If allowed to stand, the decisions made to date around the rebuilding ofGround Zero will doom it forever to what verges on a national disgrace.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and The Port Authority of NewYork and New Jersey, the rebuilding authorities, have already failed thenation in its expectation for a unique, uplifting and visionary project torise from the ashes of Ground Zero. What should become a new wonder of theworld ? a true statement of who we are ? is emerging as just anotherspeculative real estate development and a memorial at its side.

We cannot let Ground Zero be designed by bureaucrats while our enormousnational design talent is ignored. Only the participation of the greatestarchitectural minds, selected through a national design competition, willallow us to rebuild the World Trade Center in the best way possible.

We must act now to make the site a lasting and fitting tribute to 9/11 andits victims instead of spending billions of public dollars to a mundaneproject that will stand at Ground Zero for generations to regret.

Please visit the website and sign the petitionthat calls for a national design competition for Ground Zero — the onlypossible way to guarantee that what emerges from Ground Zero will be thebest that America can create. Then pass this on to anyone you know who isinterested in the future of Ground Zero.

Sincerely,

Eli Attia

–Eli Attia Architects118 State StreetBrooklyn Heights NY 11201T 718 875 6746 F 718 875 9166e-mail: eli@eliattia.comwww.eliattia.com



On writing

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A shortcut on climate science is a dead end

Climate policy will always involve cost tradeoffs. However, we should not tilt the scale by ignoring evidence or skipping review.

Rise of the far right in the U.K. and the U.S., as observed by a recent Rochester immigrant

Until this year, the U.K. was under the center-right rule of its Conservative Party for the past 14 years. The American Republican Party is more socially right and populist than the Conservative Party, especially under Trump’s leadership.