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Old Posted Mar 29, 2009, 11:22 AM
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Smile NEW YORK | Decision to market Freedom Tower as 1 WTC

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...roars-back/?hp

The ‘Freedom Tower’ Name Roars Back

___


By David W. Dunlap
March 27, 2009


For more than a year, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had been quietly backing away from the name “Freedom Tower” for 1 World Trade Center, not so much eliminating the coinage (by Gov. George E. Pataki) as lowering its profile.

Although the authority would not say so, it is easy to imagine that prospective tenants — already worried about moving into a building that will almost certainly occupy some terrorists’ cross hairs — could not have been comforted by a name with such potent political symbolism.

Of course, that symbolism is exactly what appeals to those who favor the name.

So when The Daily News and The New York Post reported on Friday what readers of City Room have known since March 2008, a fresh debate erupted over what to call what will be the tallest building in New York.


Mr. Pataki and a number of relatives of 9/11 victims — who often did not see eye to eye when he was governor — strongly criticized the idea of abandoning the name “Freedom Tower.”

As Mr. Pataki told City Room last year: “It is a little troubling to me that again there is a 1 World Trade Center, because a lot of great people and a lot of true heroes died in 1 World Trade Center. I think that name should be reserved, for those who did die on that horrible day.”

By mid-morning, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg joined the debate during his weekly radio program with John Gambling on WOR-AM. He said:

Well, it’s up to the Port Authority. If it were me and I didn’t have to rent space, I have no idea what the commercial aspects are and we can say, ‘Oh, we shouldn’t worry about that,’ but of course you have to, particularly now. I would like to see it stay the Freedom Tower, but it’s their building and they don’t need me dumping on it. If they could rent the whole thing by changing the name, I guess they’re going to do that and they probably, from a responsible point of view, should.

Mr. Bloomberg added, “If they name this 1 World Trade Center, people will still call it the Freedom Tower.”

Port Authority officials made the same point during a news conference after Thursday’s board meeting. The subject came up in part because a news release about the first commercial lease in the building put the words “Freedom Tower” in parentheses and partly because a post on City Room, followed by an article in The Times, referred to the building as having once been called Freedom Tower.

“Let’s talk about the reality of the real estate market and popular names,” Christopher O. Ward, the executive director of the authority, said at the question-and-answer session. “There are a lot of buildings that have popular names. If the Freedom Tower is the popular name as people think about this, that will be the choice of the people and how they think of downtown. On the other hand, this is a piece of real estate, it has an address; legally it is 1 World Trade Center.”

Anthony R. Coscia, the chairman of the authority, said: “As we market the building, we will ensure that the building is presented in the best possible way. One World Trade Center is its address, it’s the address that we’re using. It’s the one that’s easiest for people to identify with and frankly we’ve gotten a very interested and warm reception to it.”
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Old Posted Mar 29, 2009, 11:27 AM
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http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/...t_authori.html

Taking license with freedom: Port Authority is imperious in renaming Ground Zero tower

Friday, March 27th 2009

When you've broken your promises on everything else to do with redeveloping Ground Zero, it's no big deal to discard the name by which the public has come to know the iconic skyscraper at the heart of the plan.

When you've engaged in massive schemes to lie about costs and when you have failed to meet every solemnly pledged construction deadline, tossing a name like Freedom Tower is child's play.

You just do it. Because there's no need to consult the public. Because you're the mighty Port Authority - and you damn well say and do what you please.

So, when your marketing team says it prefers to sell the building to prospective tenants as 1 World Trade Center rather than as the Freedom Tower, you give them the green light.

Apparently, "Freedom" doesn't test-market very well when you're trying to draw tenants from all parts of the globe. Including from Communist China, an arm of which has just leased more than five floors of the building to house a "China Center." This is planned as a locus of Sino-American commerce.

The name Freedom Tower came into popular use on April 24, 2003, when then-Gov. George Pataki and the Port Authority established a timetable for Ground Zero construction.

The Freedom Tower would soar its full 1,776 feet by Sept. 11, 2005, and be ready for tenants by early 2008.

A permanent PATH train station would be open in 2006.

A new Fulton St. subway complex would be done by 2007.

There would be direct rail service from downtown to Long Island and JFK Airport by 2013.

None of that came true. None of that will be done for years, if ever. The Port Authority made a liar out of Pataki on every project it was responsible for. And now the imperious, unaccountable agency has dropped the last vestige of the past, as if erasing history.

It and its new tenant should be quite comfortable with each other.
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Old Posted Mar 29, 2009, 11:32 AM
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/ny...l?ref=nyregion

A Debate at Ground Zero Over Which Name Will Last

By DAVID W. DUNLAP
March 28, 2009

On Thursday, in an announcement that the Vantone Industrial Co. of China had signed on as a tenant, the authority referred to the building as “One World Trade Center (The Freedom Tower).” After The Daily Newsand The New York Post pounced — critically reporting the naming shift on their front pages on Friday — a debate erupted.

The authority was at pains to say that nothing had really changed in the last few months. “We’ve referred to the primary building planned for the site as 1 World Trade Center — its legal name and street address — for almost two years now, as well as using the name the Freedom Tower,” said Stephen Sigmund, the chief of public and government affairs at the authority.

“Many will always refer to it as the Freedom Tower,” he continued, “but as the building moves out of the planning stage and into full construction and leasing (the building is now 10 stories above ground), we believe that, going forward, it is most practical to market the building as 1 World Trade Center.”

The majority of comments to The New York Times’ City Room blog favored jettisoning the Freedom Tower name, some calling it Orwellian or jingoistic. “I always thought it was funny that Freedom Tower was almost certain to have some of the most restrictive security in the city,” said a respondent signed Dave.

Victims’ relatives and their supporters were of several minds. “They can’t get any American tenants and they’re trying to market it throughout the world,” said Dennis McKeon, the executive director of Where to Turn. “They just want to brush 9/11 under the rug.”

Sally Regenhard, a leader of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign, whose son was killed on Sept. 11, 2001, admitted that she never liked the name Freedom Tower.

The change does not make her happy, however. “This renaming is all about P.R. and all about the Port Authority’s bottom line,” Ms. Regenhard said. She said she was more concerned that the building is not legally required to comply with the city’s building code — though the Port Authority has promised to do so.
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Old Posted Mar 29, 2009, 11:35 AM
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...68ZZAD9776LQ00

Critics call WTC tower name change unpatriotic

By AMY WESTFELDT

NEW YORK (AP) — Even without the name, the symbolism of the Freedom Tower as an American response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks was hard to miss.

The original architect designed a twisting form he wanted to imitate the Statue of Liberty, with a spire that rose to the deliberate height of 1,776 feet to recognize the year of American independence. Politicians called the tower proof of the country's triumph over terrorism.

Former Gov. George Pataki said visitors to the iconic skyscraper "will know our determination to overcome evil" in a 2003 speech that first gave the Freedom Tower its name.

The tower — still under construction with a projected completion date of 2013 — no longer has the same architect, design or footprint on the 16-acre site. And this week, the owners of ground zero publicly parted ways with the Freedom Tower name, saying it would be more practical to market the tallest building in New York as the former north tower's name, One World Trade Center.

Critics called the name drop an unpatriotic shedding of symbolism by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Some newspaper editorials blasted the agency for years of missed deadlines and changing plans for the site.

"When you've broken your promises on everything else to do with redeveloping ground zero, it's no big deal to discard the name by which the public has come to know the iconic skyscraper at the heart of the plan," the New York Daily News wrote on Friday.

But others privately repeated fears that have plagued the building as negotiations with major corporations to take up space in the tower came and went: that the 102-story Freedom Tower's name could make it more susceptible to future attacks than a symbol of defiance against it.

"The fact is, more than 3 billion dollars of public money is invested in that building and, as a public agency, we have the responsibility to make sure it is completed and that we utilize the best strategy to make certain it is fully occupied," the agency said in a statement Friday.

Agency chairman Anthony Coscia was more critical in remarks Thursday, when the Port Authority announced its first corporate lease at the tower with a Chinese business center.

"As we market the building, we will ensure the building is presented in the best possible way," he said. One World Trade Center is "easiest for people to identify with, and frankly, we've gotten a very interested and warm reception to it."

Coscia had expressed concerns about the Freedom Tower three years earlier, saying he would never ask Port Authority employees to move into the tallest, most symbolic skyscraper being built at the site because they had survived 1993 and 2001 terrorist attacks and would find it too emotionally difficult to return.


Several other government offices were located in the original trade center, and the Port Authority is trying to finalize leases with the federal and state governments that would lease half the building. No other corporate tenants have signed on. The Port Authority has agreed to lease space in another tower being built at the site.

Pataki — who named the Freedom Tower in his 2003 speech and continued to refer to it in rebuilding speeches as a symbol of America's ability to come back after Sept. 11, took offense at the loss of the Freedom Tower moniker and its replacement.

"Where One and Two World Trade Center once stood, there will be a memorial with two voids to honor the heroes we lost. In my view, those addresses should never be used again," he said.

The Daily News and New York Post published editorials backing the former governor. But The New York Times on Saturday wrote that Pataki's name for the building became "its burden," and said the Port Authority was "quietly and sensibly" using another name to market the tower to high-profile commercial tenants.

The Port Authority suggested that people could still call the building the Freedom Tower; the name has stuck despite the fact that the agency quietly stopped it on first reference years ago. The agency made One World Trade Center the building's legal name when it took over its construction in 2006, although it also acquired the trademark for the Freedom Tower name.


Mayor Michael Bloomberg — who said Friday he prefers the name Freedom Tower — said the building's true name may be left to the public.

"One of the things is we call things what we want to call them. So Avenue of Americas is a good example. It's Sixth Avenue to most people," the mayor said. "If they name this One World Trade Center, people will still call it the Freedom Tower."
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Old Posted Mar 29, 2009, 11:38 AM
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"One of the things is we call things what we want to call them. So Avenue of Americas is a good example. It's Sixth Avenue to most people," the mayor said. "If they name this One World Trade Center, people will still call it the Freedom Tower."
Tourists will, maybe.
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Old Posted Mar 29, 2009, 11:39 AM
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http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/..._building.html

We don't need 'freedom' on a building



March 29th 2009


Let the Port Authority use whatever name it wants for the office building of mere steel and glass going up at Ground Zero.

The real Freedom Tower is already there, a magnificent spire of the spirit, soaring with the All-American selflessness shown by so many on 9/11.

This tower soars even higher in the mind when you think of the goodness shown by so many in the aftermath of that unspeakably evil attack, goodness manifested by countless acts of kindness, by the unity of a nation become one.

The tower rises higher still with the bravery and sacrifice of those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan in the belief they were battling that evil.

Even Wall Street did its part early on, its workers making their way through the devastation to get the markets running again.

Then, even as we fought two wars and our finest people came home in flag-covered coffins, greed took over.

Trading became treason as executives became the antithesis of the 9/11 heroes, putting the whole nation at risk to enrich themselves.

Even on Main Street, people became so intoxicated by rising real estate values that they forgot real values.

Soldiers and Marines came home from war in the land of the IED to find their country had become the land of the IOU, its citizens lost in a spree of heedless borrowing and spending.

The nation's great economic thinkers were somehow stunned by the crash that everyone should have seen coming.

The global economy imploded and one result was the Port Authority feared it might lose a potential tenant for the new office building finally going up at Ground Zero.

The tenant was Vantone Industrial of China, which remains a totalitarian state whose favorite words do not include freedom.

In the press release announcing that Vantone had signed a lease for six floors, the Port Authority described the building as One World Trade Center, with Freedom Tower consigned between parentheses.

To some, the (Freedom Tower) seemed a new low in government's continuing failure to properly honor those who died on the day that was supposed to change everything.

But whatever it is called, the office building will be just that - an office building.

The real Freedom Tower is still there. It always was, from the moment the twin towers fell.

The many who died that day included people such as Police Officer Moira Smith, who led a bleeding executive to safety and went right back in to save somebody else.

The way to honor such a true hero is not with thousands of feet of rentable floor space, but by embracing her example and striving to live accordingly.

There are many living examples to follow beyond Ground Zero, examples such as the pilot at the miracle on the Hudson.

Chesley Sullenberger proved his skill and cool with the crash landing. He demonstrated his decency as he walked up and down the aircraft twice to ensure nobody was still aboard before he evacuated.

That is the shining stuff such as makes the true Freedom Tower, stuff such as our President so rightly says will lead us out of the present, economic disaster.

"When each of us looks beyond our own short-term interest to the wider set of obligations we have toward each other, that's when we succeed," President Obama said last week.

Yesterday morning, in weather matching the economic gloom, I went up to St. Anthony of Padua Church in SoHo. Firefighters from Engine 24/Ladder 5 were gathering for a Mass marking the 15th anniversary of a fire that killed three of their comrades.

The firehouse had subsequently lost 11 on 9/11 and two more at the Deutsche Bank fire in 2007.

Yet even as the firefighters prayed for their fallen brothers, their rigs stood outside the church, ready to race to the aid of whoever called for help.

"Every living person in danger or in need," the priest noted.

I looked downtown from those waiting rigs to the void over Ground Zero that no office building of whatever name could fill.

And I saw it, the soaring Freedom Tower, shining with what is best in us, even in the worst of times.
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Old Posted Mar 29, 2009, 11:50 AM
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Enter politics...

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03292009...dom_161905.htm

CHANCE FOR 'FREEDOM'

By GINGER ADAMS OTIS
March 29, 2009


Freedom may be returning to One World Trade Center.

A bill to be submitted this week in Albany seeks a permanent name change for the tower at Ground Zero, officially declaring it the Freedom Tower.

Brooklyn Sen. Marty Golden is submitting the legislation in defiance of the Port Authority, which owns the site.

The agency last week announced it was dropping the patriotic moniker.

Golden is canvassing fellow Republicans as well as Democrats in the Legislature for support for his bill.
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Old Posted Mar 29, 2009, 3:25 PM
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Its the American symbol of free trade and commerce not to mention an international symbol at that, thus 'One World Trade Center' is more fitting.
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Old Posted Mar 30, 2009, 12:38 AM
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Tourists will, maybe.
Ironically, those are the people the PA are counting on to bring dollars to the observation deck.
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Old Posted Mar 30, 2009, 5:02 AM
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As was mentioned in the project thread, "One World Trade Center" simply sounds more professional, more befitting of New York. And if triumphal symbolism is a concern, what better name to signify a rise from the ashes?

While "Freedom Tower" has a certain rationale, the name seems more appropriate to a monument or memorial which, strictly speaking, this building is not. That the PA would seek to drop the name makes eminent sense, given the marketing challenges it would likely entail. A struggling or under-occupied 1WTC would itself be symbolic -- and a national embarrassment -- whatever its moniker.
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Old Posted Mar 30, 2009, 5:58 AM
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To me, One World Trade Center will be the original One World Trade Center, I will continue to call it the Freedom Tower, I really don't mind it, I think it totally fits with the 1776 foot high mark. I find it a bit offensive because well I just don't think that's One World Trade Center, the real one was destroyed in 2001.
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Old Posted Mar 30, 2009, 6:10 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NYguy View Post
Enter politics...

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03292009...dom_161905.htm

CHANCE FOR 'FREEDOM'

By GINGER ADAMS OTIS
March 29, 2009


Freedom may be returning to One World Trade Center.

A bill to be submitted this week in Albany seeks a permanent name change for the tower at Ground Zero, officially declaring it the Freedom Tower.

Brooklyn Sen. Marty Golden is submitting the legislation in defiance of the Port Authority, which owns the site.

The agency last week announced it was dropping the patriotic moniker.

Golden is canvassing fellow Republicans as well as Democrats in the Legislature for support for his bill.

You've got to be fucking kidding me.
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Old Posted Mar 30, 2009, 12:03 PM
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I'll give my thoughts on the latest WTC "controversy" later, but here's another opinion from the NY Post...

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03302009...957.htm?page=2

FORGET 'FREEDOM'
GOOD RIDDANCE TO WTC MONIKER





Quote:
A more honest name would be "Dysfunction Tower" -- reflecting the political and bureaucratic paralysis enabled by Pataki's lazy and unfocused meddling.

Moreover, a project so presumptuously titled ought to be, as a matter of common sense and fairness, manifestly superior to its neighbors that will bear such prosaic names as 4 World Trade Center/150 Greenwich St.

But 1 World Trade Center will dwarf them mainly in its height. The smaller towers designed by Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Fumihiko Maki will all be at least as architecturally arresting as 1 WTC's soaring, tapered octagonal form.

That's no reflection on 1 WTC architect David Childs, who also designed the splendid 7 WTC. He was forced to craft and re-craft a "Freedom Tower" to conform to shifting political winds -- a saga that saw the project uprooted from its original planned location, re-drawn top to bottom to meet 11th-hour "security" concerns, and then unloaded like a hot potato from Silverstein to the PA.

Let freedom ring -- but let 1 World Trade Center, at last inching out of the hallowed earth, rise and thrive.
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Old Posted Mar 30, 2009, 12:33 PM
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Former governor Pataki's 2 cents...

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03282009...dom_161699.htm

SELLING OUT 'FREEDOM'

By GEORGE PATAKI
March 28, 2009


Quote:
At a time when economic crisis has taught us the dangers of surrendering principles for money, selling out our values is the last thing we should be doing.

To put a price on the word freedom is outrageous.

To reuse the address One World Trade Center because it is a "good marketing tool" is a disgrace.

One World Trade was the address of the North Tower, while Two World Trade was the address of its twin to the south. Almost 3,000 brave men and women died in and around those towers on 9/11. Those addresses are, and should be, as sacred as the ground on which they stood.

At the site of One World Trade will be a void with a reflecting pool at its base and a waterfall far above -- surrounded by the names of those who lost their lives in those horrible attacks.

To me, and I believe for most who were there that day, or who lost loved ones, One World Trade will always be a sacred place, hallowed ground.

The new tower rising across the street is not the old tower, nor is it just another building. Regardless of what the Port Authority seeks to call it for "marketing purposes," it will still rise 1776 feet tall. It will still pay homage to the memorial with its symbolic voids.

It will still honor the memory of those who died and those who responded so courageously. It will still soar to new heights never before reached in America showing our confidence in our future, our belief in liberty and our way of life.

Our freedom is not for sale. It will always be the Freedom Tower.
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Old Posted Mar 31, 2009, 11:33 PM
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Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's account...
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/g...31/198113.html

Giuliani Attacks World Trade Center Name

March 31, 2009
By: Dave Eberhart


Quote:
“I think it’s a mistake, a big mistake,” Giuliani protested during the Fox and Friends news broadcast. “It should have a patriotic name. It’s the scene of the worst attack in the history of America. It’s a symbol of what happened when terrorists tried to defeat us.

“It’s a symbol of the bravery of the police officers, the firefighters – the rescue workers that stood up immediately and didn’t cave in to that type of pressure," Giuliani added. "One World Trade Center is the address, not the name of the building."

“As to it being more marketable – it wasn’t terribly marketable as One World Trade Center. It was never a successful building," the former mayor said.

Giuliani concluded with an argument that the building will not be safer because you give it the same name it had when it was attacked twice.
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Old Posted Apr 1, 2009, 2:05 AM
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Oh Guliani, but it will be safer calling it Freedom Tower? Yeah, lets try to think of a name that wont attract the attention of every terrorist on the entire planet.
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Old Posted Apr 1, 2009, 6:03 PM
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While "One World Trade Center" is super bland and prone to cause fits of yawning, "Freedom Tower" with its political posturing and Orwellian undertones was an affront to common sense.

That said, when I talk about this building or otherwise refer to it, I am going to call it Freedom Tower. Like it or not — and I don't — the fact remains that this building was borne from a tragedy that caused America to rally together (briefly) in a fit of jingoism.

1WTC would not have been built without Sept. 11 and all the emotional baggage that goes with it. Call it what you will, it is connected, for better or for worse.
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Old Posted Apr 1, 2009, 11:18 PM
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Oh Guliani, but it will be safer calling it Freedom Tower? Yeah, lets try to think of a name that wont attract the attention of every terrorist on the entire planet.
I really don't get why everyone from politicians to the general public think the name has something to do with the WTC being a target. It was, and always will be the World Trade Center. As Guiliani correctly points out, it was 1 WTC when the bomb went off the first time, and it was 1 WTC went it was destroyed on 9/11. I don't think the terrorists will take a "been there, done that" attitude just because the name is still 1 WTC. And it's ironic that the Port Authority seems to think so. I also don't think that Silverstein's opposite approach, giving his towers Greenwich Street addresses (I like Church St better) will deter any terrorist, although his motivation seems to be marketing, like the PA's.

So the WTC has been a target, and will likely remain a target, whatever people wish to call it, simply because it exists. But everyone should be clear on one thing. It is not the only target in a city full of them. So although this is a rebuilt complex, I think this obsession with terrorism needs to be toned down. It doesn't make things any more safe.
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Old Posted Apr 1, 2009, 11:29 PM
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http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...ce-on-freedom/

Help Put a New Face on Freedom

By David W. Dunlap
April 1, 2009

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has a big problem. And we think City Room readers will have an answer. The problem: How do you market the tallest skyscraper at the World Trade Center site to prospective tenants? When readers were reminded last week that the authority had — largely for leasing reasons — quietly been replacing the symbolic name “Freedom Tower” with the more prosaic (but also symbolic) “1 World Trade Center,” hundreds of comments followed. Many included alternative name suggestions; about which, more in a moment.

This week, we’d like more than comments. Following the terrific response to our 2007 exercise in taxi logo redesign, we hope the designers among you — amateur and pro — will consider drawing up a hypothetical logo proposal for the new building. Image files in JPG or GIF formats are preferable, sent as e-mail attachments to cityroom@nytimes.com by 5 p.m. Friday. You’re free to use whatever building name suits you, but please relate the appearance of the logo to the words. (We’ve prepared a few examples, to the left and below, of what we’re talking about.) The best logos will be displayed on City Room next week. There is no reward other than the satisfaction of seeing your work on the site. To learn more about the building, visit the Port Authority’s Web site.

As for names, City Room readers have offered an abundance — some with tongue in cheek, others with megaphone in hand. Leading the serious suggestions were Memorial Tower, Liberty Tower, Phoenix Tower and Unity Tower, each from a couple of readers. There was also Big Apple Building, from William R. Bauer; Democracy Towers, from Captain Democracy; Ethical Tower, from Mark Green (not that Mark Green, he told us); Freedom World Trade Center, from Mike; Independence Tower at 1 World Trade Center, from Dave; New World Trade Center, from Jo Jo; 1 Freedom Tower, from Ron Tunning; 1 World Freedom Center, from Karen Blair; 1 World Tower, from Betir; 3 World Trade Center, from Todd, who proposed reserving Nos. 1 and 2 in memory of the victims; Tower of New York, from T-Bone; and World Tower, from rick85

Mission Accomplished Tower, submitted by a few readers, is a commentary on the Bush administration’s post-9/11 policies. (The former president is frequently credited with — or blamed for — the name “Freedom Tower,” even though it was the coinage of Gov. George E. Pataki.)

Political critiques from right and left were embodied in names like Freedom Fries Tower, from several readers; the Haliburton Tower, from Mick, “as a reference to the profiteers who benefited from the jingoism that this project was a part of”; and, from letsBfairUSA, the This Is What Happens When the U.S. Does Nothing When Terrorists Take Over Our Embassy in Tehran, Murder 241 U.S. Marine Peacekeepers in Beirut and Tolerate Iranian-Supported Terrorism in Iraq and Elsewhere and an Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program Building. (You might reach the top of the tower by the time you’d finished saying this name.)

References to the economy were inevitable. And more than one reader reminded us that there already is a Freedom Tower, in Miami. But some readers were gently humorous. They proposed Erich Fromm Tower, which would “at least provide some context as to the freedom we have,” Scott said; Swiss Re Tower, “since that’s the lead insurance company that forked out the lion’s share of the money needed to have the thing built,” said Walt Mitty; 1 World Trade Center Version 2.0, from doppleclutch; 1/2 World Trade Center, from BG; the Whitherston Mercantile Institute, from Ken, on the theory that such an unremarkable name would be less likely to raise a red flag. And Nino noted slyly that Sears Tower is newly available.

The twin towers were known to insiders as Nelson and David, after the Rockefeller brothers who played a critical role in government and financial circles getting the trade center built in the 1960s and early ’70s. So it seemed that someone was especially erudite in saying, “I think they should name the building ‘Bob.’” Then we noticed the signature. It was from Bob.


World Trade Center logo before 9/11.


The number 1 is inscribed with hairlines inspired by the tower design.


We asked George Hahn, a Web site designer, to draw up an example.


A reminder, in Helvetica, that now there is one where there once were two.



There are stripes, but not stars, in a patriotic version of the building name.
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Old Posted Apr 3, 2009, 4:15 PM
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http://downtownexpress.com/de_310/editorial.html

Freedom from diversions at the W.T.C.


A month after the war in Iraq began, the governor at the time, George Pataki, came to Lower Manhattan and gave a hopeful speech about getting World Trade Center rebuilding plans on track (sound familiar?), and said Daniel Libeskind’s proposed 1,776-foot tower would open in 2008 and be called “Freedom Tower.”

Few people, if any, connected the 2003 speech to the war at the time, and perhaps many would question a connection even now in hindsight. But looking back at the Bush administration’s calculated and cynical efforts to falsely connect 9/11 to Iraq, the tower name, whether intended or not by one of Bush’s most loyal supporters, fit in nicely with the administration’s “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

That is one of the reasons we join many of our neighbors who are less than thrilled with the Freedom Tower moniker. That said, it is the name that has been used for six years and we presume it will be the name that most people use whenever it opens and for many years after. The Port Authority, the building’s owner, is the first to admit that.

Reports of the death of “freedom” at the World Trade Center site are not only exaggerated, they are wrong, counter-productive and diversionary. The city’s daily tabloids went hyperbolic at the end of last week at the supposed news that the Port was phasing out the name, but on the very day when this “blow” against freedom was struck, the Port used the old name — in the headline — of a press release announcing a lease deal with a Chinese trade group. Granted “Freedom Tower” was written in parentheses, but officials repeated what they have been saying for almost a year — they are referring to the building as “One World Trade Center” and they don’t expect the original name to disappear.

The Port feels it is easier to market One W.T.C., and although it may shock some people, this is a commercial office building that needs real tenants. The worldwide economic crises and the crash on nearby Wall St. have added tremendously to the uncertainty on the site.

What is truly alarming at the W.T.C. is the recent discovery that developer Larry Silverstein will have trouble building three of the other towers without more financial help. This is the scary development that needs the most attention. As we have pointed out many times before, these Church St. towers with ground floor retail are the key to bringing street life back. That’s why three years ago, prior to the start of construction of One W.T.C., we called on officials to put the project on hold to focus on the Church St. towers. Now that construction is proceeding rapidly at No. 1 and the marketing campaign has paid its first dividend, we hope the work continues apace.

But the long-awaited full opening of the memorial and the Freedom Tower, hopefully in four or five years, will still mean we’ll have a few holes in the ground near otherwise bustling Church St. unless something changes.

By any other name that would still smell like disaster. There are real problems to tackle now and diversions were so 2003.
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