planned for the World Trade Center site, real estate mogul Donald Trump has a new idea.

Or rather, an old one.

Trump wants to see the Twin Towers rebuilt at the Trade Center site -- but a little taller and stronger than the ones that went before.

Trump called the Freedom Tower, the twisting skyscraper planned for the site "a skeleton."

If it's built, he told a news conference, "The terrorists win."

Trump conceded he has no control over what happens at the site. But he insists the public is clamoring for a rebuilt World Trade Center.

Where was he over a year ago when the decisions were still in the process? Why didn't throw his hat in the ring when the developers called for designs? Why doesn't he attempt to buy the site (obviously he can't afford it)? He's a blowhard and an attention-whore intent on using his recent popularity to push his way into an emotional issue.

Perhaps the best time to throw your hat in is when the emotion has died down a bit; I think people can think a bit more clearly. I’d like to see them back but bigger and better than before. I think he’s saying what a lot of people are thinking.

I definitely don’t like their current choice so if I could chose between the two options I think the twin towers have it.

I would like to see the twin towers rebuilt. The new tower design is hideous.

I think he’s saying what a lot of people are thinking.

True dat, he's certainly speaking for me.

I'd rather see this than the Freedom Tower.

These new twin towers would look good.

Posted on Wed, Jun. 29, 2005
Freedom Tower features attack precautions
MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN
Associated Press

NEW YORK - The newest plan for the Freedom Tower at the former World Trade Center site features a more bomb-resistant design pushed well away from the street and incorporating heavily protected elevators and utilities.

The details are part of a redesign detailed Wednesday for the soaring skyscraper in lower Manhattan, a project that has been delayed by bureaucratic squabbling.

The new design for the 1,776-foot tower is meant to make it more resistant to truck bombs. The building will now be 90 feet - instead of 25 feet - from West Street, the major north-south thoroughfare along the Hudson River.

The tower's cubic base will be clad in luminous materials - probably a combination of stainless steel and titanium - that will be shimmering and light-reflective as well as blast-resistant, according to a description of the redesign posted online by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.

As in the original design, the structure outlined in the latest plan exceeds city fire code requirements, and will have biological and chemical filters in its air supply system.

It also has the original design's extra-wide emergency stairs, a dedicated staircase just for firefighters, enhanced elevators and "areas of refuge" on each floor. Stairs, communications, sprinklers and elevators will be encased in 3-foot-thick walls.

The tower will be capped with a mast incorporating an antenna, meant to suggest the torch of the Statue of Liberty.

The plan for rebuilding the 16-acre site devastated by the Sept. 11, 2001, attack retains 2.6 million square feet of office space and an observation deck. Sixty-nine office floors will sit atop a 200-foot-high reinforced base.

Gov. George Pataki, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other officials were to discuss the redesign at a news conference.

"Together we faced the challenge of redesigning the Freedom Tower and today we see the result is a better, safer, and prouder symbol of freedom for our skyline," Pataki said in a statement. "This new design reflects a soaring tribute to freedom and a bedrock commitment to safety and security."

Pataki laid the tower's cornerstone on July 4, 2004, but the past year has seen more fighting than progress by the agencies and individuals with roles in the site's rebuilding.

Officials have said the concerns have probably delayed the tower's original 2009 ribbon-cutting, and the revised plan now calls for it to be ready for occupancy in 2010.

I don't understand why it would be necessary to rebuild the twin tower. wouldn't be better to build a memorial ?

I don't understand why it would be necessary to rebuild the twin tower. wouldn't be better to build a memorial ?

Without trying to be disrespectful to the people who died, a memorial to what? The loss of some of the most valuable land in the world? The goal of the terrorists was to damage our economy and society. To do anything other than return the building back to productive space would be an acknowledgement that the bad guys got what they wanted. As Trump said, the proposed memorial would be nothing more than a skeleton.

Yes, I understand your point of view. I think that in a lot of war when there is a place where a lot of people died then it become a sanctuary, a place of memory.

I don't understand why it would be necessary to rebuild the twin tower. wouldn't be better to build a memorial ?

Without trying to be disrespectful to the people who died, a memorial to what? The loss of some of the most valuable land in the world? The goal of the terrorists was to damage our economy and society. To do anything other than return the building back to productive space would be an acknowledgement that the bad guys got what they wanted. As Trump said, the proposed memorial would be nothing more than a skeleton.

This sort of visceral reaction leads us right back to what Trump wants: to build the twin towers back, as if they were never destroyed. You simply can't erase history like that, and no amount of revisionism will cover up the fact that some 2,500+ died on that site. Just because the original Freedom Tower design didn't include as much leasable SF, I highly doubt that you could've considered it a "win" for the terrorists. I thought it was an appropriate design that included some of the most innovative features ever conceived for a skyscraper, from an intricate exostructure to wind turbines that would help power the building. The skyscraper was anything but "business as usual" and spoke to the future of NY and the U.S. Instead, what we'll now end up with is merely another unsustainable, boring glass box from SOM *yawn* .

What do you mean we're going to end up with just another boring glass box? Isn't the newest version of the freedom tower basically the same design as before only with a different spire on top? I personally didn't care for the first freedom tower design because it was basically a cowards way of rebuilding... To me, if you're going to claim the title of the world's tallest building, it shouldn't be by building a 60 story building with another 60 stories of scafolding on top of it. I think there should be a limit to how tall a spire on the top of a building can be before the building is disqualified from the title of "tallest in the world". I think the spire should have to be less than a certain percentage of the height of the building. That's what has always bothered me about the Petronas Towers. They're only 88 stories, yet the spires made them the world's tallest buildings - even though the WTC was 110 stories.

Anyway, I like the new design of the Freedom Tower. It looks more substantial, not just a avg height building with a big fancy TV Tower on the side of it. Does anyone know the floor count for the new Freedom Tower?

What do you mean we're going to end up with just another boring glass box? Isn't the newest version of the freedom tower basically the same design as before only with a different spire on top? I personally didn't care for the first freedom tower design because it was basically a cowards way of rebuilding...

AMEN!

What do you mean we're going to end up with just another boring glass box? Isn't the newest version of the freedom tower basically the same design as before only with a different spire on top? I personally didn't care for the first freedom tower design because it was basically a cowards way of rebuilding... To me, if you're going to claim the title of the world's tallest building, it shouldn't be by building a 60 story building with another 60 stories of scafolding on top of it. I think there should be a limit to how tall a spire on the top of a building can be before the building is disqualified from the title of "tallest in the world". I think the spire should have to be less than a certain percentage of the height of the building. That's what has always bothered me about the Petronas Towers. They're only 88 stories, yet the spires made them the world's tallest buildings - even though the WTC was 110 stories.

Anyway, I like the new design of the Freedom Tower. It looks more substantial, not just a avg height building with a big fancy TV Tower on the side of it. Does anyone know the floor count for the new Freedom Tower?

Coward's way of rebuilding?? That's rich.
Gustav Eiffel might have a thing to say or two about the impact of a groundbreaking, open-framed structure on the ol' neighborhood.
(I can hear the French=coward jokes already...)

I meant it's a cowards way of rebuilding because if you're going to rebuild a building and claim the "world's tallest" title, then truly build the tower all the way up. Don't build a 60 story building and then top it with another 60 stories of scafolding.... I actually always liked the idea of building skeletons of the WTC Towers as a memorial. In fact, that was my first thought when they mentioned the memorial.

Renamerusk: "No one expects another 9/11; our guard is imminently superior to what it was 9/10".

 

YIkes! Please don't say stuff like that - that is approaching "famous last words" category.

 

And I don't think the people who are tasked with keeping guard on such matters are as blase about it.  Chances are the odds of an exact replay of 9/11 are slim as people now know what to look for.   But what happens if terrorists get hold of anti-aircraft missiles?   All the airport screening, air marshals and passenger awareness in the world won't help then.

 

 

This deserved a special "calling out".

 

Using 9/11 to argue for a particularly position is just Wrong!!  Using it as an excuse to argue against Downtown Fort Worth evolving into a different place is an odd way of making a case.

 

But since it was brought up, 9/11 took place in 2001. For the next 8 years the economy was being sustained on a war footing which masqueraded the underlying problem being created by a unwise, unpaid for tax cut coupled. The economy was fairly stable until the "chicken came home to roost" because of the irresponsible actions taken by Wall Street that created a global financial crisis and a staggering loss of jobs in the U.S. 

 

By all meaningful measures, the Economy has recovered, housing prices have recovered, jobs growth for the last 8 years have been very positive; and so on...

 

Today, the efforts now underway to deregulate the financial markets will, as time has shown in the past, become the largest threat to the Economy. 

 

Let 9/11 be memorialized as what it was: "A date that will live in infamy".- FDR